Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this DVD player as my first entry into the world of HD-DVD. My expectation level was very high based on the reviews that this product has received and Toshiba's reputation as an industry leader. My experience, however, has not lived up to my expectations. Initial setup went as expected and I immediately download the latest firmware (version 1.1). The firmware update took approximately 1/2 hour but completed normally. I tested the unit with both HD-DVDs and standard DVDs. The HD picture and sound quality were excellent and the up-convert of the standard DVD was very good. That's the good news. While watching only my second HD-DVD (brand new), the player froze for approximately 1 second about half way through the movie. It then continued to play, however, the picture and sound tracks were no longer in sync. I stopped the movie, rewound through the affected scene and re-played and it played perfectly. Later, I tried to simply power up the player and it locked up completely. The lights were on but it would not respond to controls from either the front panel or the remote. I had to force a power down by pressing and holding the power button until it powered off. My final complaint is concerning speed. This unit takes considerably longer to power up to a ready state than any DVD player that I have ever owned. It is also very slow to load DVDs and extremely slow to respond to remote commands. I understand that this unit is in it's infancy and I sincerely hope that Toshiba is able to work out the bugs with firmware updates. With that said, however, I expected more quality from a DVD player with a $500 price tag. 01/03/08 - As an addendum to my original review - Since upgrading to firmware 1.3, my experience has improved considerably. It's still a little slow on startup, but nothing like it was and my playback issues have virtually vanished. I'm very glad that I gave it a second chance and didn't send it back. At this point, I would probably give it 4-5 stars.