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Having been sent packing with its tail between its legs in the high-def format war by Blu-ray, Toshiba has stubbornly maintained that it will not build a Blu-ray player. Instead, it announced that the best way to beat Blu-ray would be to build an uber-DVD player that upscales really well. It might sound bizarre but since a huge number of regular Joe consumers don't know what Blu-ray is, or think it's something to do with the porn industry, it might make some sense. And, it doesn't hurt that the new XD-E500 only costs £75 [in the US for now]. The XD-E500 uses XDE, "eXtended Detail Enhancement," technology, which Toshiba says offers more than just normal upscaling. Alongside upscaling images to near-1080p, XDE throws in 3 picture processing mode settings. They are: Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it's needed. Colour Mode makes the colours of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Colour Mode combines the improvement in colour with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes. Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical "washing out" that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience. Other features include HDMI-CEC, DivX certification, JPEG capability, MP3 and WMA playback. Considering just how many DVDs people already have, and if the cheap XD-E500 is any good, Toshiba could be onto a winner. It's still a shame it won't swallow its pride though and make a Blu-ray player that doesn't cost the earth.-Martin Lynch dvd blu-ray HD DVD movies

from @ Gizmodo UK

Having been sent packing with its tail between its legs in the high-def format war by Blu-ray, Toshiba has stubbornly maintained that it will not build a Blu-ray player. Instead, it announced that the best way to beat Blu-ray would be to build an uber-DVD player that upscales really well. It might sound bizarre but since a huge number of regular Joe consumers don't know what Blu-ray is, or think it's something to do with the porn industry, it might make some sense. And, it doesn't hurt that the new XD-E500 only costs £75 [in the US for now]. The XD-E500 uses XDE, "eXtended Detail Enhancement," technology, which Toshiba says offers more than just normal upscaling. Alongside upscaling images to near-1080p, XDE throws in 3 picture processing mode settings. They are: Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it's needed. Colour Mode makes the colours of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Colour Mode combines the improvement in colour with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes. Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical "washing out" that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience. Other features include HDMI-CEC, DivX certification, JPEG capability, MP3 and WMA playback. Considering just how many DVDs people already have, and if the cheap XD-E500 is any good, Toshiba could be onto a winner. It's still a shame it won't swallow its pride though and make a Blu-ray player that doesn't cost the earth.-Martin Lynch dvd blu-ray HD DVD movies

from @ Gizmodo UK

The most comprehensive survey of the entertainment business in the US has concluded that PS3 owners are the saviours of the Blu-ray HD format. In its 2008 report, the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) which represents the $33 billion industry there, concluded that it was "the primary driver behind Blu-ray sales, with 87% of PS3 owners watching Blu-ray movies on their console." That's an impressive stat, but when you consider that standalone Blu-ray players are still so expensive maybe it's understandable. Still, the positive role that the PS3 played in helping Blu-ray kill-off the rival HD DVD format and galvanise movie sales over the last 6 months cannot be underestimated. After all, we already knew that the PS3 was the single biggest reason for Blu-ray winning. After all, by the end of 2007 the PS3 had sold 3 million units versus the HD DVD drive add-on for the Xbox 360, which managed to shift just 310,000 - in the US. The EMA admitted that it thought that Blu-ray was a goner in 2006 but that the arrival of the PS3 changed its fortunes. It believes that the PS3 will remain the dominant Blu-ray player until at least 2009 when sales of standalone Blu-ray players will overtake those of the console. That's a confident boast though since Blu-ray player sales have been dismal in the first half of this year, according to NPD. NPD's Ross Rubin said in May: "That standalone Blu-ray players haven't picked up significantly from HD DVD's loss shows that few consumers were dissuaded primarily by the 'format war'. When we surveyed consumers late last year, an overwhelming number of them said they weren't investing in a new next-generation player because their old DVD player worked well and next-generation players were too expensive. It's clear from retail sales that those consumer sentiments are still holding true." As a UK PS3 owner, are you watching many Blu-ray movies on it?-Martin Lynch PS3 sony movies

from @ Gizmodo UK

Following the sudden defeat of HD DVD, Toshiba revealed last month that it will attempting to kick Blu-ray's butt - again - by placing a special chip in its new DVD players that will upscale DVD video into HD video to rival that of Blu-ray. This month we get a new logo [above] and speculation that Toshiba will be adding Internet capability to the new DVD players - and DVD movie disc content - too. The "DVD Download/DL" logo has been approved by the DVD Forum Steering Committee but we have no real information on what it will actually do. Will it make a difference in the never-ending HD spat? The chip going into the new DVD players is rumoured to be based on the SpursEngine 1000 processor - which has proved incredibly capable indeed in early HD processing tests. The SpursEngine is a co-processor with 4 cores, operating at up to 1.5GHz, and designed for intensive workloads like encoding and decoding HD video.-Martin Lynch [TG Daily] blu-ray HD DVD movies

from @ Gizmodo UK

After the humiliating defeat of the high-def, HD DVD format, earlier this year Toshiba is back with another secret weapon designed to topple arch-rival, Blu-ray.

Most interesting of all is that the company thinks it can do it with your existing DVD collection. Toshiba will launch a new DVD player at the end of the year that will feature an integrated chip that will convert DVD images into high-resolution that, it claims, will rival Blu-ray video. Toshiba sources maintain that this is not just another DVD upscaler and it will market the new chip in DVD players that are a lot cheaper than Blu-ray machines.

According to Toshiba, current DVD video has a pixel count of around 350,000 whereas Blu-ray offers up to 2 million pixels. It claims the new, large integrated circuit will ramp up your exiting DVDs so that you’ll be hard pressed to tell the difference.

The end of the year is a long way off though and Blu-ray player prices are dropping – if slowly – all of the time. Now all they have to do is stop screwing us for the price of the Blu-ray movies. -Martin Lynch

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from @ Gizmodo UK