Toshiba XD-E500

This is an HD DVD player. Sadly, in early 2008 Toshiba stopped making these because it had lost the format war and that was the end of that. But Toshiba isn't about to start supporting Blu-ray, so it needs to find other ways to improve the quality of stuff we're all feeding our high definition televisions. This is the companies' solution, an upscaling DVD player called the XD-E500, which Toshiba claims can make DVDs look almost as delightful as Blu-ray movies. When it comes to upscaling we have our reservations, we aren't saying it isn't worthwhile, we just know it's not possible to wave a magic wand and create some quality out of thin air. That said, DVDs are generally quite high quality, and so there is often scope to squeeze a little bit more out of them. HDMI helps with this, because nothing ruins a picture like being converted from digital to analogue then being sent down a £2.99 cable. The E500 aims to increase the picture quality using one of three special modes, these are called: sharpness, colour and contrast. The idea is that each film will benefit from different kinds of picture tweaking depending on what sort of a movie it is, and how it was shot. The design of the player is fairly basic, indeed it looks like any other upscaling DVD player. Although Toshiba has reduced its depth quite substantially, which means it will be very hard to balance any other equipment on top of it, a minor point we know and not one likely to trouble most potential purchasers. At the front there is a simple display, and some lights that let you know what resolution the picture is being upscale to. There are also some basic buttons for playing, track advance and of course, there are power and eject buttons. At the back, as you'd expect, there is an HDMI output. There is also a composite video output and a scart socket, but you would have to live on planet ludicrous to consider spending £120 on an upscaling DVD player to then use it with a scart lead. If you have an HD TV without HDMI then you'll be pleased to see a component output. For the best sound, there is an optical digital audio output, to hook the player up to your AV receiver. The remote control is okay, we're not thrilled by the build quality, it feels small, cheap and creaky, but it is useable and the player responds in good time to button presses. Indeed, with most HD players being so sluggish, it's actually quite nice to use DVD players, which are all nice and speedy. Our feeling about this player is that, as a regular upscaler, it's pretty competent. There were some things about it we really didn't get on with, and you can find more details of those in the full review. But overall, it's a good machine, that costs about the same as other upscaling DVD players. You'll get the best results with well encoded DVDs, but of course it's pretty hard to tell which discs have been encoded with care, and which look like a YouTube video until you've already forked out for them. I'm Ian Morris, and this is the Toshiba XD-E500.