US NEWS: Toshiba's XDE aims to get DVD closer to HD

[The News Bot]

New upscaling/upconversion system designed to 'take DVD picture quality to a whole new level'

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[P-P-S-S]

Appart from confusing customers i cant see any other use for this product (appart from Toshiba minimising the loss incurred from HD DVD failure). BD players already upscale SD DVDs very nicely.

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by P-P-S-S

Appart from confusing customers i cant see any other use for this product (appart from Toshiba minimising the loss incurred from HD DVD failure).

Perhaps they are catering to the significant numbers that are still with DVD? Personally I see it as a bog standard upscaler with a fancy badge - but somepeople will lap it up.

BD players already upscale SD DVDs very nicely.

I'd like to know which ones - DVD playback on the Blu-ray players I've seen to date has been dreadful. Hopefully the upcoming Denon 3800 and Pionner LX91 will start making amends for this...

[micks_address]

i wouldnt rank the ps3's dvd playback as dreadful... ok maybe not up there with the likes of the oppo 983... but it aint dreadful

Originally Posted by Rasczak

Perhaps they are catering to the significant numbers that are still with DVD? Personally I see it as a bog standard upscaler with a fancy badge - but somepeople will lap it up.


I'd like to know which ones - DVD playback on the Blu-ray players I've seen to date has been dreadful. Hopefully the upcoming Denon 3800 and Pionner LX91 will start making amends for this...

[RandomHajile]

my ntsc ps3 looks great with sd dvd on my 46inch sharp an 55 bravia

just as good as my xe1 player and 9100es

[vader100]

Can't fault my PS3 for DVD playback. Why can't Toshiba accept the fact they backed the wrong pony? If they wanted to cut their losses make a Bluray player, undercut the others, make money.

All they are doing here is muddying the waters again.

[DELUCAS]

By the looks of things these sd dvd players are getting good feedback for a cheap upscaling sd dvd player !

and they will and are selling well just like the oppo's do !!

which are a very good upscaling players as well who incidentally make money as well !!

mmm cant wait for the resoulution plus later on to see what kind of performance it kicks out via sd upscaling !!

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by micks_address

i wouldnt rank the ps3's dvd playback as dreadful...

Naturally it's a subjective thing. I know I wouldn't be happy with the performance of the PS3 as my DVD player - but somepeople will be.

[jimborae]

Originally Posted by Rasczak

Naturally it's a subjective thing. I know I wouldn't be happy with the performance of the PS3 as my DVD player - but somepeople will be.

Why what's wrong with it? My PS3 DVD playback is almost indistinguishable from my Arcam DV79's playback. Sound quality wise, well that's a whole different matter.

[David Mackenzie]

Originally Posted by Rasczak

Naturally it's a subjective thing. I know I wouldn't be happy with the performance of the PS3 as my DVD player - but somepeople will be.

As someone who's encoded (retail) DVDs, I find the PS3 playback to be interesting. It's a good attempt at giving DVD images a bit more life, but the results are incredibly varied.

It seems to take the high frequencies and smooth them over (as well as edge enhancing them slightly) so can look great for certain types of content, and weird for others. I find that also enhances mosquito noise.

[CAS FAN]

I must say that the playback from my PS3 is also superb. Just watching Supernatural Season 3 at the moment (which seems to have a bit rate around 6mbps) and it looks superb. My Tosh EP30 HDDVD player upscales OK, but it isn't as good as the PS3 upscaling.

The PS3 has always held it's own against high end upscaling players though, but then with the power of the console it should do really. The only thing for me is that the fans ramp up a bit when upscaling (where as my EP30 is pretty silent) so I tend to just use the EP30 more.

[Dr Force]

The other thing to consider is the quality of the display panels in their ability to upscale.

Alot of people (me included) now set the SD res to 576i and let the PJ upscale for a nice clean presentation.This of course depends on how good the processor is in the display v's the player.

My PJ contains the reon which is just fantastic for improving SD quality, unless the Tosh is some sort of soooper dooooper advanced chip then I'll always let my display do the work.