Toshiba HD-XA2 player

[Rich Z]

Just got a new HD-DVD player delivered this past Wednesday, and I felt doing a mini review of it would be worth while in this forum.

I got the Toshiba HD-XA2 model. Amazon.com has them at a REAL good price, so I figured, "why not?". The reason I chose this one was because all the reviews absolutely raved about it. The thing that really caught my eye was that they said the newer chips in this unit did such an awesome job of upconverting that most people couldn't detect ANY differences between the upconverted movies and the native HD-DVD ones. Night before last Connie and I watched a standard definition movie (Talladega Nights) that was upconverted, then another one last night in HD-DVD (Hot Fuzz). Quite honestly, I couldn't tell the difference as far as details and color rendition. It is HEADS AND SHOULDERS above the upconverting capability of my older Panasonic upconverting DVD player, though. And I thought that one did a pretty good job. Bear in mind that I am viewing these movies on a 50 inch Panasonic plasma that only does 1080i and is not the latest 1080p model now available. It may make a slight difference, but I kind of doubt it will be noticeable to all but the most discriminating eyes.

Now this has some notable benefits. I was reluctant to buy into high definition DVD now while HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are having this war of the formats. I felt it would be frustrating to want a new movie that was produced in the other format and I would just pass on buying it completely rather than having to settle for SD instead of HD. I think that would have really irritated me in short order. But this superb upconverting completely negates that concern. It really doesn't MATTER. Matter of fact, I will have a damn hard time convincing myself to buy even in the HD-DVD format and spending the extra money for the newer format when the upconverted SD movie will look pretty much the same way. I was also concerned that I was going to feel compelled to replace my current SD movie collection with the HD-DVD versions, which would have been a REAL pain in the butt, not to mention rather expensive. Thankfully, I don't see ANY need at all to do that. They look just FINE, as is. And probably saved me from a SEVERE thrashing from Connie as well. She is still irritated about my conversion from VHS tape to SD DVD........

Quite frankly, I think if a standard DVD player has the same circuitry for upconverting as this HD-DVD Toshiba unit has, it could possibly negate the entire HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war. With upconverting THIS good, it certainly removes a lot of the initiative to really choose one over the other, much less CARE about the format. While the two camps go on fighting the war, they may find that the REASON for the war, and the market they are trying to WIN, just doesn't exist any longer....