Review of the TOSHIBA HD-XA2 HD-DVD Player

" TOSHIBA HD-XA2 HD-DVD Player

Hardware review

By John J. Puccio
First published Feb 13, 2007

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DVDTOWN's Senior Review Editor, John J. Puccio, takes a look at Toshiba's second-generation, top-of-the-line HD-DVD player, the HD-XA2.

There are some people who will never consider buying a piece of first-generation technology no matter what the cost. You can't blame them. First-generation equipment may contain bugs and quirks that manufacturers sort out in later machines. The Toshiba HD-XA2 is among the company's second-generation HD-DVD players, and it does, indeed, iron out some of the wrinkles their first-gen players exhibited, while adding an assortment of new features, some worthwhile, others less so.

In any case, the question a person still has to ask is whether it's worth paying the price of a top-of-the-line player when a company also offers a lower-priced model. For instance, is the higher-priced Toshiba HD-XA2 reviewed here really almost twice as good as the company's lower-priced HD-A2 machine? Well, that's up to the consumer to decide, but one thing is certain: Toshiba gives the buyer a better value for the extra dollars this time around than they did between their earlier A1 and XA1 models. There, it was no contest; the lower-cost player was clearly the better deal. Here, the rewards for one's dollars spent are a little more apparent.

Going back, the initial Toshiba HD-A1 and HD-XA1 players were the first in a new wave of high-definition machines (along with Sony's Blu-ray, a competing but different and incompatible technology) capable of reproducing high-definition signals of up to 1080 x 1920 scan lines. That was a big leap from the 480 lines produced by standard-definition (SD) DVDs, and it meant a lot more pixels reaching the screen, over six times as many overall, which translated into a sharper, more detailed picture. Now that the two technologies (HD-DVD and Blu-ray) have been around for the better part of a year, consumers have come to see for themselves the differences between SD and HD reproduction, both in picture and sound quality, and the new technologies have attracted quite a few converts. Toshiba's new players will make consumers think even more.

What's in the XA2:
Like the lower-priced HD-A2, Toshiba's top-of-the-line HD-XA2 is backward compatible with existing software. It will play high-definition HD-DVDs as well as standard-definition DVDs and CDs (HD-DVD, DVD, DVD-R/-RW, CD, and CD-R/-RW, as well as Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and the various flavors of DTS). So again you can be sure that most of the discs you already own should play fine.

To give you an idea of what the XA2 is capable of doing, besides outputting up to 1080 x 1920 lines of resolution, let me remind you of a few of the things that HD-DVDs are capable of doing. They give the user instant access to disc menus without stopping the movie, as well as the ability to browse through chapter indexes, change setup options, and select bonus materials; plus, they enable picture-in-picture experiences--superimposing motion video, picture inserts, and filmmaker commentaries--over the movie without having to stop the film. In other words, HD-DVDs offer better picture quality, better audio quality, and better navigation through a load of supplemental material than regular SD DVDs. If I'm beginning to seem like a salesman here, I suppose you could say that, yes, I am sold on the idea of high definition, whether it be from Toshiba's HD-DVD or Sony's Blu-ray. But it is Toshiba under discussion, so let me tell you what's new in the XA2 besides what's continuing from the older model.

In terms of its appearance, features, outputs, and such, the XA2 not only duplicates the best attributes of its predecessor but adds a few refinements of its own. On the front you'll again find a display of pertinent information, like track times, chapter selections, screen resolutions, and so forth. Then, mostly concealed under a fold-down door you'll find buttons for play, stop, pause, skip, etc.; a mode switch for video output; and extension ports for what Toshiba says are "addition control options," whatever that means. As far as I could tell, though, there is still no bit counter. Or if there is one, I couldn't find it.

On the backside of the XA2, you'll find outputs for just about everything: For video and/or audio, there is an HDMI output (up to 1080p); for video alone, there are component video outs (up to 1080i), an S-Video out (480i only), and a composite video out (480i only). For audio, there are coaxial and optical digital outs; two-channel analogue audio outs; and 5.1-channel analogue audio outs. The back of the machine also boasts a jack for custom control devices and a LAN port to link your machine to an Internet connection for firmware upgrades. (If your computer is too far away from the HD player to make a LAN connection practical, you can make a toll-free call to Toshiba, and the company will send you upgrades via disc.)

So, what is new in the XA2? There are several items of immediate importance. First, there is the look of the new machine--lower, slimmer, and sleeker than the old XA1, all decked out in glossy black to enhance its svelte lines. In appearance alone, the XA2 looks like it's out to be a Blu-ray killer. Second, it loads faster than previous Toshiba models. Third, it offers more picture enhancements than before. Fourth, it comes with a similar-looking but slightly improved remote control. Fifth, the player uses Silicon Optix REON processing for playback, and it features the 297 Mhz/12 bit video DAC with 4x oversampling. And, sixth, there are two other items of importance: It sports 1080p (progressive scan) output and incorporates the HDMI 1.3 standard.

It is these last items that are of question for the moment, but they are likely to be major selling points in product ads and dealer showrooms. The competing Blu-ray player has delivered 1080p from the outset, and it was no doubt a boon to sales clerks. "Why, of course Blu-ray is better than HD-DVD: 1080p." Customers had no idea what the salesman was talking about, but it sounded good and probably sold any number of machines. So, now Toshiba retaliates with a 1080p player of its own. Does 1080p make a difference? In most cases, no. From my own viewing experience and according to every comparison review I've read, there is no visible difference between 1080i and 1080p on most 1080p televisions. This "i" and "p" business refers to two different methods of delivering scan lines to the screen, interlaced and progressive, but once there, 1080 x 1920 lines are 1080 x 1920 lines. Progressive scan makes a difference at 480 lines and perhaps at lower frame rates, smoothing out high-motion video in particular, and it's here that the XA2's upscaling to 1080p probably has an advantage; but at high-definition resolutions, not even the experts can see an improvement. Still, if you have a television capable of delivering 1080p (and because the 1080p angle is such a great sales gimmick, stores are selling more and more such units, even if many of them are not actually native 1080p machines), you might feel better about having spent your money for a top-of-the-line HD player with 1080p output. As the story goes, if you've coughed up enough dough, you're darned right it's going to be better!

The other added feature that may be of more importance down the road is the incorporation of the HDMI 1.3 standard. In terms of video, this offers the promise of more and deeper colors, and in terms of audio, up to 7.1 channels of lossless sound. But there are several big "however's." To realize these benefits, you will need a television that includes the 1.3 standard, and no such sets are expected on the market until late 2007; even then, there may be the question of cost. Moreover, no receivers I'm aware of currently include the 1.3 standard, so we'll have to wait that out a bit, too. In addition, I would guess that few studios will be induced to include more than 5.1 channels on their HD-DVDs because of bandwidth considerations. And on top of all that, there is no guarantee that the 1.3 picture or sound will be that much better than what is available today (except the extra channels, which will require a 7.1 receiver) because very few people have yet to see or hear it. In other words, the inclusion of 1080p probably will not effect much or any noticeable improvement in high-def picture quality; and the jury is still out on 1.3, which will only help those folks who intend to buy new televisions and new multichannel receivers in the near future. I say "near future" meaning in the next few years, because beyond that there will probably be new technologies to explore and new ultrahigh-definition players to buy.

Anyway, there is always the pride factor to consider: With the XA2 you can tell your friends that your new player outputs 1080p in the latest 1.3 HD standard. They will be duly impressed without having a clue, and you will feel great about how sensibly you spent your money. Seriously, the "p" and the 1.3 provide peace of mind, and the sleek new lines, the faster start-up times, and the more-useful remote are definite pluses in the XA2's favor, so let me talk for a moment about how it all works.

How the XA2 Performs:
The first thing one notices upon starting up the XA2 is that it still makes noise. The machine is basically a computer at heart, so it needs a fan to keep it cool. The new fan is smaller than in the A1 or XA1, to be sure, but it makes just as much noise as the old ones. I placed a sound-level meter near the rear fan on my A1 and in the same position on the rear of XA2 and got essentially the same readings. By comparison, my desk computer uses three internal fans (for the case, the CPU, and the graphics card), and it makes less noise than this player. Sitting across the room, I could notice the fan whir on both Toshiba players, but in fairness this was only at start-up and during almost dead-quiet moments in a film. While playing a movie, I usually was not aware of any fan noise at all, so maybe the point is moot.

The next thing one notices about the XA2 is its faster start-up time. It isn't greatly improved, but it is noticeable. I timed the older XA1 and my own A1 loading an HD-DVD at about twenty-eight seconds from the time of pushing the start button to the time the door opened, and then about thirty seconds from the time of loading the disc to the time the disc began to play. With the XA2, these times were twenty-three and eighteen seconds respectively. So, the newer player knocks off about a third of the total load time. Load times for standard-definition DVDs are even faster.

Then there's the matter of the new remote-control unit. Perhaps "new" is too strong a term. It looks at first glance pretty much like the old remote except in black with silver buttons rather than all silver. If you own an XA1 or A1 remote, you know it's long and narrow, somewhat weighty, awkward to handle, with buttons that are more stylish than functional and printing that is almost impossible to read. The new remote is the same size and shape, with the same narrow buttons on top and tiny round buttons on the bottom. However, Toshiba must have been listening at least a little because they have made the buttons a bit more responsive and doubled the size of the print beneath each one. Moreover, they include the backlighting found on the XA1 (which helps enormously), they rearranged the location of several functions ("Setup" is no longer under the drawer but up on top), and they added some additional features (like the picture controls discussed below). Nevertheless, I still preferred to use my little universal remote (a $25 Sony RM-VL600, probably the best home-theater purchase I've ever made) with its bigger, easier-to-find buttons, because Toshiba's buttons continue to all look alike. Unless you memorize every position, you might still find yourself shutting down a movie entirely instead of just pausing it. Finally, for those folks who refuse to read the instruction manual, Toshiba has also included under the sliding door a nonfunctional button labeled "Main/Sub." The Owner's Manual says it is "For future functions which may become available by software update." It should frustrate the heck out of people who never get to page 15.

Insofar as the XA2's video quality goes, the picture is terrific through the HMDI output. As with the A1 and XA1, image clarity is outstanding, and on bigger-screen TVs it will undoubtedly be even more pleasing compared to standard definition. Detailing, contrast, color depth, and black levels are also superb, and again there were no signs of added grain, pixilation, moiré effects, dropouts, lost frames, or the like.

Whether or not the new player displays a better picture than the A1 and XA1, I could not say. In the week I had the XA2 hooked up in my system, I used it to play through five HD-DVD movies in their entirety ("The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," which came with the player, "Batman Begins," "Troy," "The Departed," and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"), plus a half a dozen more movies in bits and pieces, and, frankly, I could tell little or no difference in video quality between the new machine and the A1 I've been using for the better part of the past year. This observation is in no way meant to diminish the quality of the XA2, however; it is merely to suggest that Toshiba's video output is probably about as good as it is going to get on these players until we see ultrahigh definition some day. Additionally, the Tosh centered non-anamorphic SD widescreen movies and older 1.33:1 fullscreen movies perfectly, with all of them showing up better than I had ever seen them before. For instance, I don't remember the mediocre picture quality on "True Lies" ever looking so good.

Also in line with earlier Toshiba HD-DVD players, the XA2 does a splendid job upscaling standard-definition discs, maybe even better than the A1 and XA1. If I had not known that the SD edition of "Star Wars: A New Hope" was transferred to disc at 480i, I might have mistaken the upscaled picture for genuine high definition. A closer inspection does reveal a degree of softness in the image, to be sure, but it's close.

In addition, to complement the already good picture, the new Toshiba enables users to tailor the video to their own taste. One of the buttons on the remote is labeled "Picture," and it is here that one can adjust the video and save up to three sets of preferences. The adjustment parameters include contrast, brightness, color, tint, selective color enhancement, edge enhancement, mosquito noise reduction, block noise reduction, and random noise reduction. The latter three items work only for SD DVDs, but the others affect HD-DVDs as well. The settings are handy for adapting the Toshiba's picture quality to one's particular television, playing back, say, neutral settings for most discs, and perhaps brighter and duller settings for those movies that are recorded darker or lighter than others. These settings are also helpful for people whose televisions do not already have such adjustments for each video input.

Now for the audio. Like the video, as far as I could tell, the Toshiba XA2's audio output sounds about the same as the A1's and XA1's, processed using a new Dolby Digital re-encoder to make it more compatible with a wider variety of home theater systems and receivers and sent out through the player's digital coaxial or optical outputs; or processed in analogue and sent out through the player's HDMI or 5.1 analogue outputs. (In any case, remember to set the audio output to Bitstream in the player's Setup menu; for reasons unknown, Toshiba seems to default it to PCM.)

As before, I used the player's 5.1 analogue outputs, which provided clean, vivid, well-focused sound in my system. I suspect that until receivers incorporate the 1.3 standard, the XA2's analogue outs will continue to offer the least-compressed possible audio, not only for Dolby Digital Plus, but especially for lossless Dolby TrueHD. It's a shame that as a cost-saving measure, Toshiba left the analogue outputs off the lower-priced A2, or that model might have been a better value. (Interestingly, in another cost-saving move, Toshiba no longer include an HDMI cable for either model. You have to buy one on your own.)

Several final items of passing interest: First, I noted that like the A1 and XA2, the XA2's analogue bass response continues to be lower than its midrange and high-end response; so if you own the XA2 and are using the analogue outs, I would advise you to increase the bass (by five or six decibels) on your amplifier's XA2 audio input. (But do not rely on Toshiba's built-in set of test tones for measuring the unit's bass response; the results do not appear entirely accurate. Use, instead, a dedicated AV calibration disc for this purpose or the little THX Optimizer test you find on THX-mastered DVDs.) Second, I noticed that on most of my HD-DVDs, the remote's Time-Search button still doesn't work. This is not a defect in the player. Most HD-DVD manufacturers are not implementing the time or chapter search functions on their discs. When I played the Toshiba HD-DVD demo disc, the timing and chapter searches worked fine, as they do with SD discs. Third, there remains the quirkiness of the HDMI handshake, which may be unique to my Sony TV or to select brands of televisions. Namely, clicking out of the HDMI connection during HD-DVD playback results in having to start the movie all over again from the beginning rather than being able to resume the film where it left off. Likewise, stopping (not pausing, which works fine) an HD-DVD during playback results in having to start all over. The "Resume" button on the remote would not take my player back to the point of stopping. Again, this is not the case with SD DVDs, which may be stopped and resumed at will. Maybe it's just me and my specific equipment, or for all I know it may be another feature that disc manufacturers are not implementing. I have no idea. Lastly, music CDs sounded great, and navigation through them was lightning fast.

Parting Thoughts:
As I've said, I'm no salesman. It is not my job to tell people what to buy but to report my impressions, and my impressions of the Toshiba XA2 are highly favorable. It played everything I threw at it flawlessly. Still, while I doubt that the machine does quite enough to persuade most current owners of A1s or XA1s to move up, first-time buyers interested in HD-DVD will find the XA2 everything they could want. Its handsome lines would look good in any system; its 1080p capability is good for bragging rights; the incorporation of the HDMI 1.3 standard helps future-proof it, at least in the near run; its host of functions make it an all-around versatile machine; and, most of all, its excellent audio and video qualities set the example for the industry.

The XA2's cost, $799 MSRP as of this writing, isn't bad when you consider that you can find the player discounted at any number of places. For me, personally, the inclusion of the 5.1 analogue outputs are worth the extra expense of the XA2 over its lower-cost sibling. But that's just me.

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