It may only have been a 1080i player, but the Toshiba HD-E1 found a place in our hearts. Firstly, despite the fact that it's 1080i, it makes no difference when you watch film material. Secondly, it's cheap and simple.
Its technical successor, the Toshiba HD-EP30, has much to live up to. It has to be a low cost, high quality way to see HD DVDs. Can this £200 new model succeed like its predecessor? We have high hopes.
Design
The EP30 doesn't look particularly different to the E1, but there are some subtle differences. The EP30 has smoother, more modern edges, whereas the E1 looked boxy and retro. The EP30 is the other way round to the E1 with the disc tray on the opposite side. We aren't sure why Toshiba has swapped them over. It might be something to do with the inner workings, but whatever the reason, it makes no difference to the machine.
The remote control has been reworked, too. The EP30 has a much smaller, ligher controller. The size reduction is possibly because Toshiba has decided to remove the TV control keys. This sounds like a shame, but we'd wager most people never even bother programming these things to control their TV anyway, so it's not much of a problem.
To the back of the EP30 there's one slight modification -- the S-Video socket has been removed. Now the only standard definition output is the composite video. To be honest, we'd rather they dropped the composite and left S-Video on, but as they are both standard definition, it's not a big deal.
Everything else is the same. Of course, there is an HDMI socket and an Ethernet connection for hooking the player up to the Internet for extra interactivity. Analogue component outputs are also available.
Physically, the EP30 is smaller than the E1. It's slightly less tall and isn't quite as deep. You'll also notice that the front flap has now gone, revealing playback control buttons on the front of the machine.
Features
The major advantage of the EP30 over the E1 is the addition of 1080p playback. The EP30 also supports 24p out of the box, via an option that is selectable in the picture settings menu.
The EP30 has the now trademark Toshiba HD DVD menu system. It's clear and easy to use. There are a couple of things we've had problems with in the past, such as updating the firmware of the players behind an ADSL router. The E1 refused to cooperate in these circumstances, but Toshiba will send an update disc out in the post though, should this affect you.
The EP30 has the same basic network configuration, although you'll need to enable DHCP and DNS to get it working properly. Once you do, you'll get the added option of seeing extras on HD DVD downloaded from the Internet.
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Count Stex 24 January 2008
Good: Superb image quality at a bargain price
Bad: Still a slow load time
Comment: Like all HD players the load times are still a little long, however once up and running I find this unit faultless. Watching PiP Bluescreen commentary on 300 is just fantastic. At it's current price point it's worth it just for an upscaller, add to the mix the quality HD-DVD aspects and it pretty much unbeatable.
Jacky Walker 8 January 2008
Good: Cheap entry level HD, good quality picture
Bad: Seriously flawed 'resume' facility
Comment: This is a competent player (though nothing warms me to it, it is just a box). The loading, deloading and open tray delays are really tedious, but I understand standard for HD.
What I found SO annoying, that I nearly threw the thing out on the first day, is that there are few circumstances where you can resume play from where you stopped, mid movie. And that becomes zero circumstances after you've put the machine on standby. So if you're like me, and frequently want to pause a film part way overnight, forget it. You're back to the start of the disc and manually finding your place again.
Toshiba tell me there is a free firmware upgrade (they can send a cd) which will improve the situation, but not completely cure it as HD disc manufacturers are apparently not yet coding the resume function into their discs.
COME ON GUYS - grow up. There are people out here who want equipment that works efficiently. If an ordinary DVD and DVd player can do this with no problems, an HD should be able to as well.
Oh, and apparently the EP30 doesn't play MP3 files, another backwards step.
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