http://tvs.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=42921
Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player First-to-market player is a disgrace By Charlie White
The Toshiba HD-A1 ($500) is the first high definition disk player on the market. At the same time, HD
DVD movies in this new format are slowly becoming available -- at this writing, there are approximately 20 titles on sale for the nascent HD
DVD format. We took a close look at this first HD
DVD player, putting it through its paces with both HD
DVDs and standard-definition
DVDs, and found it to be a frustrating experience that we hope amounts to the consumer electronics equivalent of opening-night jitters.
Taking the HD-A1 out of its box, its appearance reminded me of the first days of consumer VCRs, where early VHS machines looked almost identical to this HD
DVD player. Not only is it boxy and ugly, but it's big -- it really is about the size of early VHS recorders. Its squared-off design shows little imagination; I was hoping for a more impressive appearance from the first iteration of this brand new format.
As I started up the player, I was immediately disappointed to hear fan noise emanating from the back of the unit. It wasn't just subtle whirring of the cooling unit, either -- it was almost as loud as some of the quieter projectors we've tested here at the Midwest Test Facility. Not good. Fan noise of any kind is not welcome, especially in a
home theater environment. We were off to a rocky start.
Nevertheless, I was still optimistic as I started up the player. So what if it didn't look beautiful? The most important thing about this unit was its usability and playback quality. My optimism took another hit as I pressed the On button, and unlike any other
DVD player or audio device I've used in the past, this HD
DVD player acted like a computer, taking
a full 35 seconds between the time I turned it on and when it was actually ready to accept the DVD. Does it actually have to boot up? Yes.
The A1 has HDMI and component outputs, as well as an Ethernet port, optical and coaxial audio outputs, and individual 5.1 audio outputs.
Picking up the huge remote, I shuddered at its almost-laughable length, nearly a foot long and made of cheap plastic with sharp edges. I struggled to open the battery compartment door, and after putting the four AAA batteries inside, the compartment door balked at my closing it. The piece of plastic that covers the battery compartment has to be
one of the cheapest and worst-designed battery door assemblies I've ever encountered.
Once the batteries were installed, I immediately encountered the appalling inferiority of this remote. It is virtually impossible to see the labels for each button on the remote, where the background in gray and the lettering is a slightly lighter shade of gray. There is no illumination on the remote, and virtually impossible to see the labels. This remote's design is absolutely abominable, and I immediately deemed it completely useless. Anyone using this HD
DVD player is advised to get a universal remote forthwith.
Then, as I plugged in the included HDMI cable into the back of the player and into our 37-inch
LCD TV, the player seemed confused -- it wasn't communicating with the monitor. Diving into the documentation, I noticed that it's necessary to set the resolution in order for the screen to communicate with the player. After doing so, there was still an HDMI error. The documentation instructed me to unplug the HDMI cables and plug them back in again. After doing that, the two devices were finally able to communicate with each other. Why is this shiny new connector type, the much-heralded HDMI, so clunky that it can't even mate with a garden-variety
LCD TV set? My out-of-box-experience continued to deteriorate.
Before I go on, allow me to warn you about HDMI cables and electronics purveyor Best Buy. Before receiving our review unit, I wanted to get a feel for the consumer experience with this player, and asked a sales person at Best Buy if the Toshiba HD
DVD player package included an HDMI cable. He told me it didn't. Thinking that I would need an HDMI cable to connect the review unit to our
LCD monitor, I looked over the choices at Best Buy, where there were none available for less than around $100. Fortunately, I had scanned the Web for HDMI cable prices before I made my shopping trip, noticing that most of the cables sold for between $15 and $20. Refusing to pay the $100 Best Buy HDMI cable "tax," I went back to the
office, thinking I would pick one up on the Web. When I received the HD
DVD player, I discovered that it did indeed include an HDMI cable. I immediately began to think that this business of selling HDMI cables for $100 when they can be bought on the Web for $20 was nothing short of price gouging on the part of Monster Cable and its accomplice, Best Buy. Buyer beware.
Next, I put the HD
DVD of
Phantom of the Opera into the player.
I was chagrined to see that it took exactly 47 seconds between the time I put the HD DVD into the player and the time the picture appeared on the screen. With the disk finally began its playback, my frustration and gnashing of teeth quickly abated, because I saw a magnificent high-definition picture on my screen the likes of which I hadn't seen before. There were very few compression artifacts, the sound was crisp and clear, and the colors were extremely saturated. Here was the nearly-saving grace of the Toshiba HD-A1. The HD
DVD format is capable of magnificent playback quality. That factor alone may make this player worth its $500 purchase price.
Now that I've gushed all over this player's quality, let's get back to the realities of this ill-conceived product. Accidentally pushing the stop button on the illogically-arranged remote happened more times than I care to admit, and quite a few times, an error message showed up on the front of the player: "HDMI Error D" The only way to fix it was to unplug the HDMI cables and plug them back in again -- even a restart of the player didn't work.
This sort of foolishness is simply unacceptable in a consumer electronics device.
Next, I wanted to test the up-rezzing capability when playing back standard definition
DVDs. Yes, there was a slight improvement when using the A1's up-rezzing capability with
DVDs, but it's still apparent that the
DVDs are in standard definition, with quality that's nowhere near that of high-definition
television. Don't kid yourself into thinking that this up-rezzed video will satisfy your cravings for
HDTV, because it doesn't even come close. Counterintuitively, it didn't seem to make any difference when I changed the resolution settings when playing back a standard definition
DVD, where the enhancement looked the same whether it was set for 480p, 720p, or 1080i.
Inexplicably, after playing a standard definition DVD, it's necessary to set the resolution back to either 720p or 1080i when playing an HD DVD again. With all the technology brought to bear in this HD DVD format, why isn't it possible to automatically sense what sort of disk is in the player, and with the HDMI cables, what sort of display is being addressed?
Summing up, using the Toshiba HD-A1 was a frustrating experience. Beguiled by its gorgeous high-definition video, I was even more frustrated at its
sluggish response to remote commands and crashing performance. Its clumsy remote sets a new low in inept design, configured in a way that reveals that its designers were apparently completely unaware that human beings would be using it. Adding to its long list of shortcomings is the HD-A1's
inability to handle that holy grail of the HD DVD format, 1080p.
I can only hope that this is just a rough first effort which was perhaps rushed to market.
The Toshiba HD-A1 is unacceptable, even for early adopters. Please, do yourself a favor and
don't go through the trouble of buying it, setting it up and being frustrated by it. Wait until this format is more mature, because now, it reminds me of the early days of MS-DOS computing. The only reason I give it more than one star is because of the high quality of its video.
Not recommended under any circumstances. 2 out of 10 stars.
Reviewers at Consumer Electronics Net weren’t impressed with the $500 Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player, calling it “a disgrace.” Fan noise, crashing, a clumsy remote and slow performance doomed the first-to-market player, and the reviewer wasn’t too impressed with its standard-definition DVD up-rezzing capability, either. There were even choice words for electronics retailer Best Buy, where a duplicitous blueshirt tried to sell the reviewer an unnecessary $100 HDMI cable, denying that there was already one included in the box. Said the reviewer of the Toshiba player: 
