| HARDWARE REVIEW |
HD DVD's Second Generation: Toshiba HD-XA2 Review
We put Toshiba's top-of-the-line second generation HD DVD player through its paces, and while it may be the best HD DVD player yet to hit the market, it's not without its fair share of issues.
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| Released on Jan 3, 2007, Toshiba's HD-XA2 HD DVD Player retails at an MSRP of $999.99 |
Reviewed by Joshua Zyber
Sunday, March 4, 2007; last updated October 3, 2008
Editor's note: This review was originally written using the V1.3 firmware upgrade, and has since been updated several times using subsequent firmwares (see notes at bottom of page). Look for more updates should future firmware upgrades be released.
It has certainly been an exciting, turbulent year in the world of home theater. Less than 12 months ago, Standard-Def DVD was the end-all in home video, but now we have two new High Definition disc formats vying for position as its next-generation successor. First out of the gate, Toshiba launched their HD DVD format in April of 2006 with two player models, the entry level HD-A1 ($499) and the high-end HD-XA1 ($799). Despite the price disparity, the two players were identical in playback function and quality, distinguished only by an RS232 port and motorized flip-down front panel on the more expensive model. Internally, they otherwise had the exact same electronics. Both produced outstanding video and audio when paired up with an impressive assortment of high-quality software from Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, and later The Weinstein Company. However, as a first generation product, HD DVD came with one serious drawback: the stability and reliability of its hardware.
Toshiba seemed to invest significant time and resources into delivering top-notch picture and sound from HD DVD, but the first generation players were awkward and user-unfriendly even at their best, and absolute glitchy nightmares at their worst. More computer-in-a-box than traditional DVD player, the HD-A1 and HD-XA1 were clunky and slow, taking anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes to load certain discs, and frequently suffering frustrating freeze-ups, skipping, and audio sync problems. Some of these issues were reduced after firmware updates, but none ever completely went away. Just about every HD DVD owner has experienced that worst of all possible scenarios -- sitting down with friends or family, getting invested in watching some beautiful HD imagery, only to have the player crap out mid-movie and require a lengthy shutdown and reboot session. That's no way to sell people on the product.
The rival Blu-ray format, on the other hand, has generally been perceived as a more stable platform, with players that can be counted upon to start up and load a disc quickly, and play a movie from start to finish without interruption. Format backers would argue that this is reason enough to justify Blu-ray's high premium prices. To be perfectly fair though, I've found the first generation units from both format camps to be plagued with issues. I just recently attempted to watch a Blu-ray movie ('The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy') only to have my Samsung BD-P1000 player suffer a catastrophic freeze-up as bad or worse than anything I've ever experienced with HD DVD, requiring me to unplug the machine and start over. The fact of the matter is that early adopters of any new high-tech product pay a price for living on the cutting edge, and should learn to expect a bumpy ride as all the kinks get worked out, hopefully in the next wave of merchandise.
So now as we move into HD DVD's second year, Toshiba has released its second generation of players, the HD-A2 and HD-XA2. Although there are some unfortunate trade-offs and a few problems still remain, the results are decidedly more streamlined and polished than the company's initial HD DVD players. Most importantly, both models have greatly improved error correction capabilities, making them substantially less glitchy and more reliable. That alone should allow prospective buyers to breathe a little easier.
As before, Toshiba's HD DVD players are available in two tiers: the HD-A2 retains the $499 entry level price point, while the higher-end HD-XA2 (meant as a successor to the HD-XA1) has been bumped up to $999, putting its MSRP in line with most current stand-alone Blu-ray players. However, unlike the previous generation's models, the A2 and XA2 have some significant differences distinguishing them from one another. Most prominently, the HD-A2 remains limited to a maximum 1080i video resolution and has dropped the 5.1 analog audio outputs found on both prior models. This will make it less desirable for buyers who don't currently own HDMI-capable surround sound receivers. The HD-XA2, meanwhile, continues to offer the 6-channel analog connections, as well as adding 1080p video output and some advanced picture processing functions.
Thanks to the excellent service of retailer Value Electronics, I was able to evaluate an HD-XA2 with the latest V1.3 firmware update. I thoroughly put the player through its paces, and found it to be in many ways the new reference standard for HD DVD playback, if not quite perfect just yet.
Cosmetics, Connections, and Setup
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While the HD-A1 and HD-XA1 were rather boxy and utilitarian in physical design, they were both built like tanks, certainly making you feel like you got something for your high-def dollar. Toshiba has gone in a more traditional direction for the second generation. The HD-XA2 is smaller, lighter, and styled more like a standard DVD player. Aesthetically speaking it's a handsome unit, though still quite not as sleek as some of the Blu-ray competition. Like its predecessors, the machine has a flip-down front panel under which you'll find some basic playback controls, as well as a new "Mode" selector switch (more on this below) and a pair of extension ports for yet-to-be-determined future functionality. The main LED display glares rather brightly and there are additional blue lights shining from around the power button and below the front panel, all of which can be a bit distracting in a darkened theater room. The LED and panel light can be dimmed or turned off with the "Dimmer" button on the remote, but the power light is not adjustable. Annoyingly, the player will not remember your dimmer settings once you've powered it down, so if the lights bother you this is something you'll need to adjust each and every time you turn on the unit.
Located on the back panel are the expected assortment of connection options. The Composite and S-video outputs are just there for backwards compatibility; neither will transmit High Definition video so you should ignore them and move on. In order to get real HD, you'll need to use either analog Component Video or digital HDMI. The latter in this case conforms to the latest HDMI 1.3 specification, which materials packed in the box proudly boast is "Deep Color" compatible. That sounds impressive, but is somewhat misleading. Although HDMI 1.3 is capable of transmitting Deep Color were it to exist in the source, the HD DVD format spec does not support Deep Color (nor does Blu-ray, for that matter), so we can chalk that one up to marketing hype. Unlike earlier models, the HD-XA2 allows simultaneous video output (for HD DVDs only) from both Component and HDMI without the need to switch between them. Just make sure the Mode selector under the front panel is set for "2", which will give you High Definition output from either or both. Mode 1 selects Standard Definition for output over Composite or S-video, but you shouldn't ever be using those anyway.
As with all High-Def players on either format, the hardware itself is more than capable of transmitting HD video up to 1080i resolution over the Component connection so long as the software being played allows it. Were an HD DVD disc to be flagged with an Image Constraint Token (ICT), the player would be forced to downscale the video output to 480p Standard Definition as a pointless copy protection measure. Fortunately, as of this writing no HD DVD discs have yet been burdened with ICT, and to the best of my knowledge no home video studio intends to do so anytime in the immediate future.
That said, the DVD Forum has a ridiculous fixation with preventing standard DVD content from being upscaled to a higher resolution over Component Video, even though real High Definition is allowed. Therefore, copy protected DVDs (the majority of legitimate commercial releases) are limited to 480p over Component, and for some reason I also found that you'll get no picture at all if your HDMI output is connected at the same time. I had to disconnect HDMI to get a DVD picture over Component, yet I had no issues with HD DVD content in this regard.
On the audio front we have digital Coaxial and Optical S/PDIF outputs, as well as separate 2-channel and 5.1 analog connections. The HDMI connection will also carry audio along with video. More on these later. Wrapping things up are an Ethernet port for firmware updates, an RS232 port (like the HD-XA1) for additional computer networking applications, and a detachable power cord.
Toshiba took a lot of flak for the poor ergonomics of the awkwardly-designed HD-A1 remote controller. You'd think they might accept the constructive criticism and learn from their mistakes, but apparently they did not. The XA2's remote is basically the same, except for a couple of buttons having switched positions. At least the "Setup" button is out in the open where you can easily spot it now, rather than hidden under the sliding panel. There's also a backlight function (like the HD-XA1 had), so it's not quite as difficult to find the functions you need in the dark. I'd gotten used to the A1's controller over time, so this didn't overly bother me, but Toshiba really could have done better with the remote.
Once you've hooked everything up, the user setup is virtually identical to that on the first generation models. The interface is rather bland but easy to navigate. The choice of multiple "skins" is no longer available, but did anyone ever use that anyway? A splash screen might be a good, easy-to-implement idea that would help the player to feel a little less rudimentary and unfriendly. The unit has some strange factory defaults, such as leaving audio Dynamic Range Compression at the On position (which few users would want), so I recommend thoroughly checking each and every setup option prior to playing your first disc.
Can I Replace My Standard-Def DVD Player?
All HD DVD players are backwards compatible with standard DVD playback. Although true HD DVD discs are not region coded, when it comes to regular (Standard-Def) DVD, an HD-XA2 bought in the United States will be limited to compatibility with Region 1 NTSC discs. It is not a region-free deck, and it cannot play PAL discs regardless of region coding. The HD-XA2 will play DVDs at their original 480i resolution through any of the analog connections, or deinterlaced to 480p over Component Video. As mentioned earlier, it will not upscale copy-protected DVDs to higher resolutions over Component. Via HDMI, DVDs can be output at 480p (though not 480i) or upscaled to 720p, 1080i, or now 1080p. The machine will read the aspect ratio flag on each DVD disc and will automatically pillarbox 4:3 and non-anamorphic content into the center of the 16:9 frame. It does not offer any options for zooming non-anamorphic letterbox material to fill the screen.
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The older HD-A1 was highly regarded for its DVD upscaling ability, at least when it came to film-based movie content. It produced a sharp, stable image on par with dedicated upscaling players of much higher price points. The unit's weakness was in the deinterlacing of video-based or mixed-source content, for which it failed most complex deinterlacing tests with combing errors and jaggies. The HD-XA2 rectifies this problem with the addition of a Silicon Optix Reon-VX chip, one of the better deinterlacing products on the market today (and only found in the HD-XA2, not the HD-A2). For best results, choose "Auto" for the Picture Mode option in the setup menu. The player's handling of film-based material is essentially flawless, and video material of odd cadences is a huge improvement over the HD-A1. The machine breezed through the deinterlacing test patterns found on the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark DVD, as you'd expect (the test disc is made by the same people who make the chip). It also fared pretty well, if not quite perfectly, on the Spears & Munsil VRS Evaluation & Optimization DVD distributed with the DVDO iScan VP50 video processor. The HD-XA2 failed several of the more demanding patterns there, but the VRS disc was designed with worst case scenario video torture tests that rarely appear in normal DVD viewing.
In other words, the HD-XA2 combines the quality upscaling of previous HD DVD players with top notch deinterlacing as well. It is the first HD DVD player I feel comfortable saying could fully replace even a high-end dedicated DVD player, so long as multi-region playback isn't a necessity. That said, at least at this date, the HD-XA2 has one potentially serious video playback issue that I'll cover in detail later.
The Reon chip also brings with it several video processing options not found on earlier HD DVD players. These include Contrast, Brightness, Color, and Tint controls. A Selective Color Enhancement setting is said to dull certain colors while brightening others, but its workings are not adequately described in the owner's manual. Generally speaking it's best to adjust these settings at the display end of the video chain, not the player, but having them available here can allow for fine-tuning depending on the limitations of the display. For example, if you're using multiple video sources but your TV will only save one set of universal picture settings for everything, then it might be helpful to tweak things at the player level. If that isn't a concern, most users will be best served leaving everything at the default 0 position.
More complex features include detail enhancement (labeled as "Edge Enhancement") and noise reduction. The latter is divided into three categories: Mosquito NR, Block NR, and Random NR. The manual has only rudimentary descriptions of these functions. For what it's worth, the noise reduction options are only functional on standard DVD material, not true HD DVD discs, while Edge Enhancement will work on either. My personal feeling is that all of these should be turned off. I believe a DVD player should deliver exactly the picture as it's encoded on the disc, warts and all, without additional user tinkering. The NR features can help to temper video noise or grain, but only at the expense of also reducing real picture detail. Edge Enhancement provides a superficially sharper picture, with the cost of adding ugly electronic halos around object edges. Admittedly, the Reon chip's application of the these functions is more advanced than those found in most TVs or DVD players (noise reduction processors such as their expensive Mosquito and Flea units are the bread and butter of Silicon Optix's business), without the severe artifacts found in other products. Some viewers may find the compromise to their liking, but the larger your screen and more attentive to detail you are, the less beneficial the sacrifice becomes.
Getting to the Good Stuff: HD DVD Playback
HD DVD has been on the market for almost a year now, and the quality of the format's software and previous hardware has been thoroughly analyzed by this and other sources. So I'll skip the spiel about why High Definition is better than Standard DVD. It's sharper, clearer, more colorful, less artifacty, and so forth. This we know. Instead, let's talk about how the HD-XA2 differs from the previous generation of HD DVD players. To that end, in terms of general picture quality, the XA2 is every bit the equal of the HD-A1, which is to say that it produces some really terrific HD images. But at twice the price does it show a corresponding level of improvement? Yes and no. If you're hoping for a picture that's even sharper, more detailed, and more vibrant, then you'll probably be disappointed. In all honesty, it's about the same. Rather, the new player's primary improvements are in two areas: 1080p output and playback stability.
Let's start with playback. In the year that I've had it, I've been very pleased with the HD-A1's video quality, but every time I put in a disc I get a knot in my stomach, worrying whether or not the player will turn glitchy on me. Can I get through a whole movie without a freeze-up or skipping? It's a crapshoot -- sometimes yes, but often no. The machine can be downright infuriating and I was keen to jump into the second generation of players as soon as possible. I can say with some relief that the HD-XA2 is much better in this regard. While the initial boot-up is still a little slow by regular DVD standards, it's much quicker than the HD-A1 and hardly distracting. The new player loads discs in a flash, even those that took the A1 up to three minutes. That agonizing wait, listening to the A1 chug and churn and spin the disc over and over is a thing of the past. When you insert a disc it starts up very quickly.
I began immediately with my worst test case, a copy of 'The Matador' that freezes my HD-A1 to a dead stop in one particular spot (approximately the 67-min. mark) every time I've tried to play it. The only way to watch the rest of the movie on the A1 is to reboot the player, skip ahead to the next chapter, and then back up to the 69-min. mark and progress from there, missing two minutes of movie. I popped the disc into the XA2 and cued up the chapter. It glided through the scene without so much as a hiccup. I could finally watch those missing two minutes. This is a very good sign. I've played several movies through in their entirety since that test and had none of the glitchy playback issues that are so common on the HD-A1. I don't think I'm ready to declare the player perfect in this regard, because I've read posts on discussion forums where people have complained about random problems, some reproducible and some not, but I can say that when I put a disc into the XA2 I don't ever worry about it. I'm comfortable assuming that everything will be fine.
Even so, I have to note one small annoyance new to the XA2. When using the Fast Forward or Reverse controls, the picture first pauses for a beat before implementing your command. The A1 never did that. It's a small irritation, hardly worth complaining about, but it's there.
1080p: Miracle Feature or Hype?
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Exclusive to the HD-XA2 is the ability to output HD DVD video at 1080p resolution over HDMI. Previous HD DVD players maxed out at 1080i due to a limitation in their Broadcom decoder chips. In fact, the XA2 uses the same decoder chip. The video is decoded as 1080i and then run through the Reon processor downstream for deinterlacing to 1080p. Blu-ray players from Samsung and Panasonic work similarly. As such, you're not getting the original 1080p picture frames directly off the disc. They're interlaced and then deinterlaced after the fact. But is that necessarily a problem?
Keep in mind that 1080i and 1080p both contain the exact same amount of picture data per frame: 1920x1080 pixels. The difference is how that data is delivered to the display. 1080p transmits the whole frame at once, while 1080i transmits in two separate interlaced fields. Nonetheless, in the end it's all the same data. When viewed on a 1080p display, a 1080i input signal must be deinterlaced anyway, so those fields wind up recombined right back into their original frames. Assuming the deinterlacing is done properly, the effect should be seamless. Indeed, the XA2's Reon chip does an excellent job with this, and on all the HD DVD discs I tested I saw no evidence of combing, jaggies, or other deinterlacing artifacts. I compared the player's deinterlaced 1080p to 1080i output run through my iScan VP50 video processor (which also has top-of-the-line 1080i deinterlacing) and the two were essentially identical. If your display happens to have poor 1080i deinterlacing, in that case setting the XA2 for 1080p should offer an improvement.
On the other hand, in my signal chain choosing 1080p from the XA2 caused a host of HDMI handshaking problems that don't affect 1080i output. I found it usually takes several attempts to get the HDMI handshake to lock on when using 1080p. The player also loses its place if you switch over to another video source and then back while the 1080p setting is active, starting the disc over from the beginning. This doesn't happen at any other resolution.
The player also has the ability to downscale HD DVD content to 720p for display on screens of that resolution. The HD-A1 did a rather poor job of this, introducing many jagged edges and scaling artifacts into the picture. For that model, it was recommended to stick with 1080i output from the player and allow the display to handle the resolution conversion. The XA2 is not similarly crippled. It scales to 720p very cleanly, though when I tested on a 720p projector I found the player's 720p output a touch softer than 1080i output scaled externally by my VP50 processor.
All of this sounds pretty good so far: terrific picture quality, less glitchy than previous models, 1080p output. So where's the catch, you ask? Sadly, I did find one.
On certain discs, both HD DVD and standard DVD, I found the HD-XA2 to have a video stutter issue. To the eye it looks as if the player is dropping a frame here and there. It doesn't affect every disc, but on those it does, the problem is reproducible in the same location with repeated playback. The effect is subtle, but it's definitely there if you look for it, and it's not present on the HD-A1. I first noticed this in several spots early in 'Serenity,' during the scene where Simon is talking to the scientist and then later after the camera tilts up to reveal River hiding on the ceiling, but that movie has some jerky handheld camerawork that may mask the issue for some viewers.
The most blatant example I found is in 'World Trade Center.' At the 3:50 time code there's a static shot of a pedestrian walking from left to right across the frame. His movement clearly jerks forward unnaturally in two spots. This happens every time the scene is replayed. The same disc played in the HD-A1 shows perfectly smooth movement during that scene. I'll note that these are just some easily referenced examples. On affected discs the problem is persistent throughout the movie, not just in isolated spots. I've also found this on selected Standard-Def DVDs, including the "Mixed 3:2 with Titles" test pattern on the HQV Benchmark disc. Watch the words "typical" and "crawl" in the horizontal scrolling text.
Fearing that I might just have one bad unit, I was fortunately able to test two separate HD-XA2s (thank you again to Value Electronics) but found the same artifact on both.
Again, this problem is not present on every disc played. The majority of titles I've tested played smoothly. I can't seem to determine any common factors linking those that are affected. I tested the player at 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p resolution settings, none of which made any difference, so the player's deinterlacing and scaling can probably be ruled out as the source of the problem. I've spoken directly to Toshiba management to make them aware of the issue, and they say they are confident that they can replicate this and resolve it in a future firmware update. I'm eager to test that as soon as it's ready (note that the most recent 1.3 firmware upgrade does not solve the problem).
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HD DVD uses as its base standard the Dolby Digital Plus audio format. DD+ requires too much bandwidth (and copy protection) for its full bitstream to be transmitted over a legacy Optical or Coaxial S/PDIF connection. The first generation HD DVD players accommodated this by decoding the DD+ internally and then transcoding it to 1.5 Mb/s DTS 5.1. The result was a downgrade from the original DD+ but sounded every bit as good as full bit-rate DTS on DVD ever did, which is quite nice indeed. Unfortunately, this strategy left viewers with older Dolby-only audio receivers out in the cold.
The HD-XA2 takes a slightly different tack. Instead of transcoding to DTS, it converts the signal to Dolby Digital 5.1 at that format's maximum bit rate of 640 kb/s. This is arguably inferior to the DTS method (Dolby advocates would disagree), but ensures greater backwards compatibility.
To get the most out of Dolby Digital Plus or the lossless Dolby TrueHD formats that HD DVD offers, owners should ideally use either the HDMI or multi-channel analog audio outputs. In both cases, the player itself decodes the codec as a first step. From there, the audio can be transmitted in uncompressed PCM format over HDMI to an audio receiver for digital-to-analog conversion, or it can be converted internally and output over the analog connections. The HD-XA2 has the same highly regarded DACs as the previous HD-A1 and HD-XA1 models, so there shouldn't be any quality concerns when using the analog outputs.
At least that's the theory. In practice, I ran into some trouble. My audio receiver doesn't have HDMI, so I opted to use the 5.1 analog connections. I adjusted the player's speaker levels and distances to the same settings that worked quite well for me on the HD-A1. Things sounded pretty good until I hit any movie scene requiring bass. Essentially, there was hardly any LFE activity at all. When the building collapsed in 'World Trade Center,' it did so with barely a rattle. That didn't seem right. I switched over to the DD 5.1 downconversion over the player's S/PDIF output and replayed the scene. The bass slammed me in the chest as I'd expected it should. Clearly something was wrong. Next I went back to the HD-A1, using its analog outputs, and again I got that deep bass rumble.
At that point I broke out my sound level meter and began taking some measurements. Test tones measured normally on the 'Avia' calibration DVD over both analog and S/PDIF. I also put in some known bassy movies on Standard-Def DVD and had no shortage of expected gut-thumping rumble. Regular Dolby Digital and DTS on DVD don't seem to be affected, but LFE output from the HD-XA2's analog connection is clearly too low on both DD+ and Dolby TrueHD from HD DVD discs.
The HD-A1 had required a 10 dB bass boost at my receiver, as do most multi-channel analog sources. I expected that, but the HD-XA2's LFE is much lower still, to the point of being practically nonexistent. I found a particularly good example to test this at Chapter 2 on the HD DVD edition of 'The Wicker Man' (lousy movie, unfortunately). Nicolas Cage has some dialogue that makes a good reference point to take a non-bassy sound level measurement for volume matching purposes (the clearest line is "I've got it, honey"). Following this line, a truck passes by on the road that should have a good rumble of bass. Then shortly afterwards there's a huge crash that should again obviously provide a clean LFE hit, followed by some fire effects with more rumble.
Using S/PDIF, I set my volume so that Cage's line of dialogue hits exactly 70 dB. Then when I switched to analog, I adjusted the volume to make sure the same line hit that precise point (which required me to turn the volume up). Doing so, I found that the three events (truck passing, truck crash, and fire) had significantly more bass over S/PDIF and almost none at all over analog, even with the 10 dB bass boost at the receiver. Not only was this measurable on the sound level meter, but I have a tactile transducer (bass shaker) attached to my chair that's connected to my receiver's subwoofer output. So I can literally feel any difference in bass (and only bass - the shaker is connected only to the subwoofer output). The transducer gave my chair a good jostle with S/PDIF, but hardly moved with analog.
I tested the HD-A1 using the same methodology, and found both its S/PDIF and analog results were comparable to the HD-XA2's S/PDIF (again, with the disclaimer that my receiver requires a 10 dB bass boost on analog). The only odd man out is the XA2's analog, which has basically no bass at all.
I tried every conceivable option in the XA2's setup menu that might possibly have some impact on this: large speakers, small speakers, different crossover frequencies, subwoofer Use or Don't Use, Dynamic Range Control on or off or auto. In the channel volumes menu, I set the subwoofer for the 0 dB max and pulled every other channel down to the -12 dB minimum. I tested and measured and retested and remeasured that scene a few dozen times. I found small variances with different settings, but nothing really fixed the lack of bass, which is problematic using either the DD+ or TrueHD track on the 'Wicker Man' disc. Yet on the HD-A1 there's plenty of bass using the analog outputs (subwoofer 0 dB, front channels -1 dB are my calibrated settings for that player).
Bass levels on the player-generated test tones and on standard DVD playback are perfectly normal. It is only on HD DVD movies where this happens. I tried to be as thorough as possible in my evaluation, to the point of doing all of my tests on both available HD-XA2s, and found each identical. I've heard reports that the same problem is present when using HDMI to transmit the audio, but unfortunately I wasn't able to check that myself.
As if that weren't enough, I found that audio lip sync is off over the analog connection on many HD DVDs as well. It appears that not enough of an audio delay is present to match up with the player's video processing. It's not terrible but it can be distracting. As with the video stutter issue, feedback on both of these audio problems was provided directly to Toshiba. Hopefully they can get to the bottom of it and fix the problems with future firmware upgrades.
As for the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio codec that's starting to be used on some European HD DVD releases, the HD-XA2 handles this exactly the same as the HD-A1 and HD-XA1 did. The player does not fully support Master Audio decoding. Instead it extracts the standard DTS core, which is equivalent to DTS sound quality on DVD. Master Audio decoding is a feature that Toshiba says it hopes to implement in the future. At this time, all of the American HD DVD studios have been favoring the competing Dolby TrueHD codec, which is fully decoded by this player.
The Bottom Line: Is It Worth It?
The second generation of HD DVD hardware is here, offering some notable improvements in features and reliability over earlier players. The HD-XA2's much reduced glitchiness in HD DVD playback is a hugely welcome relief. Its upconversion of Standard-Def DVD content matches that of dedicated DVD players priced much higher, which in and of itself should be appealing to many consumers. General HD DVD picture quality is of course stellar, and many users will find its 1080p output option useful.
Unfortunately, I'm disappointed to report that Toshiba still hasn't quite worked out all the kinks in even their top-end model. I remain hopeful that the company can fix the HD-XA2's video stutter, low LFE, and audio sync issues in future firmware updates, but I doubt many potential buyers will be pleased to spend $999 and still experience problems that should have been resolved in quality testing before the product came to market. As such, I think the best course of action is to wait for the promised firmware upgrades before making a purchase decision. Assuming they rectify these lingering concerns, the HD-XA2 has the potential to be a tremendous piece of equipment.
Updated Audio News (June 9, 2007)
Since we first published this review, Toshiba has released a couple of firmware upgrades to the HD-XA2 player, primarily to resolve specific disc compatibility problems. While these updates have not completely fixed the audio issues mentioned above, a temporary workaround for the low bass over the 5.1 analog outputs has been discovered in Firmware V1.6. It turns out that the low bass is a symptom of defective speaker and bass management controls inside the player's audio decoder. For viewers (like myself) with small main speakers who rely on the decoder to redirect bass from other channels to the subwoofer, the player wasn't making any adjustments no matter what settings were entered. Likewise, if an owner had no center channel and needed the dialogue redirected to the left and right front channels, that wasn't working either. As a result, only viewers with a complete set of full-range large speakers were hearing movie soundtracks properly.
Thanks to the thorough testing of AVSForum members MauneyM and others, it has been discovered that changing the "Digital Out SPDIF" setting in the player from Bitstream to PCM re-enables bass and speaker management over the analog audio connections. No, this doesn't make logical sense, as that setting should have no effect on the analog output. Nevertheless, users with small main speakers will find bass restored to the subwoofer channel as desired, with the caveat that ideally a 15 dB bass boost should be applied at the receiver, rather than the expected 10 dB.
The downside to this workaround is that, if you were actually expecting to use the SPDIF output to transmit a digital bitstream for some applications, you'll need to manually adjust that setting each time. There's no clear explanation for why the SPDIF setting would affect the speaker management controls for the analog output, and hopefully Toshiba will continue to work on this problem in future firmware updates.
Updated Video News (September 17, 2007)
After 9 months on the market, Toshiba has released a major functional update for the HD-XA2 with Firmware V2.5, which enables the output of raw 1080p24 video over HDMI. For compatible HDTV displays that can properly sync to a 24 Hz signal (or an even multiple such as 48 Hz, 72 Hz, 96 Hz, or 120 Hz), 1080p24 will avoid the picture judder associated with the 3:2 pulldown process as normally seen on North American televisions. The difference can be extremely subtle, but the result will be smoother motion, especially during slow camera panning movements. The opening credits to the movie 'Sahara' provide a good test case. At regular 60 Hz playback, the sequence looks slightly jerky as the camera slowly moves through the room, but at 24 Hz the motion is smoother.
The 1080p24 setting also appears to fix the video stutter problem described above. That scene in 'World Trade Center' plays without dropping frames at that resolution (the stutter persists with 1080i or standard 1080p output settings).
Unfortunately, in my testing of Firmware V2.5, the 1080p24 setting had a negative side effect of throwing audio sync off on most of the discs played. The problem was so distracting that I had to return the player to 1080i output. Hopefully this can be resolved soon with another firmware enhancement.
Updated Video and Audio News (November 15, 2007)
It has apparently taken them a while to get to the bottom of it, but with the latest Firmware V2.7, Toshiba has repaired some of the lingering problems with the XA2 player. 1080p24 video output now works smoothly without any audio sync issues, and the video stutter affecting discs like 'World Trade Center' is completely fixed at all resolution outputs if the Picture Control option in the player's setup menus is set for "Film" (the "Auto" setting continues to stutter).
In addition, Firmware V2.7 adds a new functional update with the addition of "Direct Digital Audio Mode," which allows the raw digital bitstreams for the Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD advanced audio formats to be transmitted over HDMI 1.3 to a compatible receiver for decoding. While the XA2 will still not decode DTS-HD High Resolution or Master Audio internally as it can for Dolby Digital Plus or TrueHD, this bitstream function provides the first opportunity for owners to listen to these formats in full quality. However, it should be noted that when activated, the Direct Digital Audio Mode will only transmit the movie soundtrack itself, not any additional content such as menu beeps or Picture-in-Picture audio.
Unfortunately, playback of glitchy DVD/HD DVD Combo format discs such as '300' (as reported in our Combo Discs – What Went Wrong? column) remains problematic. Also, if using the multi-channel analog audio connections, the "Digital Out SPDIF" workaround setting described above is still required (I would further recommend setting all speaker sizes to "Small" regardless of what speakers are actually being used, as any other speaker size selections seem to trigger unwanted dynamic range compression).
The HD-XA2 may not yet be the perfect HD DVD player, but the Firmware V2.7 update makes some significant improvements that owners or potential buyers will find beneficial.
Updated Video News (February 20, 2008)
In a significant setback for the player, Toshiba's latest Firmware V2.8 introduces a new bug to the HD-XA2 while bringing no noticeable improvements.
A new update to the Owner's Manual claims: "A recent firmware update has enabled 24Hz output on your HD DVD player. Now this update further provides a selection of automatic 24Hz/60Hz detection mode and fixed 24Hz mode. Automatic 24Hz/60Hz detection mode is for future use. This option will detect frame rate of disc content. Because current HD DVD discs do not contain information to identify frame rate, this option is not effective at present. Use this option when discs become available in the market in the near future."
Unfortunately, with recent news that Toshiba is officially discontinuing HD DVD, it seems unlikely that any such discs with a frame rate identifier will ever be released. In the meantime, turning on the Auto frame rate selection option simply defaults the player to 1080p60 video output for all content. Viewers wishing to watch their movie discs at 1080p24 resolution must turn the new feature off, completely negating its usefulness.
Of greater concern is a new glitch in the player that causes the playback of discs encoded with AVC MPEG-4 compression (the codec favored by Paramount on many titles, including 'Transformers') to exhibit serious jaggy artifacts when viewed at 1080p24 resolution. The problem is not present at 1080i or 1080p60 output. This was not an issue with previous firmwares. Even more distressing, once you've loaded Firmware V2.8, the player will not allow you to roll back to any earlier version.
Since it seemingly has no substantive positive benefit, and introduces a new playback flaw, I advise all HD-XA2 owners to not load Firmware V2.8. The player is more stable with the earlier V2.7.
[A warning for owners of Toshiba's HD-A35 player: Firmware V2.0 for that model has the same error. The HD-A35 is best left at Firmware V1.3.]
Updated Video News (June 17, 2008)
Toshiba has released Firmware V3.0 for the HD-XA2. The company's supporting documentation does not make clear exactly what has been updated, but testing reveals that the 1080p24 jaggy problem introduced with Firmware V2.8 has not been corrected. Once again, owners requiring 1080p24 output are advised to stay with V2.7. [This likewise applies to the HD-A35 model, which has its own V3.0 firmware available simultaneously.]
On the other hand, the new firmware does seem to offer improvements in playback stability with glitchy discs. I cannot definitively state that the occasional glitchy playback issues are completely eradicated, but a few previously problematic discs had better results when I tested with Firmware V3.0. For that reason, owners not requiring 1080p24 output may wish to upgrade.
Updated Video News (October 3, 2008)
In an astounding development, 9 months after Toshiba officially pulled the plug on the HD DVD format, the company has issued a new firmware for all of their HD DVD player models. That's an impressive level of commitment. Thankfully, Firmware V4.0 finally fixes the problem with jaggy artifacts on AVC encoded discs that was first introduced with Firmware V2.8 (this applies to both the HD-XA2 and HD-A35 models). The release notes also cite the standard boilerplate about "playback stability," so some of those glitchy Combo discs may play a little better now. This update is highly recommended for all HD DVD owners.
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