Toshiba knows no shame, plans to release super-resolution DVD player
[Via VNU Net / Yahoo, image courtesy of DangerousIntersection]
[Via VNU Net / Yahoo, image courtesy of DangerousIntersection]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ChiWax @ May 30th 2008 3:37PM
How lame is it when so many DVDs are priced under 10 bux? Some people would contend that buying "Juno" or "27 Dresses" for more than 20 bux is lame....Q
Raptor007 @ May 30th 2008 3:42PM
True, but why would you want Toshiba's new DVD player when your Blu-ray player can already play those cheap DVDs?
Nfinity @ May 30th 2008 4:01PM
and that's totally up to you. These players will be most likely below $200, will super-upscale to as close as you can get to real HD from regular DVDs.
To say that it's a lame or bad technology, especially when it can be integrated in TVs alone so you don't even need a special player, the TV will do the job for you, is to be kind of narrow minded. Don't you think?
Mikael.H @ May 31st 2008 6:15AM
I think that Toshiba is simply responding to the bad marketing job the BD team is conducting in making BD mainstream. They are probably agreeing that this technology will not live long enough to make any good bucks off.
When comparing the complete aspects, DVD is not nearly as inferior to Blu-ray as VHS was to DVD so there might not be reason enough to believe that we will have the same takeover process.
Toshiba sees that BD are not trying hard enough lowering prices and releasing new more stable players, that they see a window of opportunity. Maybe...
Also prices of BD-R media and burners are dropping fast so the BD bootleg market could be just around the corner. One more very heavy blow to an already bleeding marketing plan.
Just my point of view. /Mike
squiggleslash @ May 31st 2008 11:43AM
Really not sure what the hate-on Engadget has for Toshiba here, nor why this is portrayed as a bad thing.
Here's the deal. This is good news because it's an enhancement technology for DVD. The write-up done by a journalist independent of Toshiba is portraying it as something it's not - Toshiba's attempt to produce a "Blu-ray rival". This is just a significant advancement in upscaling DVD players.
Toshiba is not doing this to "keep DVD alive" or "destroy Blu-ray". Blu-ray's dead anyway, it's just a minority of techies and the industry itself that can't see that.
Blu-ray is expensive and will be for the next few years. It's lacking in significant advantages over DVD, it has one significant disadvantage (BD+ - a technology that guarantees you will never be able to buy an arbitrary BD disk and be able to assume your player will play it) that thus far Blu-ray's backers refuse to do anything about, and nobody's even producing BD players that aren't going to be obsolete in a year with the exception of one games console that doesn't fit easily into an AV stack.
If BD was the only HD player around for the forseeable future, a significant number of people might have adopted it through desperation, but HD on-demand is already here, Apple and others are doing it, and if Netflix can prove its business model is viable (rentals don't cut it for everyone, they don't me), then, well, which would you have? An over-priced, unreliable, device that can only play disks you've bought, or something that has instant access to every movie ever made, with no charges beyond the broadband connection you're already paying for and a fixed monthly charge for VoD service?
Think about that. I'm not talking about online rentals. I'm talking about paying $20 a month on top of your broadband subscription, and being able to watch any movies you want, as often as you want. Only Pirate Bay users have anything approaching that today, but this'll "just work" and will not require you have the world's biggest hard disk and the patience of a saint. Netflix are already going there, they're just SD at the moment.
Meanwhile everyone Blu-ray player supports DVD and it's improbable that anyone will ever produce a player only capable of playing blue-laser media. From Toshiba's point of view, they get the same royalties on every BD player sold that they get with DVD players, and that's not going to change for at least ten more years.
Toshiba and Sony both screwed up. Sony has produced an HD-video disk technology that will never be market viable. Toshiba failed to promote their technology enough to displace Sony's, and arguably didn't make it advanced enough to be a part of the oncoming VoD revolution, though as a framework it certainly had room to grow in that direction.
What Toshiba's done here is recognize the inevitable. It's not getting involved in Blu-ray, and will not unless Blu-ray actually defies gravity and takes off. In the mean time, it's improving a product line that will sell well for the foreseeable future with a relatively cheap software upgrade.
They're not doing this to some-how prolong the life of DVD, and they're not doing this to "stick it" to Blu-ray. They're doing this to make money. Easy money. What Engadget and the Playstation 3 fanbois who post here want them to do doesn't make any financial sense at all. You're essentially saying the right course for a consumer electronics company is to freeze all development of a best-selling technology, refuse to produce the best product they can, and instead jump into a technology that's expensive and unlikely to be a success.
Sintek @ Jun 17th 2008 11:31PM
Yeeaa Squigle I see you obviously dont work in the retail world or have any contact with Toshiba reps or Sony rep.
You saying that BD has no where to go? what! this is the same way DVD started slow and steady. this is an infant technology to the public. when dvd came out the prices where the same as BD is now..
I remeber buying a Pioneer DVD player for $449 CND in 1998 i think it was. and movies were $39 CND.
People have a curious fashion about them that having a physical tangable item to keep there movies is what they have to have and not just anything tangable it has to be the right size too.. why do you think they haven't brought out Movies on SD cards? it would be ALOT cheaper to load a 8Gb flash card with an HD video than it is to make DVD's. its because no one would want to have a collection on flash card.. i wouldn't thats for sure..
Anyway you should actually get out in the world before saying a technology isn't viable or going anywhere, last time I checked Bestbuy and the video rental stores have doubled the BD shelves in BD titles since HD-DVD went away.
Raptor007 @ May 30th 2008 3:40PM
It sounds like they're coming out with a high-quality upconversion process. If they integrated high-quality DVD upconversion into a Blu-ray player, it might actually be worthwhile. The HQV Reon was one of the deciding factors in which player I purchased.
But to think they can tackle Blu-ray with upconverted DVD? Pffft. I don't think even they believe this. They just want to drag DVD along as long as they can.
Big Wizz @ May 30th 2008 4:17PM
The article is vague on several fronts...
a) "lower price points than Blu-Ray players"
-Lower by how much? I would expect some kind of a premium over an upscaling DVD player, considering it's supposedly better PQ. True, Blu-Ray players are severly over-priced, but I can't see the new Tosh players being less than $150-200...
b) "convert into high-res images"
-What is their definition of high-res in this case? 640P? 715P? As mntwister sez you can't create something outta nothing.
c) I look forward to your future post defending this "super-resolution" tech over Blu-ray. Entertaining to say the least.
WebDev511 @ May 30th 2008 4:17PM
If Blu-Ray players in general upconverted as well as players with the HQV Reon, we wouldn't HAVE players with HQV Reon.
It will be interesting to see, but unlike SOME people, I'll reserve my judgment for after I see it.
FWIW, I don't need this as my XA2 does a fantastic job as is.
Big Wizz @ May 30th 2008 4:18PM
Ugh, this was supposed to be a reply to Nfinity's reply. Damn comment system.
Big Wizz @ May 30th 2008 3:41PM
They must have the consumer's best interest at heart for doing this.
Isn't that right Nfinity / Truth Teller?
Nfinity @ May 30th 2008 4:02PM
Sure they do.. If you can tell me what is bad about this I'm all ears? Having pretty much lower end HD for cheap working on ALL DVDs.
Tell me, what's anti-consumer there? I'm open to hear your suggestions.
mntwister @ May 30th 2008 3:48PM
You simply cannot make prime rib from hamburger. Images transferred in 480 can never look like a transfered 1080p picture. All those backgrounds with the trees and wood and bricks and leaves are pretty fuzzy in 480, unless Toshiba has the biggest invention in modern image restoration ever to see the light ready to be unveiled, and I highly doubt it.
They simply want to keep their royalties from DVD going. It's too bad because Toshiba does make some decent electronics and could make quite a nice blu-ray player. I think they are only going to embarrass themselves further. By the way, I love the image with the story.
So people are going to replace their upscaling dvd players with another upscaling dvd player, when they can have full high def, which might be $199 for a player by the time these come out? I think not. They are spending thousands on high def televisions, and I don't think a player at $199 or $299 is going to be a hardship for them. The public is not as dumb as Toshiba thinks, they have eyes and ears and can see and hear the difference. The biggest problem is the price of the movies, that NEEDS to change, especially for catalog titles.
Nfinity @ May 30th 2008 4:17PM
Nobody says it will be identical. It will also depend on the quality of the DVD encode as well. But Cell technology that Sony uses in PS3 helps with this.
I have already tried explaining how SpursEngine works and how Cell processor combines multiple 480p frames into 960p footage and enhances the picture even further through smart algorithams. As Cell processor is fast enough to compute these in real time you get pretty much 960p footage out of regular DVDs.
I've been to CES 2008 and saw their demo in person. Believe it or not as many others have also noted it's truly unbelievable. We all thought it was impossible and yet they seem to have done it.
I don't see why it's wrong to continue enhancing DVD technology? Already dirt cheap, movie libraries of EVERYTHING are already out there. What's bad about all these things?
It's not like it directly competes with Blu-Ray? It's a DVD afterall. You can still continue buying Blu-Ray if 1080p, TrueHD or uncompressed audio are your priorities. Sure you'll continue to pay it much more then this but that's really you compromise to make.
I think it's good because it gives a choice to consumer. Simple.
joe @ May 30th 2008 8:40PM
This is way cooler than your thinking. It takes multiple temporal samples to create a higher resolution stitched frame. So small camera moves from frame to frame increase the available resolution by providing the in between spots.
It's going to be hard to compete against BD on price with this technology. The cell is a pricey chip and this technique takes a lot of computation to pull off.
EQC @ May 30th 2008 8:49PM
NFinity: I remember when you talked about the SpursEngine a week or so ago in the comments...you explained it very clearly, and it definitely sounds cool.
My new questions (for anybody who might know) are:
1) Any chance Toshiba would license this to others?
2) Any chance Toshiba would allow this technology to be used in BR players for upscaling regular DVD's? -- For people who don't want to re-buy DVD's in BR, but will buy their new movies in BR.
3) If the tech. is using the Cell processor, how likely is it that Sony will enable something similar via a firmware upgrade for the PS3? Hmm...I wonder if the PS3's disabled SPE's would be a problem and limit the performance...
JimC @ May 30th 2008 8:51PM
Nfinity, that is about the most rational comment I've ever seen from you...
You're correct. Why not try to enhance existing DVD's. I certainly would like to see my existing DVD's look better and there are certainly many DVD's my family will not replace with Blu-ray (although all new purchases will be Blu-ray only).
There is room for both because some no doubt will think this is good enough, some will think so for a while until they realize their movies don't look as good as their friends system, and then there will be those who know the difference already. Eventually, the trend no doubt will be towards Blu-ray. But the switch will not be instantaneous so there will be a market for such technology in the interim.
Spiza @ May 30th 2008 9:50PM
So we can get 2160p out of 1080p blu-rays in the future for seriously large screen projector set ups?
When there are so many catalog movies still not on blu-ray yet, I see a decent market for these, but I doubt they can get them cheap enough to be a hot item. Those cell processors are definitely not cheap. Are they going to use the exact same one in the PS3? That would probably be the only way to bring prices down.
DrXym @ May 30th 2008 4:00PM
What is sorely lacking is any technical detail let alone an actual product containing this alleged super upconversion. Its vapourware, and I suspect when it does appear it will be a glorified upscaler. You can't magic detail out of nothing. You can't even infer it from multiple frames unless very specific conditions are met. Still, I look forward to the usual morons bragging about buying an upscaling player or TV with pseudo-HD to avoid pay a similar amount for a player which has genuine HD.
wreckedchevy @ May 30th 2008 4:48PM
there's a lot of people out there buying low end vizio tv's and such that don't mind spending the 400 for a bluray player it's the premium for the content that's stopping alot of people from switching. which case if this player does as it says and is reasonable priced i'd be all for it so i can continue to pick up dvd's cheap.
LostCanadian @ May 30th 2008 4:01PM
I don't get it...why are you guys knocking this? Did you throw out all of the DVDs you bought before Blu-Ray came out?
From the demos I've seen, the "Super Resolution" technology is pretty impressive, and if it's going to work with the DVDs I already own, I'm all for it. Of course it's not going to match native-1080p quality, but it's a big improvement on existing upconversion tech which only looks at a single frame at a time.
Note that the concept should also work to achieve better image quality for HD video as well.
DrXym @ May 30th 2008 4:11PM
I think it would be an excellent and welcome feature on a player or TV. However that doesn't mean it can magic detail out of thin air because it won't.
HD4ME @ May 30th 2008 11:15PM
There just the typical bluray fanboys who stick there forks into anything that is not there beloved blu ray, anything that might pose a threat to there savior of the world.
It is staggering to read some of these posts claiming how this format "can not work", that is just the typical ignorance and arrogance of the BR crowd, this could be a brilliant product that will be great news for the masses, BR is never going to be mass market, so there is no reason both these products cant survive side by side.
Xym and others, do some research before you start spouting off your usual crap of how this is not possible, from some of the articles I have read says it delivers a superb 960P picture, maybe the people who are spending $millions on research and development might actually know more than you, you know, they might actually have factual information, and are not just guessing.
This product, if it delivers everything as it claims, has huge potential and from all accounts it does actually work superbly, whether it actually makes it to market is another story, how about opening that one big blu eye and maybe agreeing that this could be a good thing, you can all still take your BR players to bed with you, nothing needs to change for you fanboys, you can till have your product as well, but this potentially is a wonderful product for the masses where BR will be the upmarket niche as it is heading now.
Time will tell.
DrXym @ May 31st 2008 4:38AM
The thing is HD4ME is I have done my research. There are no concrete details on how "super resolution" will work anywhere, just PR hot air.
But we can take a pretty good guess at what it does. Let me explain with the simplest example you can imagine. A 2x2 grayscale display is trying to show a black dot. The dot sits between pixels so each pixel shows a shade of gray somewhere between white and black to approximate it. i.e The image is showing an antialiased version of the dot. Upscale the image to 4x4 and the display still can't show any more detail however it might be able to interpolate some pixels to smooth the antialiasing. Standard upscaling would use some kind of interpolator.
What super resolution probably does (on top of interpolation) is try to infer detail by comparing frames. If the dot in the source is ever so slightly jittered it might be possible to infer more detail because the antialiasing levels vary slightly from one frame to the next as the dot moves around. The upscaled 4x4 screen still can't tell its looking at a dot but it might be able to put extra black where it thinks the whatever-it-is happens to be, It might be a bit better than upscaling but it wouldn't be as good as if you captured the image at 4x4 to start with.
Now that is a simple controlled example. In the real world, movies do not exhibit perfectly still images with nice sharp images with the perfect amount of jitter. Scenes are dynamic, jitter (if it exists at all) is most likely to be in the vertical and seriously dependent on the film source and capture method, scenes pan / fade / zoom, things happen on screen, effects are matted over live elements, film has grain or has been DNRd. On top of all that MPEG2 encoding means much of the detail is tossed in the trash and you have DCT blocks to deal with too. And interlacing. And subtitles. And 3:2 pulldown. And bad compression. And probably a raft of other things.
What this means is at best you might see some extra "detail" where "detail" is extra contrast weight on on edges. At worst you will see nothing at all. If Toshiba really screw up their heuristics you will see weird ass floaty effects around some objects, super resolution flipping on and off almost at random, or other visual glitches that will drive you nuts.
Now I think "super resolution" is a cool feature in any device but it is not the saviour that some HD DVD zealots think it is. It is glorified upscaling. It will not magic detail out of thin air. It will not look anywhere close to a true HD image, whether it comes from a dish, digital download, HD DVD or Blu Ray disk. If you buy a player with this feature just to avoid buying a proper HD player you need your head examined.
andyg8180 @ May 30th 2008 4:04PM
well most of those older movies are just upscaled digitally and put on blu-ray... so skip the blu-ray conversion process and just have it done in your home... makes sense to me... engadget should put a better spin on this article...
Spider1981 @ May 30th 2008 4:09PM
Hey, you're completely right!
And by completely right, I mean totally wrong.
DrXym @ May 30th 2008 5:15PM
Most movies are scanned from their prints at high resolution and then downscaled to fit on BD. The content that is likely to be upscaled is old TV shows.
HD4ME @ May 30th 2008 11:21PM
This article is just a typical right hook form this site, it openly opposes anything that is seen to be anti blu ray.
What a disgraceful, one eyed, bigoted article, just a typical sledge from the king of sledging, Darren Murph, in his never ending anti Toshiba, anti anything BR stance he has had from day one.
Post deletion in 3 2 1 .....
A1 @ May 30th 2008 4:07PM
"They simply want to keep their royalties from DVD going."
There it is everyone, if you didn't know already this is the single reason Toshiba wanted HD-DVD and why they wont go into Blu.
They are selfish money grabbing turds who prefer making money then giving customers what they want.
Toshiba makes some great products and their Blu-ray player would be fantastic, but no too damn selfish for that.
WebDev511 @ May 30th 2008 7:17PM
because no one making blu-ray is a "..selfish money grabbing turds who prefer making money then giving customers what they want."
God forbid we wait to see what this is about before deeming it a money grab or piece of junk.
Nfinity @ May 30th 2008 4:11PM
Darren says: "We really cannot fathom why Tosh would even dream of fighting BD with souped-up DVD, but reportedly, it plans on marketing the unit"
Who says they are fighting BD? They are doing their own business by progressing DVD technology? The only reason you see this as anti-BD is because it becomes obvious that if Blu-Ray is doing bad as it is now with regular DVDs, it will have even less chance of going mainstream with Spurs-ed DVD player producing stunning results for regular folks.
I don't see why this is a bad thing. It's great because it gives a greater variety of movies to the consumers by enhancing the DVDs and allows already existing DVDs to evolve.
Who wants Blu-Ray and 1080p HD can still get it at $400, $500+ per player and $25+ movies.
The real fear and attacks on Toshiba are fueled from, my guess, because if this technology is successful it will prove that majority of people don't really mind that the footage is not TrueHD in sound or real 1080p if it sounds and looks great enough.
All in all I will definitely buy one of these. It will be interesting to see how the my existing DVD movies still not on Blu-Ray will look like. I'm pretty anxious to see.
DEEZNUTZ @ May 30th 2008 4:23PM
Nfinity,
Bring back your original avatar. Its just not "you" without it.
JDS @ May 30th 2008 4:32PM
nfinity
Blu-Ray isn't doing bad..Blu-Ray bounced back for the week ending May 25, 2008 consumers spent $12 million+...that's a 54.9% jump in revenue from the previous week.
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom282637ZBN/#/32
Truth Teller @ May 30th 2008 7:18PM
* quote
JDS @ May 30th 2008 4:32PM
Blu-Ray bounced back for the week ending May 25, 2008 consumers spent $12 million+...that's a 54.9% jump in revenue from the previous week.
=====================================================
54.9% more of next to nothing is still next to nothing.
Those are not great numbers.
HD4ME @ Jun 6th 2008 8:59PM
Have a read of this article and it's links NF, very interesting!
http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/toshiba-new-bd-attack-vector?date=041220080604
Achilles @ May 30th 2008 4:15PM
Why not just put out a moderately priced, completed, quality Blu-Ray player from Toshiba? That's where they could gain some ground. I'd rather have a quality player that is complete than the various generations that are still being sold today.
I'd definitely be interested in a BLU-RAY player from Toshiba.
wreckedchevy @ May 30th 2008 10:52PM
why would they want to make a bd player just to compete with the cheaper (subsidized) ps3?
DEEZNUTZ @ May 30th 2008 4:16PM
Yeah, Toshiba is looking to be 0-2 against Blu-Ray...
I'm not against this at all, I just agree that Toshiba should be concentrating on coming out with a BD player, and perhaps incorporate this to differentiate their players from the others.
Achilles @ May 30th 2008 4:35PM
EXACTLY!!!!!
DrXym @ May 30th 2008 4:45PM
They should really produce a rebadged Samsung BDP 5000 specced up for profile 2.0. The HD DVD backwards compatibility should ensure them a few sales.
mntwister @ May 30th 2008 4:43PM
Hey, I am all for making my dvd collection look better..right now I am using the Denon 3930 dvd player with the realta chip and that's about as good for upscaling as we have right now....still nothing at all like a good high def disc........being a classic movie fan, there are many many movies that won't see the light of day on blu-ray for a long time, it took 10 years for some of them to come out on dvd, so I am open to the new technology to play the movies until I can replace them with high def versions, when I see it with my own eyes. I just don't think it's anything near a replacement for a disc with a true 1080p image and Dolby True HD or DTS MA or PCM sound.
Plus there's the fact that there are thousands dvd's have poor transfers unless they were transferred in the last 4-5 years or came out in a remastered special edition, so how good are the thousands of movies out there with sub-par transfers going to look upscaled even if this turns out to be an upscaling miracle, compared to new high def blu-ray transfers? There's alot to consider here.
wreckedchevy @ May 30th 2008 4:51PM
i agree there are alot of blu and hd-dvd's out there that don't look any better then an upconverted dvd.
Big_Jon_G @ May 30th 2008 4:54PM
Is that Darren Murph's backyard?
I have the Samsung UP5000 that just had a firmware upgrade. I love it because it plays Blu-Rays, HD DVDs and upconverts DVDs with its Reon. So I will probably not be in the market for this. Many consumers may be though.
Maybe Toshiba thinks J6P will be thinking along the lines of: "well we don't have to get $25-30 blu ray discs or buy a $400 blu ray player honey! We can get the Toshiba player to go along with our new HDTV? It's cheaper that that doggone Panasonic or Pioneer player over 'der."
Of course this all assumes that Toshiba will have hired people with actual marketing experience by the time these players come out, or we'll have HD DVD part 2.
One last thing. Count me as one of those who miss Nfinity's old avatar. While I like his current one, it's just not the same when I click on the comments section of a Blu-Ray article and don't see the blood-spattered face as comment #1 with "retard" somewhere in it.
XDragon @ May 30th 2008 5:02PM
So basically if you own a PS3, this means nothing.
Toshiba is using an inferior version of the cell with 3 slower cores so Sony could easily put this into the PS3 if its actually good.
Not that i'm bashing this, there could be a large market for this and that would certainly help Toshiba get some of the money they lost back. They'd also get royalties if other companies chose to use their technology so good for them.
Bill @ May 30th 2008 10:17PM
Wow out of all these comments so far one person got it right. Not bad for a thread with Infinity and Farce Teller commenting.
Please people Tosh knows that DVD is dying, how do they know this??
1) By July every new release will be hitting BD day and date.
2) BD is increasing its market share year over year,
3) They have already seen the same thing as DVD SLOWLY started taking over VHS.
4) Criterion will be releasing BD for the SAME price as their DVD counterparts, Lionsgate is almost there, this will force the other Studios to follow suit as the format grows.
5) DVD Kiosks at SUPERMARKETS are renting BD for the SAME PRICE as DVD's. (Now that is mainstream)
6) Amazon.com is having sales all the time on BD. Some sites have had sales on BD as low as $9.99
What they are trying to do here people is make an upscaling engine that they can put in their own BD player and sell to other CE companies to use in there BD players. Simple, they bought a Cell plant and they want to make MONEY off it.
For anyone to think that Tosh is trying to stand up to the BDA, or that the BDA is worried about a "super resolution" DVD player is simply and ex-HDDVD fanbot.. The reason I know this... WB is apparently prepping 4k transfers for BD with HD audio. It really is that simple. I like Infinity and Farce talking like BD players are still all around $450, Funai has a couple brands out there at $298 and Sammy is at $350. So by July BD player prices will be lower and by Christmas they will be at the $199 and lower mark. For anyone, and I do mean anyone buying an HDTV over the Christmas Holidays. A $50 to $100 difference for a true HD, BD player; over a “super resolution” DVD player, from who again? Oh yeah TOSH, LOL, LOL; will be ABSOLUTLY NOTHING!!!
Mr. E @ Jun 1st 2008 9:21PM
Yeah, I'm also looking forward to the PS3 firmware update that enables this processing. That way I can actually try it out, because no way am I ever buying another DVD (only) player.
Truth Teller @ May 30th 2008 5:58PM
LMAO
So, a means of significantly advancing on the quality upscaling gives us is supposedly 'shameless' now is it?
You guys are desperate.
This is just the next gen HD TV (allowing SD material to look acceptable on 42"+ TVs ......which if folks could be honest about this for just a second looks sorely lacking usually) and SD DVD player.
The fact that it works so well with everyone's existing DVD collection is the real kicker.
......and the PS3/Blu-ray fanboys know it.
Hence their disinformation & spiteful bile.
As per.
Steve @ May 30th 2008 6:05PM
*LOL* This is a joke!! This will only confuse the consumers more, it was bad enough to have the format war before and now a super-DVD-player that can play HD!! They're greedy, they don't want to lose royalities on DVD and they're taking away the full movie experience at home. You probably won't get the full 1080p resolution, you won't get the lossless audio and you won't get the superior interactivity like you do on BD-Java... Why didn't they think this before HD-DVD was out?? Why do this after HD-DVD lost. I tell you why, plain and simple, GREED!!!
Rob S. @ May 30th 2008 6:47PM
God your an idiot!
"This will only confuse the consumers more"
I got news for you, if any consumer shells out more than $100 on any video player regardless of what format it is than they deserve to get ripped off!
"They're greedy, they don't want to lose royalities on DVD"
So they are greedy for trying to make money? I got news for you, thats the goal of every non-profit business out there. Keep on thinking that your favorite companies like Sony have anything else in mind besides making as much money off of you as possible.
"You probably won't get the full 1080p resolution, you won't get the lossless audio and you won't get the superior interactivity like you do on BD-Java"
No shit Sherlock, its not trying to duplicate BD or go head to head with the same market segment that BD is going after, its already lost that war with HD DVD. This is simply an attempt to create their own niche in the market with people who may not want to let go over there 400+ set of DVD's and replace them with $25-$30 Blurays. If it truly does a better job of upscaling DVD's than other upscaling DVD players out there (and that remains to be seen, if its just a marginal difference than its nothing better than a top of the line upscaler) than this is a product that will find its own segment of the market and probably be successful. And no, im not some HD DVD fanboy or Toshiba apologist (yes I have a Bluray player and love it), and I do agree with some poster that think they would be better off incorporating this into a Bluray player and selling the combination of the two.
Rob S. @ May 30th 2008 6:51PM
"I got news for you, if any consumer shells out more than $100 on any video player regardless of what format it is than they deserve to get ripped off!"
Line should actually read that if they buy a $100 video player regardless of what format it is and they dont know exactly what they are getting than they deserve to get ripped off!