Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba HD-A3 720p/1080i HD DVD Player

Wow, what disappointing technology. Forget about Netflix rentals, my A3 updated to 1.3 FW freezes or locks up on a brand new Bourne 3 just as bad as an old scratched Batman Begins. Yep, I've now searched the forums and try cleaning the disks before playing, but it hasn't helped.

The only thing that makes my situation even worse is I was so excited about the rebate movies I cut the box and sent away for them before realizing what junk the system is. Sorry, maybe the disks are made bad or out of spec, maybe the machine is too sensitive, or maybe I've got bad luck (probably not if you search the web on this issue). Regardless, this is one of the worst electronic purchases I've made. Now the question isn't how awesome will this movie look in HD (they do look good if they play), its 'wonder when the player/disk will lock up'?

Don't get suckered in by the free movies like I did, just remember -- what good is a movie player that can't play rental movies.

I just returned my newly purchasedToshiba A3 hddvd player to Amazon after about 5 days. Machine had old firmware, and the process to update is maddening at best. Machine skipped through Casino, which came with it incidentally, and customer service told me to call another number to get a different disk because it wasnt the fault of the player. Then I was told I would have to mail in the old disk for a replacement. What a pain!

Put in "300" which also came with the machine. The machine would not eject. Called customer service, who told me there was no way to get it out so I would have to send in for service. So it took about 5 days for it to break down.

Thats when I shipped it right back to Amazon for a refund.

Also, machine took an extremely long time to turn on or off, eject disks and load disks. Every time I turned it on I would have to update the clock settings. All in all a pretty horrible experience.

This unit didn't work out of the box with using a Component Output. After an hour on the phone with an uninformed Toshiba representative they gave me nothing but a run around and I never got an RA to return an obviously defective unit. If you don't have an HDMI connection you could very well be out of luck since they will only let you return defective units if you try with both connections. Last Toshiba product I ever buy.

I recently purchased this product from Amazon. Picture is great! What no one tells you is this machine does not have "resume play" after stop. If you stop it you ALWAYS go back to the beginning.
With the HD-A3 once the Stop button is hit it will stop the DVD completely. If you want to resume playback from the same spot there is a pause button that will do this but unfortunately you can not press the stop button and resume playback from the same spot.Toshiba says"This machine doesn't have this feature" Don't buy! One star cause the picture's nice.

I bought this HD DVD player to replace a cheap $30 Sanyo DVD player that had a malfunctioning door after a couple of years. I dont have an HD TV....I have an OLD TV....but thought I was being intelligent to buy an HD-DVD player so that in a couple years when I got an HD TV, I would already have the HD player.....

wasn't counting on the fact that on a comparatively expensive HD-DVD player such as this Toshiba...it doesnt have a way for me to connect it to a TV having only a VHF/UHF/CATV port.

Now, I'm supposed to spend either $20 to return it, or $20 to buy an RF Modulator and a tri-colored connector.

When I called Toshiba, they nicely told me that all I needed to buy was the RF Modulator and the connector....I failed to ask them at the time why my cheap $30 Sanyo DVD player has this capability, but the more expensive Toshiba does not.

Angry. Typical electronics nightmare.