Article: Toshiba XDE sharper than BD from 8ft: BD1500 Spidie 3: pitted side by side

[bluskiessmingatme]

Originally Posted by `Lestat`

Here is yet another raving XDE review.
http://tinyurl.com/5j7y6o
The people seem to love it.
I notice that Amazon finally has the XDE@#1 in upscalers. They seem to have inventory problems as anytime they have like 2 units in stocks it is a link from an outside vendor.

Does the Amazon ranking count pre-orders? outside linked vendor orders? Maybe XDE is doing much better than the ranking appears to be letting on.

Which "people" are those, Lestat?

Let's look at some other reviews:

(Forgive me, people, but I am about to borrow some posts from the HD DVD section right here on highdefdigest.com, a non-smackdown area, so these are not from so-called "Blu fanatics.")

Here is the link to the thread:
Why not XDE/HD DVD?


from one post:
"some movies looked like crap (10,000 bc), i assume thats becasue of the edge enhancers. LOTR (FOTR) looked worse to me, green leaves and grass looked decent with the color enhancements, but the edge enhancement made it all look crappy. Depends on the movie I guess."

from another:
"Those who appreciate the player most seem to have medium-sized display (around 50") and are sitting about 8 feet away. Much outside that range you'll either see the ringing (bigger displays and/or sitting closer) or won't notice any improvement (smaller displays and/or sitting too far away)."

from another:
"I would only consider it as good as the XA2 if it had the ability to reduce the Edge Enhancement setting like the XA2 does. Right now, it's set too high and isn't adjustable."

from another:
"OK, I spent quite a bit of time playing around with this last night. Long story short: For $150, it's a decent upconverter. But it's not magic and the claims that it makes a DVD "near High-Def" are frankly absurd.

For deinterlacing, the player failed most of the jaggies tests on the HQV test disc, but did OK with the "Mixed 3:2 with scrolling titles" test, which is traditionally very difficult for most deinterlacers. I didn't see many problems with jaggies on "real world" content, but probably because the player applies softening to difficult cadences to mask jaggies. The 1080p24 option worked pretty well with all of the film-based DVDs I tried.

As for the picture enhancements, they're a mixed bag. "Color" makes everything look garish and cartoonish. I defaulted to the "Contrast" setting, which looked the best overall.

The player has a mediocre MPEG decoder. With all enhancements turned off, it has a very soft picture. Turning on any of the enhancements automatically applies a moderate amount of NR and the "Sharpness" filter. "Sharpness" amounts to a pretty straightforward edge enhancement application. It adds quite a bit of ringing. Anyone who says they don't see ringing with this player either has a very small screen or must be legally blind.

Overall, the player does make the picture look "crisper" than other DVD players without edge enhancement filters, but it does not generate any "Extreme Detail" and the ringing is bothersome in the background of shots or whenever text appears on screen. I was able to get nearly the exact same results with my Oppo 980H by turning on Edge Enhancement in my video processor, which is not something I often recommend. I saw nothing special in the way this player applies its edge enhancement over other upconverting players with similar settings.

I compared parts of Hellboy on DVD and Blu-ray, then Hot Fuzz on DVD and HD DVD. There was absolutely no mistaking the upconverted picture for anything like real High-Def. It was a night-and-day difference in both cases, with the DVDs looking soft and artifacty. The player does better with animation than live action, but honestly how difficult is it to make a Pixar disc look good?

Also, whenever you pause the image, the player only displays a half-resolution field scaled to fill the screen, not the whole original frame. This makes DVD menus look awful, and makes it impossible to look at a resolution test pattern to see exactly how much ringing the filters add.

The player can be made region-free with a remote control hack and will play PAL discs, but it forcibly converts PAL to NTSC prior to scaling and does a horrible job of it. PAL discs were filled with jaggies and aliasing, and lost a significant amount of detail. The player is useless with PAL.

In other words, XDE is more hype than substance. I'm not much impressed."

[Rich86]

If intelligent commentary and/or objective evaluations about anything are what is desired by someone - best to look most anywhere other than the smackdown forum in High Def Digest.

[bluskiessmingatme]

Originally Posted by Rich86

If intelligent commentary and/or objective evaluations about anything are what is desired by someone - best to look most anywhere other than the smackdown forum in High Def Digest.

Rich, if you are referring to the evaluations I posted in the thread above yours, you might reread the intro to the quotes. They were all taken from the HD DVD forum section, not a smackdown area, all from your side, not mine.

[`Lestat`]

This is a bit off topic, but I need some help.
I just discovered the 'Night' option on my Harman-Kardon AVS146 receiver. This stops the extreme sound spikes in movies so that I don't have to continually raise/lower the volume.

Someone told me that the PS3 doesn't bitstream therefore this Night option would not be available on the receiver.
Is it true or not that all Blu standalones do bitstreaming?
I am considering getting a Blu player very soon.

[bluskiessmingatme]

Originally Posted by `Lestat`

I am considering getting a Blu player very soon.

GEEZ, Lestat! Don't say something like that without a little warning first! I felt my heart stop from the shock, for cryin' out loud!

[z4017]

Originally Posted by `Lestat`

I am considering getting a Blu player very soon.

Don't do this please! This smackdown forum cannot survive without you!

[vinnie97]

The PS3 doesn't bitstream. Most (all?) others do.

[BillythePuppet07]

Originally Posted by `Lestat`

This is a bit off topic, but I need some help.
I just discovered the 'Night' option on my Harman-Kardon AVS146 receiver. This stops the extreme sound spikes in movies so that I don't have to continually raise/lower the volume.

Someone told me that the PS3 doesn't bitstream therefore this Night option would not be available on the receiver.
Is it true or not that all Blu standalones do bitstreaming?
I am considering getting a Blu player very soon.

Lestat I actually got to see the XDE in action at Circuit City today. Honestly I don't see what all the fuss is about. It is a nice upscaler but I wasn't blown away. I still might get one to use for my dvd's and save my a-30 for hd dvd's. I haven't decided yet, the price would have to be right though.
I don't think you should punish yourself by not getting a blu-ray player if you love hd media. You and I both love hd dvd and know it should have won. But the reality is corporate America is a bitch and doesn't care about the consumer. So you may have to buy into blu-ray at this point. Circuit City also had a bunch of Sony s-300's for $299. I personally would go for this instead of a ps3 espacially if you have a 360 already or don't game much.

[bluskiessmingatme]

Originally Posted by BillythePuppet07

Lestat I actually got to see the XDE in action at Circuit City today. Honestly I don't see what all the fuss is about. It is a nice upscaler but I wasn't blown away. I still might get one to use for my dvd's and save my a-30 for hd dvd's. I haven't decided yet, the price would have to be right though.
I don't think you should punish yourself by not getting a blu-ray player if you love hd media. You and I both love hd dvd and know it should have won. But the reality is corporate America is a bitch and doesn't care about the consumer. So you may have to buy into blu-ray at this point. Circuit City also had a bunch of Sony s-300's for $299. I personally would go for this instead of a ps3 espacially if you have a 360 already or don't game much.

The Sony S300 is now on sale at Amazon for $229 with free shipping.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-S300-...0678223&sr=8-1

I love the S300, but just remember if you want picture in picture or BD Live, you will be better off with the S350 or the upcoming S550 or the PS3

[BillythePuppet07]

Originally Posted by bluskiessmingatme

The Sony S300 is now on sale at Amazon for $229 with free shipping.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-S300-...0678223&sr=8-1

I love the S300, but just remember if you want picture in picture or BD Live, you will be better off with the S350 or the upcoming S550 or the PS3

Your right, I would go with the s350 if I had to chose between it and the s300. I will say proceed with caution though. I'm still not so sure that blu-ray is gonna ever be that big. That is why I will only buy a blu-ray if it is a major hit or just a must have or not available on hd dvd. Upscaled dvd's are not as good as hd dvd or blu-ray, but they often don't look bad either.

[`Lestat`]

[quote=BillythePuppet07;1170643]Lestat I actually got to see the XDE in action at Circuit City today. Honestly I don't see what all the fuss is about./QUOTE]

- I don't trust in store demoes. Always something not set right. When you get home any product always looks better.
- I am getting XDE & Blu.
- I once had a PS3, can't stand the hideous design. I want a standalone.
- I am not paying more than 299$. I screwed myself by waiting too long on the FutureShop special (which ended yesterday), now the Samsung is up 100$ to 399$ (w/3 'free' movies).
- I am going to ask FutureShop tomorrow to price match BestBuy's 349$ and still give me the 3 free movies. If they refuse, I will wait for the next sub-300$ Blu special.
- I am keeping my A30 HDDVD player because I have many discs and most of them are not even available on Blu; namely Star Trek remastered S1 on HDDVD.

[HiDefFanboy]

Holy CaRp - after I 'ban' myself from posting for a week, I come back and find the smackdown forum has ended with a whimper....
Lestat and Billythepuppet are about to buy Blu-ray, Gargamel is a proven secret Blu-ray sympathzer, and all the other arguments have essentually fizzled out...

Come on Lestat - don't do it... buy the XDE - Toshiba is counting on fooling a few people like yourself....

(Just wanted to add, Gargamel, it was absolutely worth not posting for a week to find out that you actually had a Blu-ray player all this time, the XDE I am sure will be forgotten soon enough even though that is what we started arguing about...)

[eric89074]

Sony will be dropping the BDP-S350 to $299 at the end of the month get that.

[Rayzor77]

[quote=`Lestat`;1170710]

Originally Posted by BillythePuppet07

Lestat I actually got to see the XDE in action at Circuit City today. Honestly I don't see what all the fuss is about./QUOTE]

- I don't trust in store demoes. Always something not set right. When you get home any product always looks better.
- I am getting XDE & Blu.
- I once had a PS3, can't stand the hideous design. I want a standalone.
- I am not paying more than 299$. I screwed myself by waiting too long on the FutureShop special (which ended yesterday), now the Samsung is up 100$ to 399$ (w/3 'free' movies).
- I am going to ask FutureShop tomorrow to price match BestBuy's 349$ and still give me the 3 free movies. If they refuse, I will wait for the next sub-300$ Blu special.
- I am keeping my A30 HDDVD player because I have many discs and most of them are not even available on Blu; namely Star Trek remastered S1 on HDDVD.

If your actually serious about getting the player, Best Buy(Canada) is going to have preferred customer sale on Sep 8/9, so there is a fairly good chance the player will get another 10-15% discount on top of the current price.

[`Lestat`]

Originally Posted by eric89074

Sony will be dropping the BDP-S350 to $299 at the end of the month get that.

Is it profile 2 enable/ready? http://tinyurl.com/55k8h7
In what way is it better than the Samsung BDP1500 http://tinyurl.com/6laq5q