Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD Player

Video enthusiasts have been patiently waiting for high definition DVDs for a long time now. I know that I sure have. But the wait is finally over. Toshiba has beat Sony to the market with their HD DVD format. To coincide with the format's release, Toshiba introduced two HD DVD player models, the HD-A1 priced at $699 and the HD-XA1 priced at $999.

When the Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player arrived at my house at the beginning of May, I was excited like a kid with a new toy. Finally, I could watch whatever I want, whenever I want in high definition! Well, as soon as more high definition DVDs come out. At the time of writing this review, there were only six HD DVD movies available. Warner Brothers were nice enough to send me their first three releases which included Million Dollar Baby, The Last Samurai and Phantom of the Opera.

The first thing that I noticed about the Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player when I pulled it out of the box was that it was two to three times larger than a typical DVD player. Its brushed silver and glossy black finish is simple and attractive although not outstanding in any way. Only three buttons are present on the face of the player: a round power button and rectangular 'Door' and 'Open/Close' buttons. The silver section of the front panel is actually a motorized aluminium door that opens and closes when the 'Door' button is pressed. Opening this door reveals the DVD tray, two USB ports and simple DVD navigation buttons including track/chapter skip, pause, play and stop.

The back panel of the player houses four video outputs, one of each: HDMI, component, S-video and composite. Analog audio is output via 2-channel RCA connectors and 5.1-channel RCA connectors. Single optical and coaxial jack provide digital audio. A first for any DVD player is a LAN (Local Area Network) port that accepts an Internet broadband connection. This connection will allow future HD DVD discs to access additional features not included on the disc such as movie trailers. Firmware upgrades for the DVD player may also be transmitted using the LAN connection.

The remote control features retro styling that is visually pleasing. Its small chrome buttons and combination of glossy black and brushed silver aluminium give it a serious look with the feel of a reference-quality remote. A backlight shines behind most buttons and turns on automatically when you pick up the remote - a very nice feature indeed! A circular multi-direction pad allows for easy navigation of setup and DVD menus. Some buttons, including the all-important setup button, are inconveniently hidden behind a sliding door at bottom of the remote. The remote can be programmed to control your television set.

Other accessories included in the box were a six-foot HDMI cable, an RCA L/R audio cable, an RCA video cable and a detachable power cord.

I connected the Toshiba HD DVD player directly to my 43-inch Pioneer PDP-4360HD plasma using the supplied HDMI cable. To connect the audio, I used an optical cable because my Marantz SR8500 A/V receiver does not have HDMI inputs.

I powered on the HD-XA1 and inserted my first HD DVD disc, The Last Samurai, with the giddiness of a little kid. I sat on my couch and waited for what seemed like forever for the disc to load. It took almost 40 seconds before the picture from the DVD appeared on the screen and was as much fun as waiting for Windows to load on a computer. I switched the output resolution back and forth between 720p and 1080i to see which resolution worked better with my Pioneer plasma. 1080i was clearly a better choice. The picture was much sharper with a lot more detail when output at 1080i. The 720p picture looked better than 480p, but nowhere near the quality of the 1080i signal. This held true for all the HD DVDs that I watched on the Toshiba.

And how did this high definition picture look? In a single word, spectacular! The colours were brilliant, the blacks were incredibly deep and the picture detail reached levels that I've never experienced before. This picture looked not only substantially better than regular DVDs, it looked noticeably better than the high definition signals coming from my satellite box. But not surprisingly so; satellite has a transfer rate of about 19 megabits per second compared to a whopping 36 megabits per second from an HD DVD disc. I've been spoiled by watching HD programming from my satellite box for sometime now but the Toshiba definitely produced a better quality picture.

The HD-XA1 played all my regular CDs and DVDs without a problem. The loading time of these discs was much quicker than that of HD DVD discs. When using the HDMI connection, standard DVDs get up-converted to your choice of 720p or 1080i. This produced a picture that was much more three dimensional with more depth than a regular 480p DVD player. I also tried the HD-XA1's component video output which produced a picture that looked very similar to its HDMI output, a difference that most viewers would not be able to spot. At this time, all HD DVDs offer the full 1080p resolution through both the component and HDMI outputs. In the future, movie studios will probably down-convert the component video output to 540p for copy protection purposes, so don't count on always being able to watch HD DVDs using the component video connection. The HD-XA1 outputs 720p and 1080i signals, it does not output 1080p.

The enhanced menu system of the HD DVD format is a significant improvement over the regular DVD format which makes menu navigation a very pleasant experience. All menus can be accessed without stopping the playback of the movie because they are displayed on top of the movie, usually near the bottom of the screen. Playback can be paused when accessing the menus. I did notice a slight delay when selecting certain menu items on the HD-XA1 which was a little annoying. Stopping a DVD on the Toshiba player is also slower than it should be. Each time I pressed the 'stop' button, it took about three seconds before the playback actually stopped.

Unlike a regular DVD player, the HD-XA1 has a built-in ventilation fan which sounds like a computer fan. While it didn't bother me most of the time, I could hear it during very quiet movie passages.

The remote had a comfortable, substantial feel to it because of its aluminium face. A pleasant yellow backlight turned on automatically each time I grabbed the remote which was a very helpful feature that worked well, especially with low lights. However, I didn't enjoy the buttons hidden behind the sliding door at the bottom of the remote which included the all-important 'setup' button.

The audio side of things had me a little confused at the beginning. The HD DVD standard includes two new audio formats, Dolby Digital Plus (multi-channel) and Dolby TrueHD (only 2 channels are mandatory on HD DVDs, multi-channel is optional). There are three ways to send audio from the HD-XA1 player to a receiver - using the digital optical or coaxial output (which is good), using 5.1 analog outputs (better) or using the HDMI output (best). When using the optical or coaxial outputs, the Toshiba converts the Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack to DTS that most receivers will be able to decode. When using 5.1 analog inputs, the Toshiba performs digital to analogue conversion and then sends the signals to the receiver. Since the receiver may perform digital to analogue conversion better than the HD-XA1, this may not be the optimal way to go. Using the HDMI output is the best option because the Toshiba will decode the new Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack and send it to the receiver in all its glory. I used both the optical and 5.1 analogue outputs and I did not hear any difference in quality between them, however, I had only three early release HD DVDs to play with.

As soon as I played the first HD DVD movie, I realized that there was an issue with the volume level - the audio was much lower than I expected it to be. I tried the other two discs and the results were the same. Regular DVDs however, played at a normal volume level. Later, I discovered that this was an issue with some of the first wave of HD DVDs from Warner Brothers, not the Toshiba player itself. This was definitely an annoyance and the only way that I could fix it was to boost the volume level on each of my receiver's channels.

A nice audio feature of these Warner HD DVDs was something called "Advanced Content". This allowed the movie audio to be mixed together with other audio such as menu buttons or commentaries. In other words, each time that I access the movie's menu and navigated it, a sound effect was played on top of the movie audio. This is something that was not possible with regular DVD players.

Another issue that I noticed with the Warner HD DVDs was that the resume playback function did not work with them. Again, this appeared to be something attributed to the movies and not the DVD player itself.

The Toshiba HD-XA1 undeniably delivered on its promise of high definition video. Its video performance was nothing short of stunning. As with any new technology, it is not surprising that it had a few areas and glitches that could be improved. The slow start-up time and loading of discs were the major annoyances about this DVD player. Could the smaller glitches be improved by future firmware upgrades? I guess time will tell. At $999, the HD-XA1 is not cheap, but first generation equipment never is. If this is an indication of what we can expect from the HD DVD format, I'm certainly pleased.