Toshiba Debuts ‘Near-HD’ DVD
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 8/18/2008
Wanye, N.J. — Toshiba is positioning its first DVD player with eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE) technology as delivering "near-HD" picture quality from standard-definition DVDs and bridging the price and performance gap between current up-scaling DVD players and Blu-ray players.
The XD-E500, available at retail on Aug. 18 for a $149 suggested retail, is targeted to consumers who are heavily invested in DVD collections, aren’t ready to step up to a high-definition player priced at a minimum $400, and would appreciate an up-scaling DVD player "with an added layer of enhancement" that brings picture quality "closer to HD," said Louis Masses, product planning director of Toshiba’s digital A/V group. XDE technology, however, "is not meant to replace, kill or compete with Blu-ray," he said.
The introduction is backed by a print- and Web-based ad campaign urging consumers to "breathe new life into your DVDs."
The single-disc XD-E500 incorporates up-scaling technology similar to that in Toshiba’s $69 player and other up-scaling devices, but XDE adds three user-selectable enhancement modes: sharp, color and contrast. Sharp mode improves edge detail by analyzing an entire image, then adding edge enhancements only in places where the image needs it, not across the entire image, Masses said. Color mode also analyzes the picture and makes green and blue adjustments where needed to deliver more realistic greens and blues without looking artificial and "without a tremendous impact on other colors," he said. It also improves flesh tones. Contrast mode lightens up dark areas in high-contrast scenes without washing out the light areas. With it, consumers see more detail in the darker areas of a scene, Masses explained.
Consumers turn on each mode individually, but only a maximum of two modes can run simultaneously: sharp and color, or sharp and contrast.
In its literature, Toshiba points out that "while XDE, like many DVD players, up-converts DVDs up to 1080p to match the resolution of your HDTV, it goes a step further — thanks to XDE’s special picture-enhancement capabilities. XDE delivers a crisper, more vivid picture quality from your DVDs."
The player defaults to 1080p output from its HDMI port, but owners of older flat-panel TVs can select 720p or 1080i output to match their displays. Output of 24 fps is also available.
The XDE technology was designed specifically for use in DVD players and is focused on maximizing DVD quality, Masses noted. He declined to comment on whether Toshiba would offer additional XDE DVD players or enter the Blu-ray market.
To stimulate sell-through, Toshiba plans a September launch of a print and online ad campaign running through early January. The campaign includes consumer magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, local newspapers in the top 14 markets with a circulation of 7.3 million, and online sites, including NBCOlympics.com. Toshiba will also launch a Web site, www. Toshibaxde.com, to educate consumers.
For the campaign, Toshiba will be "more on-line than in the past," said assistant VP Maria Repole.
For the point of sales, Toshiba is offering shelf talkers and a demo disk that explains the technology’s benefits and features scenes that salespeople can select to demonstrate each mode, Masses said. The disc doesn’t include a side-by-side comparison because the company doesn’t want to "fake" a comparison, Masses said.
Other features of the XD-E500 include HDMI CEC, DivX video playback, playback of MP3- and WMA-encoded CDs, and JPEG playback.
-
If Toshiba made a Blu-ray player that had the enhanced DVD features they might have a winner on their hands. The P3 and several other Blu-ray palyers do an excellent job in up converting and e4nhancing DVDs. Also the price of Blu-ray players is dropping and probably during the holiday season they will be near $200. Toshiba again has shot itself in the foot by being too stubborn to support Blu-ray.
Paul Goldberg - 2008-19-8 09:37:00 EDT -
How would this compare with the up-scaling DVD players sold by oppodigital.com. I have the DV-980H and it does work quite well.
Ed Chen - 2008-18-8 23:20:00 EDT -
Jaffrey - there is one Blu-Ray player which does upscale extremely well, but you might not have seen it as I believe it was only in production for 6 months. It's the Samsung BD-UP5000... if you get a chance to see this player performing while hooked to a quality panel, you'll be truly astonished. I'm not sure why Samsung discontinued it since they have no other upscaling player (blu-Ray or otherwise) anywhere close to it's picture quality. The bonus was that this model, in addition to BD and DVD, also includes the capability to play HD-DVD (and there are great deals on remaining movies in this format). The downside is that although the upscaling on the BD-UP5000 is superbe, with unbelievable detail recreation, it did have a tendancy like many Samsung products to crush deeper greys, pulling them to black (I guess to enhance overall contrast) resulting in lost detail in very dark scenes.
When the new Toshiba arrives, it will be interesting to compare the handling of this type of material coupled to a display which also doesn't crush dark scenes; since in many cases, the panels themselves are the greatest contributor to detail loss in darker picture areas.
S Sutherland - 2008-18-8 14:28:00 EDT -
Toshi*a - you don't even have discrete IR codes and you come up with crap.
Discrete Infrared - 2008-18-8 09:45:00 EDT -
Clearly, none of the folks who have commented have used a PS3 with the newest firmware updates applied as a blu-ray or dvd up-converter.
HDMI 'True' 1080p picture with 29-35 mbit/s stream with lossless true-hd and dts-ma 7.1 or 7.2 options for audio can not be matched by dvd players such as this one. There is absolutely no substitute for data.
Even FIOS from Verizon only outputs HD sources at 18-19 mbit/s . Comcast HD is more along the lines of 12-14 mbit/s (depending on the QAM alottment). Over the Air (OTA , think rabbit ears) only yields 1080i (but still beautiful and free)
If you think blu-ray is a passing technology, wake up. They are coming into'ing tech to produce 50-100 layer blu-rays..meaning terabyte capacities within the future.
Streaming depends upon fiber being strung across the US to mimick EU and Asian countries in their internet backbones. We need 100/10 mbit type connections to exploit the 'true' HD out there that is being captured (think batman:dark knight imax cameras)
Even blu-ray is a compressed HD feed... just something to think about.
Please, before dismissing, try a PS3 w/ a Samsung, Sharp or Sony set w/ Blu-ray Planet Earth or Apocalypto and hook up a AVR unit an 7.1 or 7.2 audio and tell me there isn't a true cinematic experience at your fingertips within you own home.
Hello blu-ray (and good tech to compliment the player) and a farewell wave to movie theaters (aside from IMAX)
Inform yourself, www.avsforum.com
Notice what player (when they had no limits on money) this group of video experts use for their demo setup?
h**p://www.soundandvisionmag.com/installations/2916/criterion-remastered.html
Blu-ray is NOT the next laser disc. The audio alone speaks volumes over downloadable/streaming/broadcast content.
Cassius Netzley - 2008-18-8 09:43:00 EDT
No related content found.
VIEW ALL GALLERIES