I got my player delivered 9th October and was absolutely amazed how easy it was to set up. First movie i played was King Kong and i was stunned by the picture quality i also played some of my older DVDs and it upscaled them beautifully contacted Toshiba to see if there is any firmware upgrades and lo and behold they popped a disk in the post. Thanks to the reviewer who posted about getting 5 free DVDs i filled out the application and sent it off Cheers i could have missed out on that
All in all not the top of the range player but does the job wonderfully well.

Play does it again! This is the perfect way to get the best out of your shiny flat panel tv! At this price you cant go wrong, a quick call to Toshiba Customer Services to get the firmware upgrade DVD and you're sorted. If this dont flick your switch, nothing wont!

Ok, its not the full spec of HDDVD, only does 1080i if you don't have HDMI audio decoding possibilities, youre limited to optical or 2 channel analogue, and takes a long time to book. For the average home user though, thats more than enought! But if you go to the toshiba website, and to home entertainment you can print off a 5free dvd offer. Thats over £70 of free good movies! Making this player really only £100. Its mad!

Hello, i tried to read all difference reviews about various hd players. I decided to opt for this one as it seemed to be the best priced in keep with the popularity of hd dvds. I was blown away with the picture quality, its brilliant. I got the player and immediately watched two hd dvds. i was fixed to the tv. Then i decided to watch a normal dvd and oh my god you can tell the difference.

this player is brilliant and i highly recommend it!!

This is a great performing HD-DVD player and SD DVD upscaler for the budget. Just a point about 1080p - it's only the best picture you can get if you have the appropriate panel to watch it on. My Fujitsu 58 series 42" plasma in 720p/1080i will out-perform ANY 1080p LCD or low-end plasma. No argument. If you have a 65" plasma then maybe 1080p would be noticable. Don't swallow the 1080p marketing rubbish. It's not about RESOLUTION it's about PERFORMANCE.

This machine is frustrating.

It takes 40 seconds to boot to a DVD menu, and the DVD needs inserting halfway through this delay.

The picture quality and sound are impressive with HD-DVDs through a 50in Samsung and Kenwood/Eltax 5.1 setup. It is region 2 only for standard DVDs, so I need to keep a second player attached.

The main problem however is its invariable habit of crashing every 10 to 60 seconds whilst playing. Usually it will restart if paused for a couple of seconds, sometimes it will need rebooting - wasting another 40 seconds!!

This happens on every DVD (HD or standard) I have tried.

I have been sent 3 firmware CD updates, and updated once from the internet. The internet connection is not intuitive but I got there in the end... I have confirmed that I have the latest firmware, but it still just drops into a multi-coloured screen of random pixels after a few seconds.

Toshiba have now agreed to have it back for repair (not replacement) although it is less than 2 months old, has not played a single DVD for more than 2 minutes, and much of its short life with me has been spent waiting to be upgraded.

Then they took ages to send the returns box to me, needing reminding twice...

Now awaiting the repaired version to be returned, and I am hoping that I have so far just been unlucky.

If it comes back working as it should I will be delighted. It would then be promoted to 4* - losing a star for this 2 month hassle and of course for the rather long boot time.

We will wait and see. Fingers crossed and all that.

i tataly agree with devilmaycry1985 comments about what DonnonM said...DonnonM doesnt know what he's talking about...1080p is the best pic you can get at this present time.....even tho i dont have this player i will soon be getting a HD dvd player as i wont to watch the new Transformers film in full ..either full 1080p(with new z series toshiba tv) or 720p ..(on my current tv)..though this HD E! player doesnt do 1080p (please correct me if im wrong) but for me it might just be the Toshiba HD EX1 which does output 1080p...

Just to let you know that DonnonM is wrong. 1080i is an interlaced picture, whereas 1080p is a progressive picture. It is nothing to do with stability. A 1080p TV and DVD Player with a good HDMI cable is the best picture you can have!!

If you need to upgrade your DVD player for an upscaler, spend the extra and get this. I've got an XBOX 360 and thought that for the extra £60 over the HD DVD add on, I will get a HD DVD and upscaler in one.
Yes, it does take 30 seconds to start up, but I'm not that inpatient to watch my future copy of Transformers.

this is mostly in response to sleeth's comment about 1080p. correct this player cannot produce 1080p but 1080p is not the best, people believe it to be more stable because it makes the picture in one pass, when stable 1080i not p is the greatest picture quality and 1080i is perfectly stable, people get so confused over this, so just for future reference for anyone who's interested.