Review on Toshiba XD-E500 1080p Upconverting DVD Player with Enhanced Detail by Darin Schaffer

The Toshiba XD-E500 is the best upscaling DVD player I've tried, it works wonders with all types of DVDs. This is definitely a keeper for those who watch a lot of movies on DVD and have HDTV 720p or better, especially on the big screen. " to "300" to "The Simpsons" (TV) to children's videos like Thomas and Dora. I've also played mini DVD-Rs that I recorded on my Panasonic DVD camcorder everything worked great. You can connect the player to the TV via HDMI (obviously the best connection), component or plain old composite. Upconversion (to 720p, 1080i, 1080p or 1080p/24) is done via HDMI only and the player can use something called Toshiba XDE technology, which should improve the converted picture even more (you can disable XDE) If you're using component video, the output can be progressive or interlaced, when it comes to upconverting, decide one thing: it is much better than on PS3 (with the latest system software) or an older upscaling DVD player I bought a few years ago Many upconverted movies look just as good as many Blu-ray discs I've played. See if XDE technology significantly improves image quality. I think this is noticeably better for most DVD movies (unless you're playing movies with lots of dark scenes), but I'll admit that this is really a subjective observation, not an objective one. Even with component video (in progressive mode, i.e. 480p), the picture quality is very good. This is way better than my previous Philips players, CyberHome and the older high end Pioneer player which also supported 480p. No matter how well the first generation XDE technology performs, the conventional upconversion in the XD-E500 is already the best on the market. , IMHO. In any case, I really love this player and recommend it without hesitation. It's a thin player, by the way, and it looks good, and one feature I've found really useful since having kids is the night mode setting in the audio menu, which reduces the dynamic range of sounds that might startle you, like a sleeping little one Child.