Big Picture Big Sound

When we reviewed Toshiba's HD-XA1 first generation HD-DVD player, there was a lot to like, but a few quirks. In addition to outstanding video quality from HD-DVD discs, the player did a pretty good job upconverting standard DVDs to 1080i resolution via HDMI.

But the boot-up and load times of the player were maddeningly long and the player maxed out at 1080i output, not the native 1080p of which the discs themselves are capable.

At CEDIA in September, Toshiba announced the next generation players, the HD-A2 and HD-XA2, with improved loading times, an enhanced remote and (for the HD-XA2), 1080p output as well as HDMI 1.3 support.

But today the news is even better as Silicon Optix has announced that the HD-XA2 will include their Reon-VX HQV (Hollywood Quality Video) processor in it, which will make standard DVDs approach HD quality with full 1080p (1920X1080 pixels progressive) output.


We've been fans of the Silicon Optix HQV processor since first seeing it demoed at the 2005 Hifi Show in New York. At that time it was just being ported from professional broadcast equipment into consumer gear. Over the past year and a half the processor has made it into high-end projectors from manufacturers such as Epson, DPI, Yamaha and Mitsubishi, high-end DVD players from Denon, LCD displays from Syntax-Brillian and external processors from Algolith, JVC, NEC and Calibre. The inclusion of HQV processing in the Toshiba HD-XA2 HD-DVD player marks one of the lowest lowest price points yet ($999) for this high-end video processor.

Combined with the Toshiba player's improvements in load and disc access time, this should make the HD-XA2 a fine upsampling DVD player in its own right, with the HD-DVD playback feature thrown in as a bonus! Will this be the last DVD player you ever have to buy? That remains to be seen but we hope to get a review sample in soon so we can put it through its paces.

Where to Buy Toshiba's HD-DVD Players:

Toshiba HD-XA2 on OneCall
Toshiba HD-A2 on OneCall