Toshiba HD-A30 Player HD-DVD Player

Both when the format war (Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD) began, and when it was at the peak of battle, it was clearly noticable that HD-DVD was the superior format, even if only by a slight margin. Unlike Blu-Ray, The picture and sound quality of HD-DVD since conception was nothing short of perfect. The players and media itself both maintained a "reasonable" price point. The technology allowed fast, easy and inexpensive transfer of movie titles from SD format to HD. It also allowed better compression of data, providing even more storgage space than what was available on a Blu-Ray disc (a huge selling point for Blu in the early stages of the format war).

There were many other advantages and benefits to owning HD-DVD's. However, likely due to it's "virtually" unannounced introduction to the consumer arena, it's lack of aggressive marketing, and its poor name choice which provided little or no distinction between True High Definition and Upconverted High Definition, HD-DVD slowly lost movie production company support and ultimately the format war altogether.

With that knowledge, some might wonder why anyone would consider purchasing an HD-DVD player (more specifically, the Toshiba HD-A30). Well, despite being manufactured to support and promote an all-but-dead format, it is still able to upconvert standard DVD movies to HD resolution. The visual quality of standard DVD's played via the Toshiba HD-A30 (when viewed on an HDTV) can only be described as ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!

If you have an extensive DVD library and are in need of an alternative to repurchasing all of your movie titles in Blu-ray for a frightening amount of money, or just enjoy purchasing select titles ocassionally and don't want to spend $400 or more for a low end Blu-ray player plus additional costly movies, the Toshiba HD-A30 is definitely for you.

Aside from the 30 seconds it takes to switch from standby to full power (not a big deal to me personally), you'll have no complaints about this item. And with its already affordable price likely to be reduced, since the format it was designed to promote is now obselete, this is a steal for anyone who enjoys watching movies at home.