I gotta admit, this is a cheap price! Amazon has steadily been lowering the cost of this highly rated player for the past few days.

Sure, there is a 1080p player out now, the HD-XA2, but it's like $593 bucks and most people don't have a 1080p display yet.

and this Toshiba is such a great deal because...?

Besides I have low definition eyes

Toshiba once was near the top af all brands, I have 2 TVs and 2 VCRs and had a DVD player; but now I think the are back in the pack.

I own the Oppo player that upconverts to 1080p and its awesome. Plays everything I throw in it, and the resolution is great.

The big point that seems to be missed is the Toshiba is an HD-DVD player. The Oppo is an SD (standard def) player. Oppos are nice, I have one myself, but don't confuse the two, they are not in the same category.

And another thing while I'm lecturing mode, the OP was right to post this. It appears Amazon has sold out of the their own stock so the free shipping deal isn't available, but this is a good deal to get in on HD-DVD.

Personally I'd wait for the free shipping to come back, but these players can actually rise in price. I saw the XA2 on Amazon for about 530 a few weeks ago, now it's up to 590.

Correct.

Comparing a HD-DVD player vs DVD or Upconverting DVD players is good only for the DVD performance and playback. I know the Oppo gets many Editors Choice or 5 stars review but again you can't really compare them for the HD-DVD viewing as the Oppo doesn't support HD-DVD playback.

I've made some personal comparison by watching Happy Feet movie in Blu-ray, HD-DVD and DVD format on my 42" Plasma screen in 720p and 1080i format together with 4 of my friends. Although we agreed that the Happy Feet DVD format is already very good but the Blu-ray gives more details and color compared to the other formats. HD-DVD is nice too (little differences compared to Blu-ray except for the menus and features) but for sure our upconverting Philips DVD player can't match the colors and details that Blu-ray and HD-DVD gives on my plasma screen.

Ah, I missed the HD part. You are right. I'm so used to seeing up-converting players advertised that I missed it.

How does the upconverting process of the Toshiba compare to the Oppo?
if they are comparable it may make more sense to get a true HD player
as the Oppo 981 itself costs $230

BTW
Jesty's rave posts got me to get the Oppo 981 and its 1080P output matches up perfectly with the Sony xbr2 1080P input

I would imagine that the upconverting process wouldn't be quite as good since the max output is 1080i.

Hmm, I'm not an expert, but I thought if you upconvert from one resolution to another you simply add stuff that wasn't there in the first place. It might match better the resolution of your display, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will look "better". If DVD 480P is upconverted, or rather "stuff" is added to the image, I would think there is a very good chance at 1080i/720p the image could look better than at 1080p where you'd need to add more of the extra "stuff". Again, I'm not an expert, and good chance is this would differ on different equipment, but this is what my "common" sense is telling me.

This is true, except for the "simply" part. The algorithm performing the sizing operation can be very complex.

This link is not meant to indicate how dvd upscalers work, but rather to show how image enlargement in general is complex and there are many different implementations:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...nlargement.htm

The Toshiba XA2 is considered by some to be one of the best DVD upscalers available. From what I've read, it outperforms the Oppo:
http://hdguru.com/?p=56

My recollection is the A2 (not XA2) is considered to be a good upscaler, perhaps similar in quality to the Oppo.

The Toshiba becomes more compelling since you get a good (or great) dvd upscaler in addition to HD-DVD.