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Is the format war about to resurface? Does Toshiba have the Blu-ray killer? (2 Viewers)

Hanson

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Wal-Mart is not included in the Videoscan data.

Really? Japanese sales data?
 

Aaron Silverman

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You are in a teeny, tiny, infinitessimal minority. (OK, an "elite few." ;) )

At any rate, why would you "have to" rebuy your collection if you buy a BD deck that upconverts SD-DVDs, but not if you buy a deck that only upconverts SD-DVDs?

If there aren't enough movies in the world that you don't already own to make buying a new format worthwhile, then don't buy a new format. But the mass market will always be more interested in new releases than in catalog titles.

Like I said before -- there is not enough ROOM, price-wise or quality-wise, for another format in between current SD upconversion and BD. The mass market can't really tell the difference on most TVs, and BD players will cross the $200 barrier by the 2008 holiday season. End of story.
 

Aaron Silverman

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It's still hard to compare a couple of dozen BD titles with a couple of hundred SD-DVD titles (the Walmart shelf selection). But I think this week's $15 sale is a good sign.
 

Hanson

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Because the BD players don't upconvert any better than my HTPC. The trick is if the Toshiba chip is better than my HTPC and current BR players.

We'll see how that goes. ;)
 

chuckg

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Well, I've skimmed over this topic and all I can say is
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFt.

Why does anyone put up with companies that outright lie? No one, no matter how much money they have, can take a 640x480 picture and make it identical, or even close to, a 1920x1080 picture. End of rant.
 

Michael Elliott

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I'm looking forward to some of the upcoming BU titles but I'm not sure what we can or should expect. Apparently the Spaghetti Western Collection was a major bust so are they going to lose more money just to put it on HD? I would like to think so but I'm not sure. If those "big" SW titles sold poorly on SD then what about all those lesser known titles? BU did wonderful work on their Franco titles but they are still full of specs, scratches and so on.

As I said, I'm "HD ready" and just have to start buying the movies but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps I'm wrong but I feel like the studios are just using fans as laboratory rats to see what will or won't fly. The HD buyers are screwed and out of luck. I don't want to start buying new titles on Blu just to have something else pop up and kill this thing off or keep it a niche market where I'd have to buy new titles on Blu and catalogue titles on SD.

If this new machine turns out to be true then I'd be happy with it since I haven't started my new collection. However, if I had started a Blu collection then I'd be pretty upset that this might hurt the format more by certain titles not getting released.
 

David Deeb

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Maybe they can bundle this with the ever-popular Enhanced Definition TV for a perfect "not HD" experience.
 

Scooter

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Unless I missed something, I have not seen an "official" statement/announcement from Tosh on this, so it has yet been proven to be any kind of lie.

I am hoping it's real, tho.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Scoot,

If you read the initial reports it said that they were a few
months away from unveiling this technology.

It's no lie.

We should have a first-hand look at this in September while
out at CEDIA. We'll report back just how good this software
really is.
 
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Is the apparent technology being used the super-resolution as explained / shown at thedeemon.com?

Long time lurker - but I can't post URLs to other sites after I've made 10 posts or more - - - LOL
 

Paul Rossen

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Why doesn't Toshiba spend the time and money working on next generation video viewing machines? Weren't they part of the partnership with Canon a few years back on something called SED? This was to be a Plasma and LCD killer. Anything doing on this front?

Also, why don't they build a killer BluRay machine? At least when Sony lost the Beta-VHS war they ultimately made VHS machines.

Will people not care any longer about the tremendous sound they've been hearing at home? Won't the BluRay folks be putting out competitive priced units by Fall 2008? So what if Toshiba comes out by Xmas with it's killer upconverting machine. I'm sure that Blu Ray will match or come very close in price with better features. I don't understand the point of all of this except to try to stick it to Sony.

The marketing folks at BestBuy etc will have a field day. But will everyone else? More confusion in the marketplace? And Toshiba believes that is a good thing?
 

Bill Cowmeadow

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If you enlarge a digital photo that is 640 x 480 to 1920x1080 then photoshop the image to fix the obvious flaws it now has you can indeed approach the standard of the larger image. I know you can do this cause I've done it many times. why can't a dvd box do esentially the same thing on the fly. I will buy said box when its available.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Hmmm... Did you do this for print output or for on-screen viewing at 100% magnification?

For print output, I agree, but for on-screen viewing at 100%, I cannot. Of course, this also applies to some extent to practical HT app -- it really depends on your screen-size-to-viewing-distance ratio.

Still, the softer results w/ images in motion are generally less noticeable in practice than w/ still images, so YMMV some there.

BTW, going back to the possibilities that a smarter multi-frame algorithm can offer, I'd like to point out though that there's probably a huge caveat there in that the MPEG2 video *already* requires the video decoding algorithm to do something like that to even pull out a reasonably artifact-free video stream at 480i/p. There might not realistically be too much more that can be extrapolated/interpolated further to recreate lost details w/out creating even more objectionable artifacts as a result. :P It's not like the magic upconversion algorithm will be working w/ a pristine, full bandwidth, lossless video stream afterall.

In any case, all we have here are nothing but pure speculations. I for one have no desire to keep on waiting for Toshiba (or whoever else) to prove they can do the kind of magic that's needed to make my entire DVD collection equal what Blu-ray already offers -- that's even assuming my entire collection consists of the best DVD quality, which it definitely does not. ;) If/when a great title comes out on Blu-ray (and is not priced out of my range), then I'm gonna get that and enjoy it. :D If the Toshiba magic somehow turns out to be real, *then* I'll consider what to do from that point forward -- and maybe Blu-ray prices will get slashed accordingly in response, if it's for real, so that it won't matter much anyhow...

_Man_
 

Jason Seaver

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Eh, I don't know about that. It's the same basic idea as what Imax does to 35mm film to make it look good on their screens, and most of those look pretty nice. Toshiba is basically trying to do the same thing at a smaller scale in real time. The output won't be the same as actual HD-source material, just as when The Dark Knight opens next month, the enhanced footage likely won't be quite as good as the parts actually shot in IMAX, but it'll look better than standard 35mm.


Idle question - if Toshiba announced that they were putting this enhancement technology in DVRs, TVs, and receivers, would it be perceived as such a threat? I mentioned before that I would love to have it in a DVR to make my digital-tier channels not look like crap. New DVD players are just the first place Toshiba will be selling it.
 

Robert Crawford

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There is no way that this player can turn an ordinary DVD into something that looks as good as HD. It's not possible because the amount of detail on the DVD doesn't exist for it to be upconverted to look like HD. To this day, I haven't found one SD DVD that has been upconverted that comes even close to a good HD presentation.





Crawdaddy
 

Ronald Epstein

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Crawdaddy,

I am just as pessimistic about all this as you are.

However, just to be on the side of caution, I have no idea what
sort of software advancements are available and just "how close"
Toshiba is capable of making upconverted DVDs look to HD.

Based on what Toshiba is touting, this is all new, never-before-seen
technology.
 

Hanson

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The Chinese have been turning mushrooms and soy protien into convincing meat substitutes for years now.

The thing to keep in mind is that for an overwhelming number of consumers, it doesn't need to do 1080p. It barely needs to do 720p (and probably under that). There is a limit to what our eyes can see as a function of display size:viewing distance, and when you say it cannot do 1080p, I say, "so what?" It probably doesn't need to mimic more than 680p to look like HD. What it really needs to do, and what current upscaling players don't do, is to mimic HD color range. If they can pull of that trick without weird artifacting, then they're really on to something.

Some people are complaining about JP6 falling for marketing tricks, but if you're watching 1080p on a 50" set 10' away and thinking it's any better than 720p or that 1080 is the only way to make "true hi definition", then you're the one falling for marketing tricks.
 

Jari K

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This is slightly puzzling. You actually bought PS3 (=Blu-ray player also), but now you´re "happy", if you don´t have to buy any actual Blu-ray-titles? Sure, I fully understand, that you don´t want to "re-buy" your whole collection (or not even those older catalog-titles), but if you really have the player, you might as well enjoy it, IMO.

If you´re going to wait and see, that what this magical player from Toshiba will deliver or is there some "new format" coming around the corner, you probably have wait a quite a while..

You´ve PS3, enjoy it. :) What TV you´ve, btw? If it´s 1080p, you should enjoy those Blu-ray-titles a great deal.. It´s quite hard NOT to see the difference (between Blu-ray and SD DVD).. :)
 

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