Topic: Toshiba 1080p upconversion

[Touti]

I mentioned this in my Blu Ray thread but it got loss in the talk.  Has anyone seen this on a 1080p TV ?  Is it really (almost) as good as HD-DVD and Blu Ray ?

If it does then this could hurt Blu Ray a lot because it means people and dvd clubs and stick to standard format and enjoy them on their HD tv's for years to come.   Whenever I buy a DVD I'm wondering if I'll still want to watch it in a few years after I switch to Blu Ray.

This new Toshiba player could be the answer to that and make it worth buying standard format for a few more years, at least until they finish the specifications.

http://www.toshibaxde.com

Interesting article on this here.
http://news.digitaltrends.com/talk-back/259/toshiba-xde-dvd-player-better-than-blu-ray

But Toshiba did some things very right and it (and other DVD players like it) could keep Blu-Ray from ever replacing DVD.

[lyonsden5]

I have not seen it but iI can't imagine it is as good as a blu-ray disc. The article itself calls it "good enough". If ti does a better job at upscaling standard DVDs to 1080p than my PS-3 or Toshiba HD-A30 then I may be interested in getting one for my standard DVDs. However, like the article says, "Home theater owners will clearly still prefer Blu-Ray." You can't compare.

Not only is the picture better but the sound is unbelievably better. I have a Yamaha 6.1 surround amp (yes, 6.1... another case where adopting a new format early gave me the toy first but made it obsolete real quick). It does not decode any of the HD sound formats but I still can hear a huge difference between a BR or HD disk. Even their standard DD or DTS mixes are so much better it's a bit hard to believe.

For the majority of people the Toshiba may be good enough. As Jimmy pointed out in another thread most people don't even have a 1080p TV. But for those who want the best picture and sound available you can't beat BR or HD.

[Touti]

I tend to agree that it wouldn't beat HD formats, if that was the case then why would have Toshiba trashed hundreds of millions of dollars in HD-DVD ?

However I've been delaying on changing my EDTV for a 1080p HDTV because I felt it would have been a waste of money for a few reasons.

First: Regular upconverting DVD players aren't up to the task and they wouldn't be any better on 1080p than my current EDTV.

Second: HI-Def digital TV is not yet up to 1080p and even if it was, Videotron (my cable provider) compresses the signals so much to fit it all their channels into their bandwidth that it wouldn't be of the best quality either.

Three: I'm not ready to buy a BR player because the movies are way too expensive and I won't be buying one until they finalize the specs.

Toshiba XDE could change that.  I can now buy the 1080p TV I want and have immediate benefits by hooking an XDE player to it.

As for the Home Theater owners wanting BR.  I can't talk for all the collectors here but for me, if the movie's good I won't even notice the difference because it's not what I'll be looking at.  "Adequate" and "Good Enough" is probably just good enough for me.