Toshiba Goes With Upscaling DVD Player, Another Dis For Blu-ray
Posted 08/18/08 at 09:05:40 AM | by Chris Moody
Since Blu-ray won out on the high-definition format war over Toshiba’s HD DVD, high definition on disc has just languished. Blu-ray’s victory has been a hollow one with few people rushing out to replace their trusty old DVD players and DVD collections. The initial assumption that it was the format war that kept adoption of the new standard slow. It turned out to be customers being perfectly happy with standard DVD quality.
Toshiba has been considering it’s next move and has decided DVD is good enough and is jumping on the "upconverting" DVD player bandwagon. They are releasing the XD-E500 DVD player that they says does more than previous models to improve the look of DVDs on high-definition TVs. At a MSRP of $149.99 it is twice as much as regular "upconverting" players, but it is less than half the price of a Blu-ray player.
An Associated Press report said that the XDE player produced a noticeable sharpening of the image over a standard, $70 up-scaling model on side-by-side LCD HDTVs. Toshiba didn't demonstrate the XDE against a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, however. Toshiba did stress that it's not meant to compete with Blu-ray.
Toshiba is playing up to Blu-ray’s marketing weakness, they can’t seem to convince users that there is enough of a difference in between regular Blu-ray and Standard DVD to warrant the expense of upgrading. The appearance of “upconverting” DVD players is only going to further hinder Blu-ray adoption. It might be an inevitability that someday we will have to upgrade. The big question is who will hold out the longest, Blu-ray’s high prices or consumers not wanting to pay those high prices and holding on to standard DVD? Who do you think will win out? My money is on the consumers.
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Why no DVD-Audio support?
Submitted by yagisencho on Mon, 2008-08-18 13:59
I don't begrudge Toshiba a price premium for additional video processing, but why doesn't this player include DVD-A support? I'd prefer a full-featured Toshiba player over OPPO, but Toshiba doesn't offer a full-featured player.
Submitted by denyasis on Mon, 2008-08-18 12:57
I doubt that even if BLU-Ray players were $50, there would a large surge is buying them. Simply, to the average user, BLU-Ray has no advantages over DVD especially when looking at total price.
"but its HD!". Yes Bluray is. However the majority of consumers dont have Home Theatres systems. They have an analog solution (DVD to CRT). Swapping a Bluray drive in, wouldn't yeild any change in quality. To get the whole HD experiance you need all the HD/Digital hardware, and the sales people at the Larger outlets make consumers painfully aware of that by trying to push home theatre systems.
Hence its just not swaping out the player for most, but totally upgrading/changing thier living room setup. LCD and Surround sound of decent quality add greatly to the overall price of "HD", not to mention the added complexity of seting up such a system. Us, readers wouldn't have a problem with it, but how many acquaintances/family members can you think of that would be totally frazzled trying to setup thier new home theatre system that the "nice sales guy" convinced them to drop the greater half of a grand on?
Despite all the big blu-ray
Submitted by atomaweapon on Mon, 2008-08-18 12:32
Despite all the big blu-ray hoopla, I really haven't seen much advertising or marketing for blu ray players. Yeah there is the occasional bluray ad in best buy, but no real marketing blitz that puts it top-of-mind. I have a ps3 so I can play blu-rays, but I always forget to rent them from netflix and really have no true die hard interest. A mild passing curiousity to test my ps3 capabilities out is about as serious as it gets.
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How do you "forget to rent"
Submitted by horzo on Mon, 2008-08-18 14:49
How do you "forget to rent" Blu-ray through NetFlix? Look at your account preferences. You can set it to automatically add Blu-ray to your queue when you select something available in both formats. If you already have a PS3 and a decent HDTV, not opting for BD is sort of odd. Might as well support the format. It's not like it costs you any more at this point.
Submitted by Ignorant_Techie on Tue, 2008-08-19 06:13
I personally "forget" to rent Blu-ray because I personally just don't care about Blu-ray. I have the PS3 and am quite happy renting movies in DVD format. Also, DVD is more...versatile...compared with Blu-ray where I can ONLY play it in my PS3 as for a DVD can be played in my bed room, my PC, at work, etc.
I personally won't support Blu-ray because I want it to fail. I am on the digital download bandwagon and want to see this as the future of format distribution (yes Michael Bay, I WANT digital distribution). The Blu-ray and HD DVD camps killed the disc format with their wars and unfriendly restrictions (to "protect" the studios).
Digital distribution has the same hold backs that "high def" discs do, broadband isn't available to the masses (ie rural areas and low income families) but Blu-ray is only beneficial on a $500+ TV (and that's low end). Also, depending on the size of the TV..."high def" could be pointless as well and what I mean by that is that I have a 32" HD TV but my seating area is more than 8 feet away. But I'm not rambling...
Submitted by horzo on Tue, 2008-08-19 13:14
what the file size would be for a 1080p digital download of a 2 hour movie? Let's just say far too big to be worthwhile. Those of us with 40"+ HDTVs can certainly see the difference between 720p and 1080p. Your attitude strikes me as just a teensy bit short sighted and childishly bitter.
Submitted by theevilghost_casper on Mon, 2008-08-18 12:31
I do not own an HD TV. In fact I just bought a new Tube SD TV with a digital tuner about 3 months ago, and I'm very happy with it. I'm a very busy man and I watch very little TV; so to me spending a bunch of money on an HD TV and a Blu-Ray player is a waste of money, I don't have to waste. I plan on keeping my SD TV for the next 10 years and have no plan on buying HD anything during that time. If I was going to spend the kinda money an HD TV and Blu-Ray player was going to cost me; it would much more likely go into building a new computer. SD quality TV's and DVD's look good enough for the little TV I do watch. I guess I'll see what kind of HD Technology comes out in 2018, when my trusty Tube TV finaly dies, and I'm forced to buy a new TV.
Blu-ray... the new Batamax...
Submitted by dwr50 on Mon, 2008-08-18 08:53
Get yours while the price is still high.Replace all your DVD's that would make them even happier.
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