For people who love the Hollywood magic (and who don't?) and for those who want to experience it literally, the Toshiba HD-XA2™ is a must! It is not merely a high-end player with state-of-the-art technology, it is a beauty.
Sometimes machinery is considered strong and advanced in technology simply because of its size and weight. This might have been the situation in the case of the previous model XA-1 which could output the picture in 1080i but not in 1080p. It was and still is a wonderful machine. But the A-2 is 6 lbs lighter (difference 2.7 Kilograms = 5.95248 lbs) and yet it's stronger and well advanced in engineering compared to the previous model.
Some people have mentioned that they couldn't see any difference between 1080i and 1080p lines of resolution on testing of the Toshiba HD DVD™ players. They are right to some extent. When you are playing a Cinemascope DVD in 2.35:1 ratio on a 50" high definition television with a ratio of 16:9:1 (1.78:1) it is hard to see a difference between 1080i and 1080p. First of all HD ratio of 1.78 is 33% smaller than Cinemascope of 2.35 (Factor of 1.33). Now when this Cinemascope DVD labeled as HD DVD is played on a high definition television you loose 33% of resolution and 20% of brightness. And if your HD source is under HDCP compliance you will get only 480 vertical lines through component video output instead of 1080 vertical lines. Hence, the difference between the two types of resolutions will hardly be noticeable.
On the contrary, if you are watching the same movie through an HDMI output on a 40 square foot Cinemascope screen in 2.35:1 ratio and with an anamorphic lens installed on the projector the picture will be entirely different and very impressive. This picture is almost 6 times than what was experienced before! 100% of the resolution and brightness is brought back into the picture. The difference between 1080i and 1080p picture is clearly visible. We will go into more details about the picture later in the article.
http://www.my411family.com/electronics/article.php?id=24&name=Toshiba_HD-XA2_DVD_Player_with_1080P_output_Chip
