Toshiba XD-E500

The basics

An up-scaling (1080p) DVD player with XDE (eXtended Detail Enhancement) technology, the Toshiba XD-E500 has HDMI and component output. It also has DivX playback (by disc only), Dolby/DTS 5.1 sound and is easily made region-free.

The good

Toshiba’s HD-DVD players may have lost the HD format war, but the company’s outstanding up-scaling tech lives on in this smart DVD player. As well as upping the resolution to Full HD, the E500 gives a further boost to either detail (sharpening edges and resolution), colour (boosting reds and greens) or contrast (for deep shadows and bright highlights). Surround sound via HDMI is bold and bass-y, and it’s refreshingly easy to bypass region codes to enjoy all those Korean mastepieces without the pesky subtitles.

The bad

Toshiba’s so focused on the future it’s forgotten that some of us still watch plain old 4:3 format discs. If you’ve got any old TV shows on DVD, the Tosh can’t upscale them without stretching them to fit widescreen – you’re stuck with plain old 576-pixel playback. There have also been reports of problems matching the Tosh to some Philips flatscreen tellies.

The bottom line

DVD has more lives than a motorway-crossing, chainsaw-juggling cat. The E500 revitalises your digital movie collection once more, giving colour, contrast and especially detail a next-generation pick-me-up.