Display : Panasonic PX600 Plasma
Player : Toshiba HD-A2
Connection Type : HDMI
Resolution : 720p

Iwo Jima - HD DVD
***************

Front angle view of gun firing shots in the night scene blurs the overall contrast of the picture

Fast and the Furious - HD DVD
************************

Check out the night street race between Paul Walker and others. When the cars gain up speed and when the camera pans from the side angle you can notice visible blurring of overall contrast.

The dimming of contrast gets dull for few fast panning moments and then returns to normal.

Also happens in other HD DVDs where there are series of gun shots in dark scenes.

Would like to know the exact cause behind this effect ?

First, if your plasma accepts 1080i, there is no good reason to use 720p.

Second, just my opinion but is it possible that your brightness is set way too high and you are getting crushing of blacks in dark scenes?

I suggest you set the output of the HD DVD player to 1080i and let your display down scale that to it's native resolution to 1366x768. Less processing is always better imo.

I could simply be how it looks on the film stock.