Re: Toshiba's new SUPER UP-CONVERSION

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 -

Quote:
"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.