HD DVD or Blu-Ray players [off topic, kind of]

[Rich Z]

OK, so I'm weak..... so what? I've been reading absolutely GLOWING reviews about the Toshiba HD-XA2 player and the thing that impressed me the most was the nearly universal claims that this player made even the SD disks look REAL close to HD with the upconverting chips being used. Should be a major step up even for my Panasonic upconverting DVD deck.

It's a HD-DVD unit and got real high marks for that as well. Found one at a REAL good price at Amazon, so what the heck. I sprang for it. Should be here next week sometime.

I really need to be thinking about an HDMI compatible receiver though. Getting to look like a rats nest behind the TV screen and components with all the different formats I'm using. Some use optical audio, and some use just regular analog audio cables. Then my VCR unit uses plain vanilla RGB video out. Yeah, I still have some VCR taped movies that aren't on DVD yet.

But damn, I have a VERY NICE Onkyo receiver that I would hate to give up. But definitely HDMI is the way to go when working with digital components.

[Wolf1171]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

OK, so I'm weak..... so what? I've been reading absolutely GLOWING reviews about the Toshiba HD-XA2 player...

This is what I have with a Sony 50" 1080i, and the picture is great. Plus the upconvert of standard dvd's looks really good also. Can't go wrong, check out Amazon.com I think they have it on there for around $200.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Wolf1171

This is what I have with a Sony 50" 1080i, and the picture is great. Plus the upconvert of standard dvd's looks really good also. Can't go wrong, check out Amazon.com I think they have it on there for around $200.

That price is for the A2, not the XA2. The XA2 is $558.00 at Amazon. The A2 is 1080i and the XA2 does both "i" and "p". Although I have a Panasonic 1080i screen (plasma, 50 inch), the reviews of the upconverting capabilities of the XA2 seemed that this would be a better choice.

I'm not about to get rid of my 1080i for a 1080p, however. I doubt the difference in being able to detect an improvement would be worth replacing the screen. Of course, I get the 4 year warranty from Circuit City, so I can always hope a lightning strike takes it out. They probably don't even carry the 1080i any longer, so the replacement just MIGHT be a 1080p.

Supposed to be here on Tuesday, so I guess I should go get a HD-DVD movie to try it out with....

[Wolf1171]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Supposed to be here on Tuesday, so I guess I should go get a HD-DVD movie to try it out with....

300 looks amazing! So do the matrix movies.

[sglfladad]

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Supposed to be here on Tuesday, so I guess I should go get a HD-DVD movie to try it out with....

I'm still waiting to see who comes out on top in the war. Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages. I've got the great onkyo reciever, pioneer elite 50" plasma..and love the high def.

I may go low end to start with and get the hd-dvd for xbox 360.. just to have the capability, short term.

Let us know how you like the hd-dvd Rich.

[Rich Z]

Well, I'll tell you one of the reasons I decided to bite the bullet now rather than waiting for the war to declare a WINNER in HD. New movies are coming out. Once I decided I AM going to get into high definition, I was then stuck in a real quandary. Why buy ANYTHING at all now? Didn't want to buy standard definition as I would expect hi-def to be better. But I couldn't buy hi-def either, since I hadn't decided on a platform and didn't have a player for either.... So I wound up walking away and not buying the movie at all.

So I decided to spring for one of the platforms, and used the reviews of the upscaling capability as a major criteria for my selection. The Panasonic DVD player I now have already does a real decent job of upscaling, and this new Toshiba is supposed to be heads and shoulders about that one. So I don't get into the situation of having to feel that I need to replace ALL the SD DVDs I have with HD.

But it's STILL going to be frustrating when a movie comes out in Blu-Ray only in the hi-def format. Perhaps the upscaling will be so good it won't matter, but I'll have to determine that when I get the new unit.

I believe some quality dual players are just over the horizon, but the prices projected were oftentimes MORE than it would cost you to buy two separate players, one for each format. Besides, anyone who thinks buying any piece of consumer electronics these days that is going to keep from becoming obsolete in about 5 years is only kidding themselves anyway.

[98 softtail]

Rich, I read an article on-line awhile back that focused on the up-scaling DVD's. In short the article stated that while the up-scaling DVD players did add more pixels, it was at best a random application based on color saturation and clarity or sharpness of the adjoining pixels.
So I too am going to go for the true HD format when I decide to "bite the bullet" .
Thanks for your info.
Joe B.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by 98 softtail

Rich, I read an article on-line awhile back that focused on the up-scaling DVD's. In short the article stated that while the up-scaling DVD players did add more pixels, it was at best a random application based on color saturation and clarity or sharpness of the adjoining pixels.
So I too am going to go for the true HD format when I decide to "bite the bullet" .
Thanks for your info.
Joe B.

Yeah, I think that is right, but apparently a LOT of difference can be made based on the algorithm used to create those fill in pixels. That was what I read about this unit I bought in that it produced exceptional fill in. Granted true pixel information cannot just be created, but a good program can make all the difference in how intelligent the guesses are.

For instance, if one pixel is black and the other is white, and pixels need to be filled in between, it may be logical to assume a gradient from black to white. However, if those two pixels are the edge of a building where one side is in bright sunlight, and the other in deep shadow, the effect would be to blue edges, making the picture look too soft and even out of focus. So the process has to be complex and intelligent to sample a LOT of pixels to try to figure out what the image MIGHT be rather than just only paying attention to any two pixels.

Fortunately, images in motion affect your vision a whole lot differently than static images do, so there is a lot more flexibility in how to do the processing. To see what I mean, take any video you watch and just stop the image. While it looked pretty decent in motion, the static image normally looks much worse that the moving image. This is more pronounced the closer you get to the screen.

Anyway, I'm hoping the upconverting works really well. If it is even slightly better than my Panasonic, I'm sure I will be happy with it.

I just hope there are no issues with my 1080i screen. I'm assuming 1080p would be better, but HOW MUCH better, is the question. In any event, I really have no plans to dump my present screen for a new one. So maybe the best thing for me to do is to just AVOID going anywhere to SEE a 1080p screen in HD. What I don't know won't get me killed, in this instance.