Toshiba xa2

[jefe1]

I don't own one but it seems a few members here including John Urban have one, and I was thinking of getting one for use as an upconverter because it has the Reon chip and has gotten rave reviews. The price seems to be falling below $300 and will probably continue downward.
Has anyone who owns this compared it to a lesser toshiba model? I own an HDD3 which outputs only 1080i. Since my Samsung LCD will accept a 1080P signal I am wondering if I would see a significant difference in quality with the xa2 over the D3 for Hd DVDs and upconversions.
Or maybe I am better off looking for a blu ray with the reon chip?
Any reccomendations from those who own an xa2 are appreciated

By the way, are there any HD DVD music releases that are reccomended? I notice Yes Live at Montreaux and Roy Orbison Black and White releases, and am wondering if the surround mixes are good enuf to warrant getting them.

 

[deepsky4565]

I own one and the only caveat is it takes a while to 'boot up'. I still don't have a blu ray player because there isn't one as nice as the XA2 was for HDDVD. I don't have any problems with 1080P, it looks fantastic. I haven't directly compared to 1080i though. It does upconvert extremely well, and if only for that purpose it is a nice piece of equipment. Eagles HDDVD is fantastic as is Roy Orbison. I also have Heart, which is very good. Good luck, there are deals to be had now.

 

[Lucanu]

I read from various "blind" tests (sounds weird, uh??? ) that there is no different in quality from 1080i and 1080p except for movies which are 24fps.

 

[JonUrban]

I have an XA2 and an A35 (two rooms), and the XA2 is a tad slower at loading, and is a better upconverter than the A35, but not by much. The build on the XA2 feels sturdier, if that matters. I can't really comment on the video quality, as the XA2 is set up on a projector, which cannot compete with the Plasma display the A35 is connected to. However, the XA2 is universally applauded as one of the best HD players (of either format) on the market at this time. It was so good that Toshiba never released an XA3.

I would think that many folks would be dumping their HD-DVD stuff (not me - heck I still have LaserDiscs!), but you probably can get an XA2 at a great price right now, while I would guess that once the mass hysteria dies down, it's resale value will turn and go back up.

Only time will tell.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I have the HD-XA2 and think it is a great player for both HD DVD and DVD. I haven't ever used an HD-A35 which is supposed to be nearly its equal for both formats. I have only seen refurbished XA2's at bargain prices, never new. The best price I have seen on refurbished was $263 delivered from uBid. It is refurbished by Toshiba and most often I believe nothing more than a firmware update was applied to fix the player. The Onkyo DV-HD805 player is a clone with minor changes and possibly even better, but is much rarer.

Chris

 

[atrocity]

I read from various "blind" tests (sounds weird, uh??? ) that there is no different in quality from 1080i and 1080p except for movies which are 24fps.

I have an odd situation where my cheapo 47" Vizio LCD TV only does 1:1 pixel mapping with zero overscan when fed 1080p. It still looks pretty darned good (considering the price) at any other resolution, but only truly at its best at 1080p. The overscan is obvious on titles like "Help!" that are a 1.66:1. When playing it at 1080p, the picture is full-height with black bars at the sides. At any other resolution, the side bars are gone and there's more cropping at the top and bottom.

Not sure why it was designed that way.