We are starting easy on the Hometheater components holiday gift tips as we still expect several new announcements in the Blu-ray and video streaming categories. The new Toshiba XD-E500 upscaling DVD player is possibly the best affordable DVD player out there this fall.
Toshiba threw all their anger from loosing the HD disc war with HD-DVD into making the XD-500 DVD player. The new DVD player features Toshiba's XDE technology.
XDE takes according to Toshiba the DVD picture quality to a whole new level. In addition to providing upconversion from 480i/p up to 1080p, XDE offers user selectable picture enhancement modes that allow for greater detail, more vivid colors and stronger contrast that bring standard DVD quality closer to the HD experience.
The XD-E500 1080p/24fps Upconverting DVD player features besides XDE, HDMI-CEC, DivX certification, JPEG capability, MP3 and WMA playback in a slim, high-gloss design.

For Whom:
The Toshiba XD-E500 is for people with a big DVD library who did not jump to Blu-ray yet.

The Good:
1080p upscaling
XDE promises better image quality

The Bad:
No review of the XD-E500 available yet.

Where to Buy:
The Toshiba XD-E500 DVD Player is already shipping from Amazon.com for $179.99.

See all our top 10 gift tips in the Hometheater Components Category. Explore all our Top 100 Holiday Gift Tips 2008.