Toshiba HD-A2 Review
Toshiba's latest volly in the format wars is thier second generation player. The A2 is priced at a somewhat affordable $499 and offers a few features that are making ealry adopters wish they had waited. Well sort of, the A2 doesn't does not include 1080p output, you will have to wait for the A20 and expect a 100 dollar adder on top of that.
From the article:
As mentioned above, gone is the bulky, industrial look of the HD-A1; the HD-A2 is nearly half the height of its predecessor and considerably more polished looking. Toshiba appears to have taken much of the criticism of the first generation players to heart not only with regard to performance but with the aesthetics as well. The included remote control is also an improvement over its predecessor. The A2’s remote looks, feels, and operates much like any other DVD remote you’ve ever used. The buttons (non-backlit) are arranged intuitively with all the necessary functions up-front and center.
The players HDMI output (Audio & Video) was my primary connection method for the review, however I did spend a bit of time viewing a handful of discs over the component output. One welcome change over the HD-A1 is the A2’s HDMI performance. The A2 is rock solid in this regard and once a HDMI handshake is negotiated it takes quite a bit of meddling to fault it. I alternated between HDMI audio for TrueHD sound tracks and the player’s optical connection for Dolby Digital Plus, to get a better feel for the audio capabilities of both outputs.