TOSHIBA HD-A20 is really a 1080I player with problems. BLU-RAY is better quality

[HDTV1080P]

According to page 88 and 89 of the August 2007 Home Theater magazine the Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD player does not have a real 1080P output and it also does not deinterlace 1080I correctly.

Home Theater Quote number 1 page 88 August 2007.
“With the deinterlace test from silicon Optix HQF HD DVD, the HD-A20 does not correctly deinterlace 1080I. Worse, it doesn’t detect the 3:2 sequence from film based 1080I material. At first glance, this shouldn’t matter. All HD DVDs are natively 1080p/24 on the disc. But nearly all (some accounts say all), next generation players convert the 1080p/24 on the disc to 1080I first, then back to progressive if desired. Done right, this isn’t a big deal; but, done wrong, it is. If that is what the HD-A20 is doing, then it seems that it’s not performing the last stage correctly. Unfortunately, there is no specific test available to verify this either way.”

Home Theater Quote number 2page 89 August 2007.

“If you want real 1080p, you’ll have to save up for the excellent HD-XA2, which has some of the best processing and scaling of any disc player on the market. Of course, it’s 63 percent more expensive.”

So when comparing second generation HD-DVD players to second generation BLU-RAY players there is only one model of HD-DVD player that has a true 1080P/60 output. The Toshiba HD-XA2 is the only true 1080P/60 HD-DVD player. Perhaps a firmware update this fall to the HD-A20 and the HD-XA2 will offer true 1080P/24 output. BLU-RAY standalone players have had true 1080P/24 output since December 2006. Currently 1080P/24 is not found on any HD-DVD player yet.