Toshiba: upconverting is nearly as good as HD DVD!

[Badger3920]

Wow... what a fantastic thread where we all have a chance to go down memory avenue and repeat every terrible argument we've already made. There aren't enough dead horses to go around for this forum.

Anyway, I'll gladly accept toshiba's price war. I love how the hd guys started attacking blu guys after warner went blu, saying "GREAT JOB YOU JUST ENDED THE BOGO'S AND PRICE WARS FOR ALL OF US."

A week later, amazon has a huge 50% off sale, and now toshiba is playing its last card "uhhh, now our prices are REALLY cheap!" It's really their last move anyway, they have no plays left. I, for one, am actually very happy about their new strategy. HD guys (who I have respect for as fellow hdm enthusiasts) can buy back up players to future protect their hd libraries. BDA will counter aggressively in their own way. The end of this war will benefit everyone, and toshiba is helping everyone on its way out of the hd market. Win-win the way I see it.

Long live optical hdm.

[Malanthius]

Try and find one bluray ad from anyone that touts sd up conversion.

they are trying to establish a new format, why would they taint the marketing campaign with references the old format?

they are interested in pushing HDM to the masses.

toshiba is interested in preserving their patent profits and such from DVD, especially after WB rolled out on them.

There are not any yet. YET! You think that if they see Toshiba do it they won't counter? Especially if HD players start selling well? Sony will do it if they think it's important to the consumer and will help sales. I think it would be smart for Sony to do that. Especially because I believe many more people are not buying into HDM not because of the format war. Because they don't want to have to re buy their old collections again. So yeah it's smart to push the up conversion point. They never really had a campaign to push it before. If Sony doesn't do it great for Toshiba!

[BluWolf]

So Toshiba is trying to sell their HD-DVD players on the merit of being able to upscale standard-def DVDs. Nice one, but oh yeah - Blu-ray players do that whole upscaling DVDs thing, also.

On a personal note, after reading through all these posts, I must say, HD-DVD fans, or at least the ones posting here, are are some really angry, unhappy people; ironically, they accuse Blu-ray supporters of being the irate ones.

It's just easier to hate the team that's winning.

[Grubert]

Upconverted DVD can look much better than the samples given in this thread, and I'm not talking simply about using more advanced single frame image interpolation techniques. There's a little something called super-resolution which uses sub-pixel shifts between multiple consecutive frames to generate much more accurate high frequency detail. When done properly, the result can be fairly astounding. Text which was previously unreadable becomes readable, and you start seeing little details that you could not see before. I've never witnessed super-resolution in real time and I don't know of any DVD upconverters that actually employ this technique, but I imagine that this is what Toshiba is touting. It is significantly better than most DVD upconverters available today.

First, I don't believe super-resolution can turn this


Into this


Second, none of the available HD DVD players have that super-resolution processing. So they only have the same upconverting as that available on, say, a Denon 2930 DVD player.

[Barricade]

I love the blu fanboys, Back when Paramount ditched BR: a Sony spokesman was asked what Blu-Ray people should do about not buying Paramount titles, the spokeman said they would look great upconverted.... Go figure. Sony grasping straws?

[StarrySkies]

First, I don't believe super-resolution can turn this


Into this


Second, none of the available HD DVD players have that super-resolution processing. So they only have the same upconverting as that available on, say, a Denon 2930 DVD player.

No, you can't turn SD into HD completely, but you can get much closer than you apparently realize. You obviously have very limited technical knowledge on the manner, and that's okay. However, you need to do a little more research before you come talking back to me like you actually know what it is you're talking about. Like I said, super-resolution is a rarity these days in consumer products, so most people are not aware of the potential. I don't know of any player that uses super-resolution to its fullest extent (or to any extent for that matter), so yes, that also counts out current HD DVD players. This doesn't mean future HD DVD players won't utilize this technology. Also, don't get the idea that I'm a HD DVD supporter because I'm not.

[twojayz]

Let's not forget that 70% studio support for Blu won't mean shit if they don't push the hardware into homes. In terms of Toshiba driving this message home it's not a bad tactic at all. People can still enjoy ANY movie they want regardless of who is backing who in terms of HDM. It's actually a pretty good move on their part from a business perspective.

[dawz]

Let's not forget that 70% studio support for Blu won't mean shit if they don't push the hardware into homes. In terms of Toshiba driving this message home it's not a bad tactic at all. People can still enjoy ANY movie they want regardless of who is backing who in terms of HDM. It's actually a pretty good move on their part from a business perspective.

Yeah but Toshiba is not allowed to try and operate as a successful business... at least not according to Blu fan boys that is

Toshiba got dealt a huge blow; rather than throwing in the towel, they are trying a new angle to get HD DVD hardware into homes... This is why Blu fan boys are all irate

[twojayz]

This could actually work. I have no idea if it will but it might...What the hell, it's worth a shot. It certainly can't hurt. God knows that the BDA isn't exactly doing a bang up job at touting upconversion capabilities.

[Malanthius]

No, you can't turn SD into HD completely, but you can get much closer than you apparently realize. You obviously have very limited technical knowledge on the manner, and that's okay. However, you need to do a little more research before you come talking back to me like you actually know what it is you're talking about. Like I said, super-resolution is a rarity these days in consumer products, so most people are not aware of the potential. I don't know of any player that uses super-resolution to its fullest extent (or to any extent for that matter), so yes, that also counts out current HD DVD players. This doesn't mean future HD DVD players won't utilize this technology. Also, don't get the idea that I'm a HD DVD supporter because I'm not.

You should watch Dances with Wolves Directors cut upscaled. Looks Damn close to HD.

[Razz-Mataz]

Let's not forget that 70% studio support for Blu won't mean shit if they don't push the hardware into homes. In terms of Toshiba driving this message home it's not a bad tactic at all. People can still enjoy ANY movie they want regardless of who is backing who in terms of HDM. It's actually a pretty good move on their part from a business perspective.

It definately is a good business move, it's just a sad one. I won't even go so far as to say it's unethical, it's just unfortunate that they will be further confusing consumers with this marketing push of the upconversion feature.

Both Blu-Ray player manufacturers and HDDVD player manufacturers are selling upconvert DVD players so it's hard for them to tell the truth that HDM blows upconverted images out of the water. The marketing of the HDM formats, for the most part, said that the HDM players would deliver true HD, and it wouldn't let your DVD collection go to waste because it can make those look pretty good too. The upconvert marketing (refering to packaging and feature spec sheets) often says things like "Near HD" but also often blantently claims it delivers 1080p or HD picture.

These two seperate marketing claims confuse customers (talking firsthand sales experience here) and now with Toshiba appearantly ditching the HDM style marketing for the Upconvert marketing will make consumers more confused and less likely to buy HDM.

So if Toshiba is trying to pull Blu-Ray down with it's own sinking ship and steer customers to the "good-enough" quality of DVD, then they are doing a fabulous job, and frankly it is the most business savy move they could make.

Yes I know that DVD is good enough for most consumers, specifically those who just don't care about movies. Just because most consumers don't care though, is no reason to give upon them and let HDM be the next laser disc. HDM being niche may not be the end of the world, but I would prefer the largest possible library, so lets hope the electronic retail sales staff do their job and get the general public informed on how good HD can get.

[twojayz]

I agree Razz...I didn't get from the press release that they are going only after the upscaling capabilities though. I like how they are saying listen, you have some films now and there's no NEED to purchase them again. We can bring them up to near HD quality picture. AND, on top of that for what you don't have you can get the real deal. I like how (from my view) they are at least trying to bridge the gap. Blu-ray, while I really think they have done a superb job marketing the PS3 in particular, hasn't really touched that. If they can get more people into HDM then it's a good thing, regardless of the side of the fence you're on.

By the way, I couldn't agree with you more about the upscaling to 1080p bit. It's bullshit and they ALL know it. I'll take the "Near HD" quality but upconverting to 1080p, umm no.

[Starrsofire]

Let's not forget that 70% studio support for Blu won't mean shit if they don't push the hardware into homes. In terms of Toshiba driving this message home it's not a bad tactic at all. People can still enjoy ANY movie they want regardless of who is backing who in terms of HDM. It's actually a pretty good move on their part from a business perspective.

I think many people forget that we are talking about huge international corporations and Twojayz is on the money when he says that its about hardware in homes - Toshiba does also hold an 80 % market share in current HD based notebooks and as consumers become more wireless the PC may become obsolete in homes. Think about it - a whole bunch of day to day consumers, your aunties and uncles, mums and dads, even your grandma and grandpa go into the local electronics store and buy their new HDTV and to go with it a new HD player - PRICE PRICE PRICE. I am also picking that Toshiba, if they aren't already my even take a discounted HDTV/HD DVD bundle out into the market -HD equipped TV's are way out selling HD players.

Anyway - as for upscaling and Toshiba - why not push it. It's true, it not a lie and for that Aunty and Uncle that already have a huge SD collection, its just that extra bit enticing - not only can the watch all the movies they have in a higher def but can now begin collecting HD DVD's...Hardware in homes will mean demand for discs.

[GPT]

LOL, a certain hd dvd salesman said last year that the upconversion from the current hd dvd player was as good or better than Blu-ray playback.

There where lots of posts even from hd dvd faithful questioning his sanity that night, and the next day he apoligised and said he was drunk when he posted that info.

Anyone who thinks hd dvd is going anywhere but down the tubes should also be considered drunk or on some heavy drugs.

[HomeTheatreFreak]

I hate to agree with Toshiba on this one but the fact is that Upconversion is almost as good as HD to the average joe, watching his HD on a 42" HDTV at like 8-10 feet away. Even the ones that have larger screens do not see a huge jump in quality and this is HD's biggest problem right now. People just dont see the jump from SD upconversion to HD as that big of a deal and certainly not worth the price and certainly not worth rebuying all of the films they already own in SD DVD. Given that most people have a pretty descent collection of SD DVD's that does not bode well for catalog titles on HD even if HD does start to do well. People will stick to new titles only.

The good news is that human eyes become accustomed to certain levels of visual quality and the more HD people will watch the more they will get used to that quality and hence the worse SD DVD will look when they go back to SD DVD. The problem is that it takes quite awhile for this effect to take place when your switching back and forth between SD and HD and that is what most people are doing.

Everyone knows that this is simply a different marketing approach by Toshiba but the bottom line is its alot more true thn most people will give it credit for.