The Toshiba HD-A1 ($500) is the first high definition disk player on the market. At the same time, HD DVD movies in this new format are slowly becoming available -- at this writing, there are approximately 20 titles on sale for the nascent HD DVD format. We took a close look at this first HD DVD player, putting it through its paces with both HD DVDs and standard-definition DVDs, and found it to be a frustrating experience that we hope amounts to the consumer electronics equivalent of opening-night jitters.