Jerry. The player defaulted to 1080i which looked magnificent downscaled by the AE900. I thought I'd try 720p and realized immediately that the XA1 downscaling is poor to say the least...

I'm a big fan of Joss Whedon and already have Serenity and the Firefly box-set on DVD. I had ordered the Serenity HD DVD from MovieTyme, but cancelled it and have now ordered the better (!) UK version.

Apart from being blown away by the naturalness of the image, my biggest shock was how good 1080 sources could look downscaled to 720 lines. And I do sit very close to the screen (about 1.4x screen width). The implication for flat screens (up to 50" say) is that, unless you are a gamer and sit very close, 1080 lines are probably a complete waste when viewed at normal distances and 720 or 768 lines should easily suffice.

I watched about 15 minutes of various chapters of the movie and was just grinning from ear-to-ear. I hadn't watched Blazing Saddles for a long time (and had never seen it on a big screen) and had forgotten just how funny it was. What the HD experience did was allow me to simply enjoy the movie. It looked beautiful.

I guess describing the image as a "window" is a good explanation, if slightly corny. As mentioned, from a resolution and sharpness perspective, the AE900 was extremely capable. From a colour saturation perspective, the outdoors railroad construction scenes (in bright sunlight) did look somewhat washed out, but this could be as intended, due to deterioration of the image before it was digitally transferred, or a poor transfer/mastering. On the other hand, the AE900 does have limitations in a number of areas. I imagine that the massively increased contrast, better blacks and greyscale of the JVC will pay dividends, particularly with dark images from sci-fi sources. It is quite frightening to think that a significant improvement in image quality is still possible with a better display device.

It's a shame this thread is confined to a sticky as it seems like only the usual suspects are contributing. I hope that, as Mark intended, others will read these comments.

One other thing - apart from a ludicrously slow disc loading time, I actually found the disc navigation quite responsive. But then again, I'm used to a Meridian DVD transport!!!

Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum
I am #25 in the HH1 photo of fame.