14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that the long-awaited second wave of HD DVD players are now hitting retailers. Several reports have confirmed that Toshiba's second generation HD-A2 is now showing in local stores throughout the country but also at online retailers. To refresh your memory a little, Toshiba's first generation of HD-DVD players (HD-A1 especially) had plenty of firmware bugs and flaws including issues with very slow startup times, problems with HDMI compatibility depending on the output panel, sometimes heavy artifacting with 720p content and lack of 1080p support. Moreover it's a known fact that Toshiba's player was pretty big at least when compared with other solutions.
On the other hand, the HD-A1 player did have a good image quality, upgradeable firmware and came at an unbeatable price compared to the competing Blu-ray players. At the moment, the HD-A1 can be found at around $400 at various retailers. As for the new one, HD-A2 solves a lot of problems and bugs but still lacks 1080p support (for 1080p output, you'll have to buy the upcoming HD-XA2).
According to various statements coming from the buyers, startup times are still around 35-45 seconds. The disc loading time has been reduced from 60-75 seconds to only 5-15 seconds. The unit itself is now slimmer, lighter, and a lot quieter and is overall a well thought item. There's also a new remote that replaces the one that came with HD-A1.Toshiba has announced a price tag of $499 for the HD-A2.
HD-DVD market is coming towards a successful year-end. With about 200 titles already launched on disks and several standalone players being launched, the format itself is turning out to be quite a hit.