HD DVD, for better or worse
Back in August I purchased an HD-A20 player from Amazon, and promptly enjoyed hours of HD Movies. This turned south when one day after powering it on, I was unable to get any sound out of it. After a few minutes of troubleshooting I was able to get it to play Audio from a Music CD, but it would refuse to play Audio from a DVD or HD DVD. Kind of defeats the purpose of the player. I upgraded the firmware and the problem went away, but I was wary of powering it off again, so I left it on non-stop until late October.
The next time I powered up the player, I got no sound, just like before. After spending all weekend trying to fix it I promptly threw in the towel and decided to call Toshiba. They told me to send the unit in and they would fix it. Bummer, I was trying to watch my copy of Transformers.
The service center is located in Massachusetts luckily so it was just a quick trip up the east coast. I did not have a box to ship it in so I cleverly staked out my local Wal-Mart and picked up the HD-A2 for $98 on that crisp Friday morning. My intent was to give the HD-A2 to my dad as an early Christmas gift and then use the box to ship my HD-A20 off to service.
It was all for naught when I found myself unable to get a video feed on the HD-A2 so we could set it up. I promptly called Toshiba to obtain a second Service Order number so I could send the HD-A2 up as well. I was able to get to Kinkos in time to make the nightly shipment and just had them pack my HD-A20 since I was again without a box.
My bad luck continued while my players are out for repairs, the 5 free HD DVD’s I had sent in for back in August showed up this week. Perfect timing of course, seeing as I had no means to play them.
As of Today my HD-A2 has arrived and is working, not a bad 5 business day turn around that included shipping up and back. However my HD-A20 seems to have died. Toshiba called me today to inform me it could not be saved. On the bright side, in 5 business days should be arriving a brand spanking new HD-A30 at no charge straight from Toshiba. Hopefully it will also include the 2 free movies in the box.
So while my experience with HD DVD so far has had mixed results, I can say for certain that Toshiba's service seems quite excellent on the off chance you do have a problem. The wait to speak to someone ranged from 5-15 minutes, but the representatives were pretty quick to write up a service ticket and give me the information to send the units away.
My rep quoted me a 3 business day repair time and 2 day back through FedEx. Good service that is quite rare in the electronics market today. Kudos Toshiba.
"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?... So why the f*** doesn't it do that?" -- Steve Jobs
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