toshiba super upscalers

so has anyone got one yet?

At least three people, including DVDTown's EIC Henning, have tried one of Toshiba's super upscalers. In fact, Henning even wrote a review about his machine.

They put the Cell chip in the new LCD TV's this year!

I wonder why they didn't put the cell chip in these new upconverters (XDE500).

Apparently the cell chips use way too much electricity?

Hi Sawitree,

I have a comparison shot between normal and XDE enhanced of Monster House (was taken handheld from about 6ft on a 42" Westinghouse 1080P:

http://www.gadgetpig.net/xde/

If you put your cursor over the picture, it switches between normal and sharp modes of the XD-E500.

I would say at the current Amazon price of $97.00 with free shipping, it's not a bad deal compared to 1st gen upconverters. It is NOT a super-upconversion player though, and it does not display 4/3 material properly (it stretches it). Your mileage will really vary with this unit. If you have an LCD under 40", and sit 6ft or farther away from the set ,and watch a lot of anime and/or well encoded or anamorphic widescreen DVDS, you will see a visible (but minor compared to blu ray) difference. It basically sharpens the picture and adjusts "gamma" during postprocessing, to make it appear brighter and more contrast. Again, it is NOT going to "WOW" you like blu ray can however.

That being said, black Friday is right around the corner, and rumors of BD 1.1 players from 99-149 are hot. If you have a small DVD collection or don't mind repurchasing titles, I'd rather suggest getting a BD player It's better to invest in a newer system, since BD is head and above anything out there. Once you see BD in action, it's hard to go back to SD material.

And you can easily find on Amazon, Trade Forums, Ebay and Craigslist tons of BD titles for under $20.00 (many at $9.99 even).

regards,

GadgetPig

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[Post edited by GadgetPig on Oct 26, 2008 - CDT 9:11 PM]

gadget pig

well my dvd collection is around 500 titles and i have a HD DVD player with approximatley 45 titles, i was really wondering if the new tosh upscalers perform better than the HD DVD players when upsacling a dvd. I'm not in a possition to go blu for a long time as i have fully gone back to dvd after HD DVD went belly up!

Hi Sawittree,

You can buy it at Circuit City (it's currently $99.00 there) and give it a test spin at home. And just return it within a week if you don't like it. (check return policy if restocking fee applies)
Just leave it in default mode "sharp", but change audio to bitstream.

I think if you tried it, you would be the best critic since everyone has different TV setups, color preferences, etc. What looks good to me, may seem faulty to someone else.

regards

GadgetPig

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[Post edited by GadgetPig on Oct 28, 2008 - CDT 9:32 PM]

little problem with that as i live in England!!

However i am tempted to buy one but they are currently over £100 (£119 on most retailers websites) here which is almost twice the price that you have quoted. We always get shafted on the price of electrical goods compared to USA prices