Toshiba HD-A30 Review:

The Toshiba HD-A30 takes the performance and convenience of HD-DVD to the next level. For the highest level of picture quality with high definition TVs, the Toshiba HD-A30 adds 1080p output for twice the resolution of a 720p signal. The Toshiba HD-A30 is equipped with CE-Link HDMI-CEC connectivity. This convenient feature offers the capability to communicate with and control another HDMI-CEC compatible device all with one controller. 1080p/24 frames per second support offers a smoother, more film-like, viewing experience. The Toshiba HD-A30 HD DVD player maintains this frame rate, allowing you to enjoy movies in their native frame rate. High definition playback delivers 720p/1080i/1080p resolution, up to six times the resolution of DVD. Leading-edge efficient video compression standards make it possible to experience the full potential of your HDTV.

A Refined, Slimmer Look
The Toshiba HD-A30’s refined design–with rounded edges, a slim chassis, and a high-gloss black face plate–looks sleek and elegant in your home theater system without taking up too much real estate.

Outstanding Performance
All of Toshiba’s HD DVD players support the enhanced features of the HD DVD format, including picture-in-picture video, audio commentary, and Web-enabled network capabilities. With an Ethernet port, the Toshiba HD-A30 can connect to the Internet for firmware updates to keep the player up to date on new features, and to support the growing number of HD DVD titles with interactive online features and bonus content.

The Toshiba HD-A30 uses the latest HDMI 1.3 interface to connect to your HD television, providing large bandwidth to eliminate any data bottlenecks and to support new technologies for the utmost in viewing experience. The Toshiba HD-A30 can output video at 1080p, the highest resolution available, and includes support for 24-frame video, which maintains the native 24-frames-per-second rate of films, thereby delivering an experience more similar to one in theaters.

If you have a large collection of standard definition DVDs, the Toshiba HD-A30 will upconvert them to near-HD quality for display on your HD television. Progressive scan output means the scan-lines of interlaced video are eliminated and the result is a clean image that has no motion distortion or artifacts. In addition to 1080p, the Toshiba HD-A30 also outputs at 720p and 1080i if desired.

Sparkling Surround Sound
The Toshiba HD-A30 supports most surround sound audio standards, with built-in decoding for Dolby TrueHD 5.1ch, Dolby Digital Plus 5.1ch, DTS 5.1, and DTS HD (core only).

One-Touch Convenience
You can use the CE-Link (HDMI-CEC) to connect the Toshiba HD-A30 with other CEC-capable devices for unsurpassed simplicity and convenience. For example, if the HD-A35 is connected to a compatible HDTV, you can turn on both the HD DVD player and the TV and start playing a movie with a single touch of a button on the remote.

Toshiba HD-A30 performs exactly as advertised. Toshiba HD-A30 plays HD DVDs, DVDs and CD audio discs and nothing else. Although some have complained of seeing jagged lines in 1080p mode, I don’t have this problem with my HDTV, which incidentally does not support 1080p/24 mode, so I have used 1080p mode with the player. I also have no way to test whether or not this player only downconverts audio as my 3 year old receiver can’t accept HDMI inputs and has no Dolby TrueHD decoding, so I have to use downconversion from the player. The documentation seems to indicate that the player may be capable of sending out unconverted audio streams via bitstream, but I have no way to test this. There must be some kind of difference between the A-35 and this model to justify the higher cost of the A-35, so perhaps the other review is right that the Toshiba HD-A30 can’t send out unconverted audio streams.

Pros:
Plays HD DVDs very well.
Upconverts DVDs very well.
Excellent quality audio, even if it is downconverted to DTS or AC3.
DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL were tested by me and all work fine. I’ve read that CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW all work, but I didn’t test them.
Automatically sends DVD output in 4:3 or 16:9 depending on how the DVD is authored. In other words, if the DVD is 16:9, the player sends out 16:9 video and if the DVD is 4:3, it sends out 4:3 video. This is a nice feature.

Cons:
Won’t play VCD, SVCD, Divx, MP3, JPG.
Will only play region 1 and region 0 (all region) DVDs.
Won’t play PAL video at all.
Won’t play HD DVD format on burnable DVD DL discs, even though HD DVD format explicitly allows this and earlier generation players were reported to play such discs.
Firmware updates are SLOW. It took 15+ minutes to update my firmware from 1.1 to 1.3 (1.3 is also known as 1300U).

To be fair, Toshiba makes no claims at all to play anything in my Con list above, but I just want to be clear that if someone expects this to be a “play everything” kind of player that it certainly is NOT that. Interestingly, the Toshiba HD-A30 did play a test DVD I have of MPEG-1 video, so the player could support VCD and SVCD too if the firmware was written to allow it.

—– By Jason Shumate

Toshiba HD-A30 Features

• HD DVD Playback
• DVD/CD Playback
• Upconversion for SD
• 720p/1080i/1080p resolution
• Includes Warner Bros’ 300 HD DVD and Universal’s The Bourne Identity HD DVD (packaged inside)

Toshiba HD-A30 Specifications

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