Xbox 360 vs Toshiba XDE 500

[Lord Midas]

I've bought a Toshiba 40ZF355D and am picking it up tomorrow

But now I want to view my DVDs in good-o-vision (beautiful upscaled image), but don't want to move to bluray just yet.

Should I stick with my Xbox 360 for DVD playback (as we were doing for our old CRT) or should I get the Toshiba XDE 500?

This quote from the evil Darth Hammer from another thread sounds like something I'd write :

Originally Posted by Darth Hammer

I bought it just last week, more as a stop-gap before dipping my toes in the whole BD thing.

hooked up to my new Panansonic th37px80, which I bought 2 weeks ago and I *love* it, put on DVD's like Kingdom Of Heaven-Directors Cut, Matrix Reloaded (Trinitys PVC never looked so glossy ), Sunshine, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars:Revenge of the Sith, The Dark Knight and Kung-Fu Panda (I could see every lil hair on Master Sefu's fuzzy lil head) and all I can say is WOW...super sharp, vibrant colours, glorious blacks...and only £60!!.
I am SO glad I didn't listen to the 'professional' opinions that said this wasn't worth getting but rather to Joe Public who bought it and said it was great.

[Lord Midas]

I gone and bought the Toshiba XDE500. Now, once I have my telly (tomorrow) I'll post on how good it is.

[Tomo]

I would be interested to hear your comparison of the two, i have the 360 on my Hitachi 1080p panel via HDMI and notice some blue lining now and then.

ta

[Lord Midas]

Well, I now have the Toshiba 40ZF355DB TV and the Toshiba XDE500 DVD player, as well as the Xbox 360 and SKY+.

SKY+ is quite pixely but I was expecting that to a degree. Standard def image being all compressed from satellite and all that.

I tested The Dark Knight DVD on Xbox and DVD player. The scene where the Joker walks up to Batman on the road just after he crashed the podbike and then gets captured by Gordon.
Plenty of darks and low lighting (pretty much like the whole film )

Xbox image was surprisingly good. Plenty of detail and the image was crisp.

The DVD player's image just seemed sharper overall. More definition on characters hair and the raindrops on the police car.

But you know, I don't have the trained eye of some of these reviewers. They say lots of stuff about details in the dark scenes, etc. I don't know if I'd ever notice this stuff. It all looks good to me

I do, however, notice the quality using the Xbox. The NXE dashboard is stunningly crisp. Text is now finally readable. I haven't played any games yet but I know they'll gorgeous.

[Lord Midas]

I've realised I was doing something wrong. When playing back DVD on the XDE500 I wasn't turning on EXACT SCAN.

WOW!!

What a difference. The quality is stunning. We watched Kung Fu Panda and the detail and colours were out of this world. Truly a great player

[belfastbloke]

EXACT SCAN wot is this.

[fredtheted]

Originally Posted by belfastbloke

EXACT SCAN wot is this.

Yeah, wot is it?
I cannot find this in my handbook or on my remote control.

[Peopleselbowpad]

Exact Scan is a function of the TV not this or any other DVD player. If you have a Samsung TV its called Just Scan on that TV.

Simply the TV does resize the picture once it receives the signal from the DVD player.

[Lord Midas]

Yes, so basically if you a input into the 40ZF355 it initially displays it in Widescreen. This is the standard display format, such as viewing SKY+ or Xbox. This doesn't matter if it is Scart or HDMI

Now, if you have a 1080p input though HDMI, such as Xbox 360 set to display at 1080p/i, a XDE500 set to display at 1080p or a Bluray player, the telly will STILL display as Widescreen.

So you press the "Widescreen Viewing" button on the TV remote (then press up twice) and select "Exact Scan". This now displays the image in true 1080p goodness.

It would be nice if the telly actually picked up on the fact it was receiving a 1080p image and adjust itself automatically. Still, a couple of remote presses isn't the end of the World and I wouldn't not buy this TV just because of that fact.
This TV is amazing.