So quick question, who has seen the upconverting on the Toshiba? What is the end result compared to "official" HD-DVD. Anyone done that? Like watched Assult on Precinct 13 as an HD-DVD then as a normal DVD upconverted? Would be interesting to see. I figured one of you DVD nuts has already done that. Anyone done the same but compared the OPPO upconverting a movie to the Toshiba upconverting the same movie? If I'ma drop $500 bills, I wanna hear why from the people that know best, all you guys.

To me, if you're willing to spend $500 on a player, why not get one that does a good job upconverting your current dvd collection, but also has the ability to watch movies in high definition. I've watched the upconverted Last Samurai and the HD DVD version and the HD version clearly shows much more image detail and the colors are definitely more vivid. The outdoor scenes during the day are just incredible looking. Very crisp. Plus, the DD+ tracks on the HD discs are excellent.

The Toshiba is a pretty good upconverter though not as good as my Denon 2910. I did a back and forth comparing Phantom of the Opera, Blazing Saddles and Unforgiven upconverted on my Denon compared to HD DVD on the Toshiba and there is no comparison. The HD DVD blows away regular DVD. Its really not even close on any of the films I checked. The detail, the color and the depth are all much better in HD DVD.

The Toshiba is a better upconverter than the Oppo...If I could do it over again, I would have passed on the oppo in November, and saved the 200 to put towards an HD-DVD player for now. That just me though. For some, the extra $300 wouldnt be worth it, but if I knew then what I knew now, I would have definitely waited.

I have the Oppo and Toshiba HD. I tried comparing some of the titles that I have the DVD and HD DVD of. The Oppo does a good job of upconverting and I think the Tosh does an even better job. But upconverting doesn't come anywhere close to the HD DVD's.

Oppo 971H has better deinterlacing and is region-free. The HD-A1 is region-restricted and has iffy deinterlacing, but will produce a sharper picture.

Not only is the OPPO region free, it converts PAL->NTSC. If you're only looking to upconvert region 1 DVDs, this won't matter.

Josh: By iffy deinterlacing, does that mean higher chance of artifacts?

Josh,

Do you have any info on the new Oppo 970HD vs the Toshiba? The 971 produced some macroblocking on my display. I think the Toshiba BTW is spectacular in upconverting!

After reading up the past few days, I really think its the macroblocking issues that make the Toshiba a better upconverter than the OPPO...I dont want to give the impression that I'm not happy with the OPPO though. I absolutely love it. But I always want newer and better so. But I cant justify a new dvd player (hd or otherwise) when I just bought one 6-months ago (plus its hard to justify to the wife who is usually pretty understanding with this hometheatre obsession of mine ).

So ebay the oppo. Buy the Toshie. Case closed.

Oh if it were that easy ...My bday and xmas will be here before we know it.

The HD-A1 does fine with film-based DVDs, but not as well with video-based or mixed-cadence DVDs. Anime, in particular, has a lot of deinterlacing artifacts.

The 970HD doesn't use the Faroudja chip, so it shouldn't have any problems with macroblocking. Its deinterlacing is about on par with the HD-A1. The picture is a bit sharper than the 971H, but not as sharp as the HD-A1 (though again it's region-free and the Toshiba isn't).