The LG Engineer came to check my LCD yesterday and they decide to change a new 42" LCD to me. Good customer service.     

Wow... that is NICE!!.
Hope your LCD is problem free. As for me, I have no problem so far with my LG Plasma that I bought a year ago.

maybe my eye got problems....i could not spot any calour banding at the big electrical chain here..... they are showing the typical HD DEMO on the TVs.

I'm still considering whether to take this LG 42 @ RM 5900 against toshiba 42and Sharp 42 due to it's very attractive pricing

wah... Got bonus ah.. when want to belanja makan?? my Beerfest still not able to start since every1 busy.. busy.

I go cheap option, buy 22in Acer LCD, hook up lcd bracket in the room and use computer to output. 1680x1050 widescreen. All for Rm1380 from lowyat.

Cheap cheap and quality is good also. (superb actually)

wow wow wow, newbie heh??? got to replan the beerfest, i'm still in shanghai now....

DIY projector??? u mean using the stupid rm35 len ar???

yeah lah.. Everyone Busy.. busy w/ own thing..

next plan is chap Goh Meh.. Then Can show off my new LCD and Cheap Speaker setup for the masterroom.

(My House no Astro.. what for want astro? Suck quality, rain no signal.. unlike US where they have enjoyed HD programming and Tivo and DirectTV and Dish Network, M'sia?? AstroMax ceh!..)

My current "In" thing - Making head Amp.. :0

Blow lots of money already..

BTW, my LCD is dual purpose. The bracket I made 'custom' so that I can take to/from masterroom to study to play internet/hack/linux/read/game etc..

Yours can ah??

Eh.. why not make your own projector then??

Lumenlab.com(or net or org????)

Bro,we all got astro because EPL la.Nothing else 

added: not HD DVD players. the HD XA2 HD DVD player from Toshiba. There are many HD DVD players out there. XBox Add On, The RCA, The Walmart HD DVD Player, HD A1, HD XA1, HD A2 and HD XA2. The end users are singling out ONLY HD XA2 as the best player even beating Denon's more expensive player and other extremely high end and expensive external video processor

yupe ..users are claiming that the XA2 beat Denon 2930  and at cheaper price and XA2 plays HD DVD too . The rich people at AVS Forum are crazy over XA2 PQ.

best DVD player in the world should be meridian audios DVD players. They cost 18-10k us dollars a pop and have astounding DVD quality.... not HD-DVD

Aiyo... why aren't you guys driving a porsche or Ferarri? But at the end you opt for MyVi or Wira?

Money la... got money no need come in here and ask. Just fly to UK and test 1 by 1 all the brand available.

But heck... your gaji and my gaji almost same same... we got budget constrain... So... thats why we help each other.

When you mentioned users claimed that the XA2 beat the Denon 2930? The users here = siapa? Are you comparing apples with apples or apples with oranges, if you're talking about Toshiba's HD-DVD playback versus Denon 2930's standard dvd playback, then definitely not fair lah, both are on a different level but lets not go off topic, we're talking about standard dvd playback here, the Denon 2930 will pawn the Toshiba for sure because it has the least flaws playing standard dvds and if you gonna compare, the Denon 3930 is even better but I'll just stick with 2930 as it's around the price for the high end Toshiba HD-DVD player for a fair comparison. If you have the perception that the Toshiba HD-DVD player is better because it plays HD-DVDs and most definitely, it will have a perfect quality for standard dvds then you're probably wrong because that's not how you compare. There are even standard dvd players costing more than RM10K in Malaysia like the ones from Arcam and Meridian. There are not inferior just because they can't play Blu-Rays or HD-DVDs but at least they play standard dvds, SACDs and DVD-Audios with audiophile quality.

perhaps it'll help if you link to the thread on AVS

Wow--

I have to say this was one of the more interesting afternoons of testing I've done. Tom Huffman will chime in later when he gets home with his option as well.

Bottom line-- there is NO REASON TO BUY AN EXTERNAL VIDEO PROCESSOR if you buy the XA2. Not only did it match in virtually all the tests and visual observations the Gennum VXP chip in the Crystallio II VP but in some cases was VISUALLY SUPERIOR. The Toshiba XA2 is without a doubt the best upscaling SD DVD player that I have ever seen. It certainly leaves me depressed about the money I spent a month ago on the CII.

OK-- here was the test setup. The display device was an HP MD6580N DLP rear projector (65") that was recently calibrated by well regarded calibrator Gregg Loewen of Lion Audio Video Consultants. This display device has TWO HDMI inputs which each accept a 1080p60 signal. The display was set to Studio mode with 1:1 pixel mapping confirmed with test patterns.

In one corner we had the new Toshiba HD-DVD XA2 player. Its video settings were set to output 1080p60 over HDMI directly into HDMI slot2 on the HP set.
Its picture settings were Selective Color Enhancement- OFF, Edge Enhancement - OFF, Mosquito Noise Reduction ON, Block Noise Reduction ON, Random Noise Reduction ON.

In the other corner we had a Pioneer Elite 59AVI DVD player that had been modified professionally to produce an SDI output. The SDI output was connected to the Crystallio II video processor running the latest firmware (2.0). The VXP chip in the Crystallio was turned on and Noise Reduction was turned off. The Crystallio than output over HDMI a 1080p60 signal into the HP's HDMI slot1.

This enabled us to flip back and forth quickly between HDMI inputs on the HP.

Tests

We first started with the HQV test disk. We expected the XA2 to do well containing a Silicon Optix chip-- the Reon VX. It was outstanding.

Test1 - Color Bar/Vertical Detail -- XA2 and CII both score 10/10.
Test2 - Jaggies Pattern 1 - XA2 and CII both pass with 5/5.
Test 3 - Jaggies Pattern 2 - XA2 and CII both pass. [Edited] Tom and I agree
that we would score the XA2 at 5/5 and the Crystallio at 4/5. (the first surprise). I could see some jaggies on the lowest bar with the CII.
Test 4 - Test Waving Flag. - XA2 and CII both pass. Again Tom didn't see a difference but again I could see some minor inperfections with the CII. He would 10/10 for each. I would go 10/10 on the XA2 and 9/10 on the CII.
Test 5 - Picture Detail - here we had a slight problem due to the fact that the XA2 would only output the test disk at 4:3 and not 16:9. I've only seen this with the HQV test disk and not any movies. Here the CII looked a little sharper but I would call them even. I would call both 9/10, Tom might call the CII a 10/10 and the XA2 an 8 or 9/10 but I'll let him chime in later as we didn't record our numbers during the session.
Test 6 Noise Reduction -- here again I thought that the XA2 was superior to the CII without removing detail. I think we would both give the XA2 a 10/10 and the CII about a 5/10 or so as it becomes noticeably less detailed when noise reduction is turned on.
Test 7 Motion Adaptive Noise Reduction-- again significantly better with the XA2 than with the CII. Perhaps 8-9/10 for the XA2 and only 5/10 for the CII.
Test 8 3:2 Detection - the only test that the CII excelled on and it wasn't by much. It locked on instantly where the XA2 took between 1/4 -1/8 of a second-- what most users would never notice. The CII is 10/10 here and the XA2 8-9/10.
Test 9 Film Cadence - both pass with 10/10.
Test 10 Mixed 3:2 film with added video titles - both pass with 10/10.

That completed the formal tests. We then moved onto the qualitative tests. We put SUPERBIT copies of The Fifth Element into both players so we could flip back and forth both between motion scenes and freeze frames. I think we both agreed that the image off of the XA2 was SUPERIOR to the external VP the CII. You would have to see them side by side but the image from the XA2 was outstandingly sharp-- almost appearing HD-like at times, excellent color saturation, and what some have described as a 3D depth or sparkle to it. It seems that reflective surfaces in the image appear more real and on the CII a little more dull. We also viewed the Spiderman II Superbit DVD and again the image from the XA2 was outstanding.

For Tom's benefit we took a look at Phantom of the Opera in HD DVD and he was extremely impressed by the sharpness and color displayed on the HP set. It was one of the best rear projection images he had ever seen and he's a professional ISF calibrator!

What does this all mean? Well Toshiba has produced a phenomenal combination upscaling SD DVD player and HD DVD player. For the price it doesn't appear that anything can touch it. Certainly it puts ALL of the BR players to shame on upscaling alone--let alone its HD 1080p60 output. I have to congratulate Silicon Optix as well in their production of the ReonVX chip-- I believe it clearly beats the image produced by the Gennum VXP chip in the Crystallio II. Not good news for the external processor market if someone is primarly looking to display movies and not video/tv. I can not imagine improving the picture produced from the XA2. The movie studios should be ashamed that they conspired to eliminate the HD DVD technology.

Now -- go out and order one from Robert at VE. I'm going to put my Pioneer Elite SDI DVD player up for sale this week on the forum. Fortunately I still have to deinterlace and upscale the tv I watch or the Crystallio II would be a waste. Its too bad that Calibre couldn't get its firmware working very well or the Realta chip in their video processor would probably have blown everything away.

based on the results so far, the DV-59AVi does nothing to tarnish Pioneer's outstanding video reputation, which began in the laserdisc era and has continued to the present. This is one of the best DVD players on the market, regardless of price.