Toshiba's new SUPER UP-CONVERSION

The latest news that Toshiba will be producing a DVD player with SUPER upconversion that will allow any dvd to be viewed in a quality very close to HD. When you think about it, SUPERBIT allowed higher picture quality on normal DVD players and never really took off in popularity. After many conversations with people I know I have come to the conclusion that the average person out there is not that interested in HD and would certainly opt for the near HD option if it meant they can use the DVD collection they already have and the unit wasn't an astronomical price. From my experience, sales people dont know much about high definition and life is too short to be sitting around hoping and wishing that they re-release my fave movies in a HD format. Some of the rare titles in my collection will never be released in HD anyway and anyone that doesn't define a good movie by surround sound and CGI effects should remember this. Blu-ray and HD-DVD titles here in Australia are about $54.00 each and standard new-releases DVD's are about $26.00.
Check out the picture comparisons on this page: http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?p=631689

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[Post edited by melmax on Jan 17, 2008]

Where's the link to this news? Also Toshiba already has an HD DVD player that has super upconversion of regular DVD's to near HD quality. It's called the HD-XA2 and it just won the 2007 Editors' Choice Award from Sound & Vision.

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/toshiba-hd-xa2-hd-dvd-player-awarded-by-sound--vision/5136

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its Silicon Optix video processor turns the HD-XA2 into one of the best upconverting DVD players we've seen

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[Post edited by Falcon01 on Jan 17, 2008]

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The latest news that Toshiba will be producing a DVD player with SUPER upconversion that will allow any dvd to be viewed in a quality very close to HD.

Hey perhaps Toshiba could put this technology toward magically increasing the resolution and quality of standard TV broadcast channels. Then we wouldn't need all those HD channels or programming.

Toshiba Regza teles already upscale standard TV broadcasts

toshiba players also do the laundry for you.

Where do you buy your discs? Because i pay between $25-$40 from Big W, and even Ezy DVD averages between $35-$40, However places like Sanity sell them for around $50 but there's always heaps on the shelves there lol (I wonder why??).

I bought a dvd from Big W and it cost me $46.00. Australia also has very limited titles. And its very hard to get hd-dvd titles. You cant rent hd-dvd titles, thats for sure.

I do not agree with part of your thread Max. I do think people want HD but yea I agree that do not want to pay an arm and a leg for it. Thats why I am shocked by WB jumping with Blu Ray,but I can understand especially if they received some money for the deal. The HD DVD players, are very affordable in price (I payed 98.00 for my A2) I still see SD DVD players for over 100.00 and do you really think the super upconverts are going to be less than that? What I would like to see, on this site, is a study to see how many people subscride to HD programming either through cable or sattelite? I mean if those numbers are high than yes people want HD. Thats what got me into this format war, after directv juiced up my hd channels and I watched one of the Pirates movies in HD. As for prices of the movies, there has not been a week gone by since I purchased my A2, and that was in October,that I have not been able to get great deals on movies. Wal Mart everyday has great deals on line, and the big box stores, Circuit City and Best Buy, have run some great BOGO and a BOG2 movie deals. Again Blu Ray prices, if they stay the same, will eventually price themselves out of this war. And if HD DVD goes away for good, than all the true HD DVD lovers will be kicking themselves for siding with SONY and Blu Ray. And that my friends will be a shame.

All Toshiba is doing is adding the same PS3 [type] cell chip to their TVs, SD DVD players & HD DVD players that Sony uses.

None will look any better then a current PS3. Or as good as....

This is just more Toshiba spin & damage control.

They [Toshiba] were partners with Sony in developing cell chip technology along with IBM.

Maybe Toshiba should have added the cell chip from day one.

And in regards to the XA2....do you mean the XA2 that Toshiba planned to dump prior to the holidays? Because Toshiba was going to abandon the middle & high end to focus on low end players?

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[Post edited by TheDaddy on Jan 18, 2008]

The Daddy, can you post a link to this?

Since the HD-XA2 is one of the second generation HD DVD players and they are currently selling third generation players, logically you would think they would stop selling the second generation players eventually no?

As for this...

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Because Toshiba was going to abandon the middle & high end to focus on low end players?

I would love to see a link stating Toshiba was going to abandon high-end or even middle to only make low end players. That a new one to me.

No I meant the A2. Which is a very good player for the price.

Worth the $98 paid for it...

No doubt, it was well worth the 98.00. And if HD DVD goes belly up, I do not have alot of $ tied up in HD DVD. Plus I got the 7 free movies, which 3 I returned to Best buy and got a 75.00 credit for them. I am now able to buy what movies I want with that credit. But yes I love the player and would do it again if I had to.

@ Falcon01

I am searching for the articles I read prior to the holidays. Around the 17th of December if I recall.

It stated that Toshiba was leaving the mid to high end for Integra / Onkyo and the bottom to Venturer but would continue to focus on the A3 / A30 / A35 only.

That the XA2 would be discontinued once supplies were exhausted. It is already out of production.

As soon as I find the original link I will post it. I think it was on AVS, HiDefDigest & TVpredictions

He Dad my player was the A2 not the XA2.

Toshiba's statements that their players unconvert to near HD quality are completely misleading. Upconversion makes the picture appear better, but there's no comparison between the best upconverted 480 image and the highest rated images on either HD-DVD or Blu-ray. You can't create that much data out of something that doesn't exist in the source. If Toshiba thinks that their upconversion is near HD quality, then why would any one need to buy HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs? Is that the message that Toshiba is trying to send now? It doesn't sound like Toshiba thinks all that highly of source material that is actually mastered in 1080, as you can apparently magically make a 480 source look near HD quality. Uh huh...

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Toshiba's statements that their players unconvert to near HD quality are completely misleading. Upconversion makes the picture appear better, but there's no comparison between the best upconverted 480 image and the highest rated images on either HD-DVD or Blu-ray. You can't create that much data out of something that doesn't exist in the source. If Toshiba thinks that their upconversion is near HD quality, then why would any one need to buy HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs? Is that the message that Toshiba is trying to send now? It doesn't sound like Toshiba thinks all that highly of source material that is actually mastered in 1080, as you can apparently magically make a 480 source look near HD quality. Uh huh...

Word. Upconversion helps improve the appearance of DVD on a large HDTV. But, the improvement is not even close to the level of detail offered by HD discs.

The problem is as technology progresses so quickly it's really too much for non-technical people to understand. Many people think the only parameter of visual quality is the "resolution" of the final output, and that's the problem right there. Upconvert to HD "resolution" and you have HD quality, right? Nope.

The notion that such a super upconverter will only be as good as the PS3 is wrong. Everything I read says that the Toshiba HD DVD players do a better job of upconverting than the PS3. Also, remeber that Toshiba developed the cell processor jointly with IBM and Sony, and they now own the manufacturing that they bought out from Sony. Toshiba demonstrated the super upconverting at CES built into TV's, and attendies were very impress with it. It could be much better than the PS3 upconversion. That is not to say they could not have the PS3 do as good of a job, but that will never happen. For the same reason that Sony removed PS2 compatibility (so it would not compete with PS3 games), they will never allow the PS3 to upconvert DVD's closer to Blu Ray quality or they could hurt sales of their Blu Ray disks, where they make their money. You will never get HD out of a DVD disk, but that does not mean you cannot get closer. People and reviews rave about the upconversion of the HD XA2 player, and this cell based technology may do even better, at hopefully a reasonable price. From what I understand, they may use a lower cost cell processor, and if anybody knows how to get a lower cost quality product out, Toshiba does. If Sony can sell a PS3 for $400, and it has an expensiver Blu Ray drive in it, a hard drive, a game controller, and the Sony name (which always carries a premium price tag), Toshiba ought to be able to sell a super upconverter for well under $200, I would think. If it did as good a job as the demos at CES reportedly showed. I would look at it seriously.

robfixit said -

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"For the same reason that Sony removed PS2 compatibility (so it would not compete with PS3 games), they will never allow the PS3 to upconvert DVD's closer to Blu Ray quality or they could hurt sales of their Blu Ray disks, where they make their money."

Isn't this INCORRECT? To date, the vast majority of PS3 sold worldwide are 60gb and 80gb models, which -are- compatible with almost every PS2 disc (to my knowledge). It's the newly released 40gb model that has the compatibility with PS2 removed (to my knowledge).

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

It sounds to me that these so called super-upconverters, if they are indeed introduced into the market, would once again pit Toshiba against Sony which in turn would result in another "format war" with endless rants from fanbois from both sides on forums like this forever and ever and ever...without end. These upconverters would have to be one hell of a product for Toshiba to chance being embarassed in the industry once again. And if the product is viable, Toshiba had better do a quantumly better job in promoting it. They don't need another HD DVD fiasco.

Hey, I remember TVs like that! I'll bet John does too!!

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Isn't this INCORRECT? To date, the vast majority of PS3 sold worldwide are 60gb and 80gb models, which -are- compatible with almost every PS2 disc (to my knowledge). It's the newly released 40gb model that has the compatibility with PS2 removed (to my knowledge).

You are correct LH. And since the 80GB PS3 does software emulation of PS2 games, theoretically even the 40GB PS3 could be upgraded with a firmware in the future to do the same.

I stand corrected on PS2 compatibility on the PS3's, but I seriously doubt if Sony will ever release firmware that would allow the 40g player to play PS2 games since removing software PS2 emulation was done for the specific purpose of not allowing people to play PS2 games on it since users were not buying enough PS3 games.

Yeah, I use my 60GB PS3 for Blu-ray movies/concerts primarily, and don't own (yet) even a single PS3 game. But I have purchased 4 different PS2 titles, all of which are collections of many classic 'arcade' games of the past - Capcom Collection, Atari Classics etc - and all 4 play perfectly in my PS3. The one old arcade game I really love playing is called COMMANDO (from one of the Capcom sets).

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

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but I seriously doubt if Sony will ever release firmware that would allow the 40g player to play PS2 games since removing software PS2 emulation was done for the specific purpose of not allowing people to play PS2 games on it since users were not buying enough PS3 games.

That's not the (main) reason why Sony took out software emulation from the 40GB version. They did it because if they would have left software emulation in than that would have given less of an incentive for people to go out and buy the more expensive 80GB version. Imagine paying a $100 more for a system that only has a stlightly bigger hard drive and a few extra USB ports and a memory card reader. Most people don't care about SACD support, so that was a non-issue.

FYI... 5/30/08 Update



> Toshiba plans to release Super-Upconversion DVD player "by the end of the year"

~ Toshiba 'gets high resolution' from current DVDs ~

The Yomiuri Shimbun - By the end of the year, Toshiba Corp. plans to release a DVD player capable of producing high-resolution images from regular DVDs, company sources said Thursday.

The planned release of a model compatible with the current DVD format signifies an effort by the major electronic manufacturer to recover from a humiliating setback suffered in March after announcing its decision to withdraw from its HD DVD business, the sources said.

Toshiba's withdrawal meant its defeat by a group of electronics makers, including Sony Corp., striving to promote the Blu-ray DVD format.

Standard DVD format is capable of playing a 350,000-pixel resolution. Blu-ray and other next-generation DVD formats have a resolution of about 2 million pixels, about six times greater than the current format.

Toshiba's new technology has been made possible by developing a large integrated circuit that can instantly convert images produced in the current format into high-resolution images.

This technology makes it possible to reproduce high-quality images comparable to Blu-ray video from current standard DVDs. Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida said his company will not market DVD players that are compatible with Blu-ray.

Instead, Toshiba intends to compete with the Blu-ray camp by selling DVD players fitted with LSIs at lower prices than those of Blu-ray models.

To achieve this goal, Toshiba will advertise its new player as a device with which consumers can enjoy a broader array of content than is available in the Blu-ray format, the sources said.

Toshiba's withdrawal decision in March marked the end of a six-year competition between the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps. Each was seeking to make its format the global standard.

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-JIMI McLovin (the Voodoo Child)