How are the 1st gen HD DVD players holding up?

[Centauri]

I love my HD-A20 and have no intention of ever getting rid of it. But lately I've been intrigued by the first generation players. Specifically their rugged design and coaxial digital output.

Before I start getting serious about buying one, I wanted to ask how they compare to 2nd and 3rd gen players, especially considering the most recent firmware updates?

How are they on HD DVD PQ vs later players? SD DVD? Audio? ...etc

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Blacklac]

Audio is supposed to be really good, esp. the XA1. I had a used XA1 for about a week. Unfortunetly it lost video output, it was probably a refurb to begin with. It was def. slow. SD upconversion was about on par with my A2, not much of a difference there. Beautiful player, nice remote.

Overall, I really liked the XA1, except it was slow and it broke. Bad luck though.

[chris gerhard]

I have the HD-A1 and it has been fine but I would say buy another HD-A20 or HD-XA2 or HD-A35, not an HD-XA1 or HD-A1. It just seems to me we want 1080p/24 playback. The HD-XA2 is worth the premium if you plan to keep this silly dead format alive in your home over the long haul.

Chris

[The BJD]

I recently put my X-A1 away as a back-up. It got better with every firmware update and is better now than when I bought it. It loads a little slow but I love the player and played a lot of movies on it without any problems. I have an X-A2 and A-35 and love them as well but that big heavy X-A1 looked excellent and is still almost perfect. I also like the remote better than any of the others.

[The BJD]

Originally Posted by Blacklac

Audio is supposed to be really good, esp. the XA1. I had a used XA1 for about a week. Unfortunetly it lost video output, it was probably a refurb to begin with. It was def. slow. SD upconversion was about on par with my A2, not much of a difference there. Beautiful player, nice remote.

Overall, I really liked the XA1, except it was slow and it broke. Bad luck though.

Some of the first gen had issues with HDMI. Toshiba will fix it for you if you don't mind waiting a week for the turnaround. I had no problems with mine but I had a friend with an A-1 that sent it in and got it back in about two weeks. The X-A1 is excellent with optical connections as well.

[Blacklac]

Originally Posted by The BJD

Some of the first gen had issues with HDMI. Toshiba will fix it for you if you don't mind waiting a week for the turnaround. I had no problems with mine but I had a friend with an A-1 that sent it in and got it back in about two weeks. The X-A1 is excellent with optical connections as well.

I bought it off ebay. I returned it for a full refund since they didn't have anymore in stock. Now, I wish I would have just sent it to Toshiba.

[CochiseGuy]

Originally Posted by The BJD

Some of the first gen had issues with HDMI. Toshiba will fix it for you if you don't mind waiting a week for the turnaround. I had no problems with mine but I had a friend with an A-1 that sent it in and got it back in about two weeks. The X-A1 is excellent with optical connections as well.

I think it depended on the firmware version. My XA1 was fine until I updated to FW 2.2 that was supposed to support the first web features on Blood Diamond. It turned my HDMI connection into such a mess I rolled back to 2.1. The FW 2.3 & 2.4 were fine.

I sold my XA1 last fall when I got an A35; wish I'd kept it now - the drive was rock solid, never had a skip or hiccup. And the XA1 was built like a battleship.