I have a 720p projector (Canon SX60) and project on a 110" screen. I was using an OPPO 971 DVD player (great upscaling player), but a couple of months ago I purchased an HD-A2 HD DVD player to see if there was any reason to buy HD DVDs.

Here are my conclusions after A/B testing (HDMI connections, HD-A2 on 1080i) of HD DVD and SD DVD versions of the same movie (Batman Begins and 300):

- The picture with the Oppo from an SD DVD is a bit better than on the HD-A2 (The HD-A2 occasionally has noticable jaggies along edges when there is motion, and I never noticed this with the Oppo).
- On the HD-A2 the picture quality from the HD DVD version was slightly better than from the SD version … but only slightly.
- Sound from the HD audio tracks on the HD DVD seemed a bit more open and better detailed to me (I have a upper end audio setup in the HT), in comparison to the normal Dolby track.

Frankly, I was a bit disappointed that HD DVD didn’t look better, but was happy that SD DVD stacked up so well in my HT.

One caution in generalizing from my results: the Canon SX-60 is an LCoS projector with a very smooth "filmlike" image (no screen door effect), good video processing and excellent optics, so SD DVDs look darn good. The HD-A2 is an entry level HD DVD player that doesn’t have the best video processing (probably why the Oppo 971 gives better results on SD DVDs) so processing to 1080i/60 fps may degrade the native 1080p/24 fps HD DVD image sufficiently to compromise potential video quality.

That said, I’m not in any hurry to trade my projector for a 1080p model, and have not bought any HD DVDs in the two months since I bought the HD-A2.

Given the uncertainty in the format war (Blu-ray are looking particularly vulnerable right now) I would suggest holding off for a ‘winner’ before buying, although you might want to try for yourself with your projector if you have a friend with a HD disk player.