Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player

Enough of the warnings & threats about HD-DVD being "dead technology"! We KNOW already! That said, I decided to go ahead & purchase this player because, frankly, since Blu-Ray has been crowned King of All Things HD du jour, there's zero incentive for Sony and its minions to make BD players & discs AFFORDABLE! Moreover, there are still a number movies offered ONLY in HD-DVD....GOOD movies (The Matrix Trilogy most notably)! Lastly, the private seller i bought mine from sent a DOZEN HD-DVD discs for free...deal was too good to pass up.

As for the player itself, it works beautifully and looks appropriately STUNNING, even on my soon-to-be ancient Sharp 32" 720p. When I do upgrade to a 1080p, I'll have this player and, eventually, I shall hand over $400~ to the Evil Empire (Sony) for a PS3 to have Blu-Ray capability too.

Some little nitpicks: the player takes a good long time to load a disc...we're talking upwards of 30 seconds. Also, out of the box, certain HD-DVD's would not play, but a download of the latest firmware update fixed that in a snap (took maybe 20mins total); and it's turning out to be the vast majority of HD-DVD discs don't allow for repeat play (i.e. over & over non-stop, which is what I usually do to fall asleep at night).

In conclusion, yes, it is the "loser" in the HD-disc "war"...however, it IS technology that WORKS, looks TERRIFIC, and the movies offered (albeit in somewhat limited variety) are INEXPENSIVE (many here on Amazon are under $14). I'm happy with mine, and if you choose to "cover all your bases" with regards to HD movie discs, this is a relatively cheap bonus for your entertainment center.

The unit was a simple swap out of my old up converting player for standard DVDs to this one. I did the firmware upgrade via a download to my computer and burned to a CD and dropped into the unit to upgrade; the process was completed in about 25 minutes. It was pretty simple... "Even a Caveman can do it..." I was really impressed how well this player displays in 1080p format for both HD DVD and standard DVD. I think Blu-Ray is great technology too. But I selected HD DVD because of the price; I could not convince myself to swallow the larger price tag for a Blu-Ray player at this time. However, I am NOT disappointed on the output visually and audio-wise with this unit. The picture is amazing and the sound is phenomenal! I watched a few HD DVDs on this but have not seen any strange artifacts associated with this player; the video is clean and no discernible flaws. The unit does a stupendous job on up converting standard DVDs, too. All in all, a great player for a reasonable price - less than $340. It's not a top of the line product, but I am very happy with its performance. I think this will hold me for a year or two until the cost drops a bit more on the units with more internal bells and whistles out there.

I may never watch "regular" TV again. This product delivers the goods, with an amazing 1080p picture on my Samsung HL-S5687W 56" 1080p DLP HDTV and a super duper easy setup right out of the box. Highly recommended.

I recently got a Panasonic 1080p projector with a 100" screen. The picture from a regular progressive scan DVD player was hard on the eyes so I looked into High-definition format players. Initially I was interested in Blu-Ray since it has more of my kind of movies. After much research, decided to forgo Blu-ray for now since the format is not yet settled and the competition is likely to quickly drive the price down. Instead of shelling $500- for a Blu-Ray, I can get HD capability for $300 with the Toshiba HD-A20 and early next year, I expect I can buy a Blu-ray for about $200-. Note also that most movies we're watching these days are still on standard DVDs, so a major criteria for any player is ability to play standard DVDs well. We also watch a lot of foreign movies so subtitle quality is important.

Setup for the Toshiba HD-A20 was really easy. The manual was short and clear, and the menus easy to navigate (some of the best laid out menus for any DVD player). Yes it takes 30 secs to start up and yes there's other quirks, but if you read the manual you will know exactly what to expect. The first thing I wanted to do was update the firmware. The device I got was shipped with firmware 1.0 and the latest firmware is 2.5. This is where I ran into trouble. Unless you are living in an apartment, the Ethernet port connect to the player is worthless. They should have shipped it with built-in wireless because - sorry - I do not want to run a 200' ethernet cable from the second floor computer room to the basement. Without the port you also cannot access the online features of HD-DVD disks, no big deal, just don't make the ethernet port be a deciding factor.

The big deal is that to do firmware updates, you need to be looking at a TV to navigate the menus while you are connected to the internet. That means I cannot just carry the player up to the computer room, hook it up to the internet and update the firmware. I tried to do it blind but it didn't work. They could have at least added a one-touch button for firmware updates, or used the built-in display for menu navigation, but no, you need a TV and internet in one room. Next I tried to go to the web and download the firmware to burn onto CD. Good luck navigating the Toshiba webpage. It took me a long time only to end up with a page not found. This is a far cry from Sony from whom I can download the firmware update for the BD-S300 right from the product page before I even buy the player. I contacted Toshiba and they did not respond. Later that day I was able to find the firmware update thanks to Google, burned it on CD and everything went well. All I can say is I don't look forward to the next update, and this is the main reason for the loss of 1 star.

With firmware 2.5, I have to say the picture quality is absolutely stunning. The first thing you want to do is set up the RGB colorspace to "Enhanced". This deepens the blacks and is absolutely critical for LCD projectors. Another feature added with the update 2.5 is ability to play 1080p at 24 Hz (film native format). From what I've read, that was the only difference between this and the HD-A30, due to be released in Oct. So, if that's what you care about, don't wait for the A30. Buy the A20 now, enjoy several weeks worth of use, save $100-, and get 5 HD-DVDs for free for buying before Sep 30. I have to admit not seeing any difference using the 24 Hz mode.

With an HDDVD (flags of our Fathers) the picture was just amazing. You can tell the difference easily between a standard DVD and an HD-DVD on a 100" screen. With standard DVDs and the player set to upconvert to 1080p, the picture was also good, but I could not detect any difference in picture quality between the A20 and a $40- standard progressive scan player. Basically upconversion is hype. When you play a standard DVD onto a 1080p projector, upconversion has to happen somwhere down the line. When I use a standard DVD player, the projector does the upconversion, and in my case it does it just as good as the HD-A20. Perhaps you'll notice a difference if you have a noname-brand HDTV doing the upconversion.

The one difference is that with the HD-A20 doing the upconversion, the subtitles do look better than through the standard DVD player. Still, whereas some Samsung models allow you to change the font and color of subtitles, the A20 has no such control, so I ended up watching a black and white classic movie with Yellow subtitles - very hard on the eyes. Another issue for foreign movie buffs is that this player does not play PAL DVDs. My $40- one does.

I did not get a chance to judge the audio since I only have a 2.1 speaker system with an old analog receiver. The sound from the HD-DVD with a Dolby Digital did sound very good, though, much better than the usual movie audio. I can't wait to upgrade my sound system. One thing to watch out for is that this player does not have HDMI 1.3, which means that Dolby TrueHD tracks will be downconverted to Dolby Digital, then sent through regular HDMI to the receiver. So you can listen to Dolby TrueHD discs but you won't be getting the full quality. The upcoming HD-A35 model will support HDMI 1.3, so perhaps that one is worth buying if you're willing to pay double the price.

I have owned this player since May and i am exremely happy with it. Set up was a piece of cake..picture quality blew away those compressed Hd chanels on satellite. Sound is superior to DVD. Standard DVD upconversion exceeded my expectations( colors seem bolder,smoother film-like picture,less picture noise) My only complaint about this player is the slow loading times and flimsy remote. I strongly recomend this unit to anyone who owns an hdtv. Those 5 free HD DVD's arrived in about 7 weeks.