Toshiba HD-XE1 HD-DVD Player
The HD-XE1 is a substantial looking HD-DVD Player, looking ‘chunky’ but not bulky and ugly like some of its counterparts have of late.
From: Toshiba
Price: Approx £650
Reviewer: Keri Allan
The HD-XE1 is a substantial looking HD-DVD Player, looking ‘chunky’ but not bulky and ugly like some of its counterparts have of late.
It does the job, and well, but what makes it stand out against the competition? Well, it mainly has to be its features. Surprisingly, only two buttons are on show, and these are the round power switch and the eject button to the right of the disc tray.
However, pull down the flap that covers the bottom half of the face plate, and you’ll find a set of basic playback controls along with a “Mode” switch that can be flicked between 1 and 2. The Mode switch determines whether the player outputs a high definition signal or downscales to standard definition, although why you’d want to use 2 goes way over our heads.
Also hiding behind the front fascia flap are two USB ports, which could be a good future proofing move. But it’s the rear of the player that makes you know this is a ‘good un’. There’s a plethora of gold plated connection options; including HDMI and component video outputs for digital and analogue high definition connection. . In addition to two-channel audio output, you'll also find connectors for 5.1 audio so you can hook it up directly to a surround sound amp without a decoder. There’s also an Ethernet port for connection to the Internet – this is a mandatory requirement for HD DVD players, so every player, no matter how basic, will have access to online content and be able to download firmware updates from the Web.
Image quality-wise, the player can output in 1080p, and the quality is crisp and sharp – you wonder how we ever though DVD was the perfect format! The realism and quality that HD adds to the viewing experience is great, and I advise everyone to check out HD – it’s great!
Sadly, from the way things are looking in the next-gen format war, Blu-ray looks to be beating HD-DVD hands down, and so buying this may be a tough call, as next year HD-DVD could become obsolete! So think twice before buying an HD-DVD unit, however if you choose to stand by this format, this model, with all its offerings, is definitely a good buy. The price is still a shame however, as the unit does have a lot of features, but since you can buy a Blu-ray player with many more features in the form of the PS3, you can see why Sony’s format is in the lead…