Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba HD-XA2 1080p HD-DVD Player

Has anyone here received the 5 free hd dvd's?

My title says it all, but read on if you want the long dirty details. Hooked it up for the first time today and the only result I could get was a Welcome Screen on the digital readout.Nothing else, can't open the draw, can't shut it off, the only thing you could do was pull the plug to kill the power.When I called the service number and pressed #2 for HDDVD Players it took about 5 retries and 1 disconnect to get to the department that handles this particular HDDVD Player. On my first 4 attempts when I specified the model I had, they said, "hold on for HDDVD Department" and when I said I thought this was the HDDVD Dept. there response was "it is"; "but not for this unit". When I finally got to the correct department and described the problem "the expert stated" its not supposed to do that. "Da" thanks for the help. You would think on a $1000 flagship unit they really would have a VIP Department for their customers. No such luck. The final straw was when they told me I would have to ship it to them at my own expense in my own packaging. They would not send a pre-paid return box like many companies will. Needless to say I am one unhappy customer in TN. I made this purchase because a 40% discount for this unit looked like a pretty good deal, but when all is said and done $600 for an oversized paperweight is just alitle to much to spend. Hope this helps you with your decision. I may update this as my service saga continues.Toshiba HD-XA2 HD-DVD Player

Previously I got the lower version HD-A2 and I must say this (HD-XA2) is better in both HD and Upconverting Standard DVD's. Is also twice the price.... I will keep mine but what you get for $800 is not even close to worth as much...

Also it has its issues which I hope Toshiba will resolve in future firmware releases. It takes forever to load or open the tray, the TV must be on and set to that particular external input otherwise most of the time the player locks at which point it doesn't turn off anymore. I had to pull the plug a couple of times.
I don't think mine is defective in any way. Looks like buggy firmware. More than that Toshiba does not even list this model on the HD website and therefore there is no updated firmware yet.

Overall I am not impressed with this. If the price was around $300 probably would be worth it. I get better image from my PS3 off blu-ray discs then from this top of the line player.
I don't know if HD DVD is lower quality than Blu-Ray but I have yet to see an HD-DVD better or even equal to a blu-ray disc. If you can be patient (unlike me) stay away from both formats for a while.

Is this really that much better than 1080i? In my opinion no.

This is the worst DVD player I have ever purchased!! It will not play HD DVD's without powering off from 30 to 60 minutes into to playing them. There is no warning it just powers off. I have contacted Toshiba several times, done what they have said, and sent the unit in for repair and they haven't heard of the problem and can't fix it. They sent me a brand new one and it had the same problem. Still no resulotion on the problem. I am so frustrated with a product that costs so much and doesn't work, and that the company has no idea what to do to fix the problem and all they tell me is that they have not heard of this problem before. How could I receive two different units with the same problem and no one at Toshiba has heard of it. This has really worried me about HD DVD players because now I have HD DVD's without any way to play them and hope that other HD DVD players are not the same way. This unit is supposed to be Toshiba's best HD DVD player. Well I'm not impressed!!