Pleasantly surprised by upscaling picture quality of HD-E1

J

james14

Guest
Like many I had been waiting to see how the "format wars" would pan out before deciding which player type to purchase, as I could not afford both.

With the recent announcement of Paramount/Dreamworks to go exclusive on HD-DVD, along with the recent lowering of prices on the Toshiba drives, I've jumped off the fence and purchased an HD-E1 for £180.

It is without doubt a smart piece of kit, but without doubt what has suprised me the most, is how well it upscales regular DVDs. I was always rather dubious about how upscaling could really make a DVD look clearer, effectively adding in picture information that was never there.

Though I can honestly say I am amazed at the quality difference between this and my standard def Pioneer DVD player.

Even if I never buy into the HD-DVD market in a big way (though I suspect I now will!). I'm very pleased with this purchase as just a "regular" DVD player.
 
Same here, the first SD DVD i played was LOTR, and i was shocked at how good the quality was, it is much better than my previous upscaling DVD player as well as my Pioneer 525
 
i agree, i did a similar thing as i thought at that price (£176) i'd got a great DVD upscaler and hd -dvd as an added bonus. I think the dvd region lock is holding alot of folk back, but as i only have R2 dvds at present wasn't a concern.
I'm sure a region hack will be out eventually - ridiculous to have region free HD -dvd and restict the older dvd format!
 
It is without doubt a smart piece of kit, but without doubt what has suprised me the most, is how well it upscales regular DVDs. I was always rather dubious about how upscaling could really make a DVD look clearer, effectively adding in picture information that was never there.

Though I can honestly say I am amazed at the quality difference between this and my standard def Pioneer DVD player.

Even if I never buy into the HD-DVD market in a big way (though I suspect I now will!). I'm very pleased with this purchase as just a "regular" DVD player.

That's much like me -- I bought an inexpensive refurbished LG upscaler out of curiosity for my second setup and was so pleased with the benefits of competent upscaling I decided I needed a seriously good upscaler on my main setup. That was just over a year ago and resulted in my buying an HDV5000 (A1 equivalent). I've been very pleased with its performance on my 1080i CRT TV and as an ultra clean 480i source for external scaling and projection.

I've since picked up an A2 (E1 equivalent) due to an attractive price and use both players mostly for SD DVD playback. I seriously view the players more as next generation DVD players than specifically HD DVD players. Their performance with SD DVD is well above average, and the ability to also play HD DVD seems more like value-added than primary purpose -- at least for me :)!
 
I also have been impressed with its upscaling ability. With prices as low as they are at the moment it justifies a purchase as an upscaler alone, with the bonus it plays HD-DVDs.
 
I too was shocked by the upscaling. Films like LoTR and Aliens look absolute quality on my E1. Got mine from Overclockers UK and so far its working fine :)

/me scrambles for wood...
 

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