HD-DVD player info needed

Im trying to figure out which HD-DVD player that was awarded the Best up scaler with DVDs.Is it the HD-A2 ? I'm trying to go Format neutral.

 

Anyone of Toshiba HD-DVD players r great for upscaling!

 

They are all good for scaling but some might be better for your TV than others.

If your tv is a 720p or 768p display then use the HD-A2 or new HD-A3. If your tv is a 1080p set use the HD-A20 or new HD-A30. If you simply demand the best in audio and video no matter what you have at home go for the HD-XA2 or wait for the HD-A35.

Choose the new HD-A3x series if your TV and/or audio receiver can take advantage of X.V.Color, 120Hz refresh rates, and excepts 1080p/24Hz video signals.

Ced

 

Ced: My friend just got a new A30. He's coming over this weekend so we can do an ABT/VAR vs Reon VX/HQV showdown on my projector.

 

eatsushi: I'll be looking out for your report on this showdown. LOL

 

Cool eatsushi, make sure its carried out nice and professional like... LOL

I think the ABT processing is excellent but due to the reputation the Rean has I can't even make an educated guess as to which would be better (if any).

I probably should know this but do the A30 and A35 have the same ABT processors inside? I still think they should have put a Realta in the A35 in any case (then there would be no contest).

Ced

 

We did an ABT vs Reon comparison this weekend. There were 5 of us viewing - 3 are HD DVD owners, 2 own upconverters. We compared the ABT upconversion from the A30 (my friend's machine) and the Reon upconversion from the XA2 (my player). The connection was thru an HDMI switcher to a Sony VPL-VW50 projector and a 110" screen. (We didn't compare HD DVD playback since the XA2's 24fps output still had the lip synch issues.)

We had 2 DVD copies each of the superbit MiB, superbit Fifth Element, Gladiator, and the animated film The Incredibles. The viewing was "blinded" so we didn't know which player was sending out the video to the pj. My girlfriend did the switching back and forth and kept score. We viewed the several scenes from each of the DVD's.

The general consensus was that both machines did an excellent job at upconverting. Anyone with a halfway decent display will be pleased with either when it comes to SD DVD playback. The 2 guys who owned upconverters were sufficiently convinced that they have made plans to buy HD DVD players soon.

So which is better at upconversion? After the scores were tallied (we just voiced out which one we preferred) the Reon won by a very small (and statistically insignificant) margin.

 

Good deal,

Awesome scientific experimentation! That is what I would have assumed from the quality of the Reon and the price points of each. If anything this proves the value that is the HD-A30 (and the ridiculousness that is a budget up-conversion DVD player).

Thanks again eatsushi,
Ced

 

Thanks Ced. BTW do you know when the A3's are coming to Best Buy? A friend of mine is interested.

 

Great report eatsushi. Just one quick question:

Were you using 1080p60 or 1080i60 from the players?

 

Excellent question!

We used 1080i60 and here's the reason: We wanted to compare upscaling performance only. The A30's upscaling is done by the ABT chip while the deinterlacing is done by an NEC chip. There is consensus that the NEC chip performs IVTC quite poorly so we didn't want to add this into the equation. Because of this it's been recommended that for SD DVD upconversion the output on the A30 (as well as the A20 and A35 - which have the same NEC chip) should be set at 1080i60.

 

eatsushi: Thanks for the report. Do you know if the IVTC problem in the NEC deinterlacer is firmware fixable?

 

full hd(1080p/60)
I heard the full hd is 1080/60f

if it is true is there any hddvd player that plays not upscaling

in the market