I pretty much got screwed every which way on this deal. I bought the thing in December when the prices were still high on these things. By the time the price dropped it was too late for a price match although I did eventually receive a $50 Amazon GC.

The 2 discs in the box I already had so I sold them for whatever I could get for a copy of Bourne and a copy of 300 (not much). The 5 free deal it's well known that by the time they showed up it was pretty much crap I didn't want or already had.

Now the thing kept giving me the dreaded error code 408bc504 on some of my discs like Batman Begins and wouldn't even load Combo discs on the HD side.

So I finally got around to updating the firmware. The process was easy and flawless. Only problem? IT DIDN"T FREAKIN WORK.

So for now I've playing with my A3. It only plays 1080i but so far I really can't tell a difference and since it plays movies I wasn't able to watch on the old one, there is no way to compare. Funny thing is the A3 still has the old version of firmware and it plays better than the more expensive unit. So basically I have a nice $300 upconverting player for the bedroom.

Toe-she-ba

Make dream come true!

Shouldn't the A35 still be in warranty? Have Toshiba fix it.

Agreed. If bought new it should have the 1 year warranty.

I wouldn't expect quick service, but they should fix it.

I'll have to check with Toshiba on Monday. I going to call them Monday but I was thinking they weren't supporting them anymore. At least I still have my A3 as a backup. I'm sure I'll have to send in the A35 and will get it back sometime in 2009

Toshiba isn't making new HD DVD players, but they are still supporting existing units.

That sucks, I'd definitely give them a call. I thought about upgrading my player when prices started dropping, but I've read numerous stories like this about the A3-lines.

The only disc my A2 has never wanted to play was the occassional music CD.

Both my A1 and A2 stopped reading discs. I had an extended warranty on both and ended up with an LG BH200 as a replacement. So far it works fine on HD DVD and BD, but gives me random disc read errors on DVDs. I'm pretty much convinced after my experience with these players and my Sharp Aquos BD player (I almost forgot I also have a Toshiba A3 that freezes randomly during playback from time to time) that next gen players are overpriced garbage. It is a sad day when the only quality next gen player I own is a Playstation 3.

The linux based set top player needs to die. They are buggy junk.

my launch day XA1 is still going strong. thing's a tank. (knock wood).

yep. my A35 has played every disc i've thrown at it. i've never upgraded the firmware and never will.

Just got a firmware update Cd from Toshiba for my a-30, but I probably won't use it unless i run into a problem.

I followed the instructions in our forum linked to the Toshiba website and had no problems. Very easy. I double checked the version after I was done and it showed I had upgraded. Unfortunately it still won't even load a combo disc

One of my five month old A3's no longer recognizes HD-DVD's (just says "No Disc"), and I've only used it about 3-4 times.

My A2, which I had to have repaired a few months ago (they shipped a refurb back instead of fixing), doesn't work anymore either. And I think I may have used it twice since it got fixed. I get "No Disc" when I put in anything. Pretty disappointing when I was all ready to watch Batman Begins last week to get ready for Dark Knight...

My A3 and A2 are still going very strong *knocks on wood*

Wow some of these posts are making me nervous for sure. I still own 80 HD DVD's including some imports.

I am buying everything I can on Blu-Ray once it's a available via domestic or import disc. I am currently using an XA2, and I have an A20 and A1 gathering dust as backup players. I'm hoping the combined life of these 3 players will outlast the amount of time it takes to get all my HD DVD's on Blu, because I am definitely not going to buy another piece of HD DVD hardware.

I will say I have gotten the impression from many user posts here and elsewhere that the 3rd gen machines were the worst ones in terms of reliability, especially with disc read issues.

I too am knocking on wood for my A-35 really has had no problems. I have gotten one error attempting to play a scratched up HD-DVD disc from Netflix.

My D3 (the Costco coded A3) will not play 'No Reservations' before or after the firmware update.

It's a combo disc, so the DVD side works.

Oh well.

I haven't had a single problem with my A35. I haven't updated firmware and won't as long as there isn't a problem.

I watched Batman Begins yesterday.

Im glad I got an LG Bh200. It plays everything my A3 won't play.

Toshiba's customer service is VERY good. My friend tried to update his firmware with a hack, and it froze midway. His player still worked, but he could no longer update firmware. It was an A2 that he bought as an open box item. Toshiba sent him a brand new A3 (with the 2 movies inside) and took care of return shipping for the old unit. And it wasn't even their fault since he wasn't installing official firmware!

Damn, I'm getting a bit nervous too, I have a bunch of HD DVDs (and still buying more when I get them really cheap) and so far my A3 has been working great. It's played everything I thrown in it fine, even combo discs. I have a back up A3 packed away in case something happens, but come to think of it, I've never really given that one much of a work out, so I don't even know how dependable that one is.

well, I have the A3 and haven't seen the 408bc504 error in a long time...but every once in a while the signal blinks in/out and the tv says 'no signal'... can't figure out if that's the tv or the player at fault.. or the wire.

Sounds like an HDMI handshaking problem. Unfortunately, with HDMI, any or all of the three things you mention could be at fault.

Send it to me.