Toshiba HD-A1 was the first HD DVD player to arrive on the market and last week it arrived in the North America. Now the first review of Toshiba’s HD DVD player has arrived and even if its not the most scientific review we’ve seen there is a lot of thoughts and information about HD-A1 that might be interesting for those who are waiting for HD DVD to spread around the world. Among others we get it in writing that Toshiba HD-A1 only sports 1080i, in other words not 1080p, which is HD DVD and Blu-ray’s “best” resolution. According to DVD Town that has tested HD-A1 there is nothing wrong with the image quality with Toshiba’s player though, but interestingly the player behaves more like a computer than a regular DVD player.
“Upon initially turning it on, the machine has to transfer some data and check some things, like, I’m told, watermarks on an HD-DVD to see if it’s a bootleg. The Toshiba owner’s manual informs us that “the HD-DVD player operates more like a computer and differently than a standard DVD player. In addition to containing a microprocessor, it contains an operating system, random access memory (RAM), and an HD DVD drive.” So expect it to be slow. I counted about thirty seconds or more to load a disc.”
