What is a HD dvd?

What is the difference between an HD DVD Player and an DVD Upconverter? Is it a big difference?

• I recently purchased a HD DVD player which is a Toshiba HD-A2 DVD Player. The price of the HD DVD player is a significant amount more than an DVD Upconverter. I was told that the HD DVD player can upconvert regular DVDs to HD quality. What am I missing out on? It sounds like the two units do the same but have dramatic price differences. What is best to go with? Would I get the same quality and spend much less by just purchasing an upconverter rather than an HD DVD player?

• Answer:

  An upconvert player can only play standard DVDs. It takes the basic 720x480 resolution and adds more pixels to make it look a little more like HD. A true HD DVD or Blu-Ray player plays discs that actually store more pixels for a true HD image, so the quality is better than what you can get by upconverting. By the way, according to Consumer Reports, an upconverting DVD player may not be worth the extra money. It can't add details that aren't there. The difference between an HD or Blu-Ray DVD player and an upconverting player is more dramatic than the difference between an upconverting player and a standard player.