Toshiba HD-XA1 Hi-DEF DVD Player

[John Holmes]

I will keep this short.

I've had this player for a few days now. I must say that I am very satisfied with it. The HD-XA1 has very solid construction. Pictures IMO, does not do this player justice! It's a treat to the eyes.

The Tosiba has a very quiet and smooth operation. Also, I did download the latest firmware. Which was simple to do and went without a hiccup.

I have it hooked up to an Optoma HD70 DLP projector via HDMI. Though the HD70 is a 720p unit, I'm feeding it a 1080i signal. There has been no "handshake' issues at all. And the picture is stunning to say the least. I have used DVE and watched Aeon Flux, Norbit, Corspe Bride, King Kong, Hawaii HD and an HD sampler from HD Scape. All of these HD movies were incredible viewing! Very good shadow detail. 3-D like presentations. Better/more accurate colors. Deeper blacks. No issue with playback with any of them. I have The Matrix Ultimate Collection in HD. Will make time to watch that soon.

I also watched a few SD films upscaled to 1080i. Ghost Rider, POTC: The Curse Of the Black Pearl and Batman Begins. I've owned no other upscaling DVD player thus, have nothing to compare it with. However, I did notice a more pleasing picture from these titles. Most note worthy was, shadow detail and better blacks.

As for the sound. I use a B&K Reference 50 processor (no HDMI). So, sound is via Toslink and 5.1 multi-ch inputs. To my ear with my setup, sending the Dolby Digital Plus via the 5.1 analog yields the cleanest sound my system has ever produced. The sound via Toslink sounds well..."compressed" in comparison! I should also add, that playing CD's through the 5.1 multi-ch also was an eye/hear opening experience. Soundstage, clarity, and air are much improved.

I have no clue which format will when this war. But at this stage, the Toshiba XA1 has taken my video and audio to levels I never thought I could reach in my home. For me, this was a good choice!

[George Bellefontaine]

Anyway, John, the Tosh will be an excellent upconversion player for standard dvd even if HD DVD loses out.

[John Holmes]

Yes sir, that's for sure.

[Pez]

I just got the XA2 and was very impressed with the one movie I watched so far. I havent had a chance to hook up the multi-channel out yet but will eventually. Cant wait for that.

[Chris D]

Aha! John joins the HD disc club. Welcome! :banana:

[John Holmes]

Pez,

Congrats on joining the ranks. You'll love the uncompressed sound too, once you get that portion going.

Chris,

Thanks for the welcome! Movies sure take on a different level of involvment with HD. This thing is so cool (geek mode on)! :B

[JonMarsh]

Which level of firmware do you have in the XA1? I've got one of those, too, and like it rather well- you can sign up to have CD-ROM's sent to you with firmware revisions, I just received 2.2 a couple of weeks ago, and installed it last weekend. Looking at getting an HD-D2 as backup and for upscaling DVDs- blue lasers don't have as long a lifetime as the red lasers in DVD players. I'm probably over reacting- I think the blue ones are typically 2000 hours of operation, maybe 3,000. I'm a little surprised Sony wasn't more concerned about putting that kind of drive in a game machine, as enthsiasts can log a lot of hours on them in one week.

~Jon

[Dingaling2004]

I will keep this short.

I've had this player for a few days now. I must say that I am very satisfied with it. The HD-XA1 has very solid construction. Pictures IMO, does not do this player justice! It's a treat to the eyes.

The Tosiba has a very quiet and smooth operation. Also, I did download the latest firmware. Which was simple to do and went without a hiccup.

I have it hooked up to an Optoma HD70 DLP projector via HDMI. Though the HD70 is a 720p unit, I'm feeding it a 1080i signal. There has been no "handshake' issues at all. And the picture is stunning to say the least. I have used DVE and watched Aeon Flux, Norbit, Corspe Bride, King Kong, Hawaii HD and an HD sampler from HD Scape. All of these HD movies were incredible viewing! Very good shadow detail. 3-D like presentations. Better/more accurate colors. Deeper blacks. No issue with playback with any of them. I have The Matrix Ultimate Collection in HD. Will make time to watch that soon.

I also watched a few SD films upscaled to 1080i. Ghost Rider, POTC: The Curse Of the Black Pearl and Batman Begins. I've owned no other upscaling DVD player thus, have nothing to compare it with. However, I did notice a more pleasing picture from these titles. Most note worthy was, shadow detail and better blacks.

As for the sound. I use a B&K Reference 50 processor (no HDMI). So, sound is via Toslink and 5.1 multi-ch inputs. To my ear with my setup, sending the Dolby Digital Plus via the 5.1 analog yields the cleanest sound my system has ever produced. The sound via Toslink sounds well..."compressed" in comparison! I should also add, that playing CD's through the 5.1 multi-ch also was an eye/hear opening experience. Soundstage, clarity, and air are much improved.

I have no clue which format will when this war. But at this stage, the Toshiba XA1 has taken my video and audio to levels I never thought I could reach in my home. For me, this was a good choice!

John, glad to hear another happy story from an early adopter. In Australia, it feels like we lag behind the rest of the world for some of these new technologies. We have only just had released the new HD-DVD players. I think it is the second gen, smaller players. Blu Ray has been here for a while but sales are pretty poor. Samsung have dropped their initial price on the BDP1000 from $AUD1600 (about $US1250) down to less than $AUD1000, so that shows the type of interest they have received. PS3 sales are going nowhere...$1000 for a games player is hard to swallow and blu-ray movies over here retail for about $AUD45.00. Thank God for Ebay!

I bit the bullet early and purchased the HD-A1, whilch cost me about $AUD700 landed in October last year. I can only say that I am thrilled with the performance. I have a library of about 30 discs and growing (will stop with a baby due in three weeks!!!). I have it connected to an Infocus X2 processor (really need to trade up...was going to wait until 1080P comes down to a realistic price). Only using component input and not HDMI, but still works well. Only problem is that this player is NTSC only and does not support PAL discs. Have recently purchased a Maranzt 6001 upscaling DVD / DVDA/SACD player, so hopefully that will take care of the other side of things.

I just wanted to ask the question if anyone knows whether Rotel will be releasing software upgrades so that the 1068 will process Dolby TRUE-HD and DTS-HD. At the moment, it just seems to automatically select DTS, which is fine by me, as I love it. Not sure how much better the lossless formats are, but if anyone has any news, it would be most appreciated.

Thanks and I hope you continue to enjoy your HD-DVD player. I can wholeheartedly recommend the following HD-DVD's for your collection:
Matrix collection, Happy Feet, Polar Express, Last Samurai, Sleepy Hollow, Seabiscuit, Batman Begins, Superman Returns. Stay away from Sky Captain...blurry and not such a great movie. You may see that one on Ebay shortly! By the way, I ditched the woeful Toshie remote and have the main functions through my RR-1050 remote. Instant response and much easier to navigate.

Enjoy!

[John Holmes]

Jon,

I updated the firmware as soon as I got it. So I'm also running 2.2. Like I stated above, it has ran smooth as silk. Jon, I did mine via download. Do you think it is better to get it from the disc (which I did sign up for BTW)?

I was unaware of the blue laser wear time though. Thanks for the info. Maybe I should have gotten the extended warranty after all. Since I decided to use the XA1 as my CD player as well. Hmmm, maybe I should rethink that and just use it for movies. Man that bites because, I really like what it does for the sound of my CD's.

[John Holmes]

Dingaling2004, Welcome to the Guide!

Thanks for the welcome to the A1 club!

As to the lossless scheme, if you haven't heard it, you're okay. But once you hear it, I think it would be tough for you not having it!!! :B I love the sound True-HD and Dolby Digital Plus brings to the party.

As far as Rotel and others producing units that can decode the HI-Res formats, it's really moot at this point for them to do so. It has been mandated that only the players themselves are allowed to decode the lossless formats. So, while it's nice that a reciever or pre/pro has this function, it's useless for HD/BR DVD. The analog multi-ch/5.1 or 7.1 inputs or HDMI passing the processed signal more than yields satisfactory results.

Also, thanks for the recommendations on software. I already own THE Ultimate Matrix Collection. I plan on purchasing Batman Begins. I'm just trying to decide which of the movies that I already own, am I going to buy again on HD. The upconversion is on these players are so good that, it makes the choices difficult. But the sound difference is drastic to my ear.

I hope you continue to enjoy your HD-A1. :T

[JonMarsh]

Jon,

I updated the firmware as soon as I got it. So I'm also running 2.2. Like I stated above, it has ran smooth as silk. Jon, I did mine via download. Do you think it is better to get it from the disc (which I did sign up for BTW)?

I was unaware of the blue laser wear time though. Thanks for the info. Maybe I should have gotten the extended warranty after all. Since I decided to use the XA1 as my CD player as well. Hmmm, maybe I should rethink that and just use it for movies. Man that bites because, I really like what it does for the sound of my CD's.

Well, for now I'm just using it for movies, mostly HD, just picked up an HD-A2 as backup and for DVD upscaling (maybe get an XA2 for myself at Christmas).

The OPU is the most likely part of any optical disk player to fail- my original XA7 Sony CD player made it four years with a lot of use before the laser gave out, fortunately being ES gear it was under warranty until 5 years.

Interesting about your comments on CD playback- running it analog, or just as a digital bit stream sources?

[Race Car Driver]

Ohhh reviews... I like reviews!

Im actually thinking of picking this very unit up.
I get my employee discount and another 100$ rebate on top of that from Toshiba, its almost too hard to pass up.

Maybe it will be my 07/07/07 birtday present to myself

[John Holmes]

Jon,

I'm using the analog via the multichannel input/outputs for cd playback. It was a nice surprise to get upgraded cd sound from this unit.

I don't blame you for adding an A2 or XA2. At their current price points, the performance is hard to beat. The jury is still out on the A20 though. I've read it's upconversion isn't on par with the previous units. Though it's 1080p playback is very good.

So you got four ears out of the Sony XA7. Hmmm, I should have sprung for the extented service plan. I just figured that we'd be on generation XXX by then so it wouldn't matter.

[John Holmes]

Ohhh reviews... I like reviews!

Im actually thinking of picking this very unit up.
I get my employee discount and another 100$ rebate on top of that from Toshiba, its almost too hard to pass up.

Maybe it will be my 07/07/07 birtday present to myself

RCD,

I'm very happy with mine. The only downside of the XA1 is the slow startup time. It take about 40 seconds (give or take) to get to the FBI warning screen. Not a deal breaker for me but, maybe for some. Funny thing though, I have come to learn how much time actually goes by in those 40 or so seconds! :Z :lol:

[John Holmes]

Ok, one other downside. It seems the Tosh lacks the ability to direct access tracks for cd. Great sound but this part is a PITA.