What resolution due you output 1080i or 720p out of your a2? Also did you notice that the blacks on the hd dvds and standard dvds look much darker. I used hd video essectials and all my previous settings were fine.

anybody?

Hello Mike, I have the same setup and I went with 1080i, it seems to look maybe a little better than 720p, but it's very close. The Ae makes all my dvd"s look much better than my old Sony and yes the blacks look deeper( better contrast ratio?). The only gripe I have is that it takes 2 minutes for the projector to recognize the player(handshake issue?) thru the dvi input of the projector when I turn it on, or if I change inputs, I have to turn it off and on again for the projector to recognize it again. Do you have the same problem?

Mine also takes some time to make the handshake and I just use the DVI input on the projector for the HD DVD player and HD direct tv. I bought HD video essentials and I noticed i didnt have to make any changes in brightness or contrast. I feel like I wasted my money for the disk.

I don't have any experience with the A2, but I have had the XA1 hooked up to my 8700+ and 1080i did look better than 720p. This is because the scaler in the DVD player can't scale directly from 1080i to 720p. This is becuase in order to scale, it has to deinterlace first, so it would need to go to 1080p before going back to 720p. Of course, if the XA1, A1, or A2 could deinterlace 1080i, it could display 1080p. So the scaler in these, goes from 1080i to 540p and then back 720p. It just so happens that the scaler in the 8700+ does a better job at the 1080i>540p>720p process than the player.

Of course the Reon based XA2 is an entirely different beast and looks much better on the BenQ at 720p. This is because the Reon can scale directly from 1080p to 720p.

Thanks for the reply"s. I wonder if theirs a huge picture difference going from 1080p to 720p than 1080i to 540pto 720p. Also has any seen Hd dvd on a projector at 1080p vs 720p side by side?