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Toshiba announces XDE for DVD

by on19 August 2008

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Near 1080p HD quality for half of the price

Toshiba announced its new XDE technology which will make its debut in upcoming Toshiba DVD players. XDE is Toshiba’s new eXtended Detail Enhancement technology that upconverts standard DVDs to near HD quality.

Since Toshiba lost the HD war and their HD DVD technology was ousted by Sony power play, the defiant manufacturer has decided not to join the Blu-ray band wagon, but rather to continue to focus on DVD technology where the majority of the market is today.

With a MSRP of around US$150 (€102), Toshiba’s XDE DVD players will retail for half of what Blu-ray players are selling for. It is widely believed that DVD will continue to account for the majority of the market until at least 2011 when it is believed that Blu-ray will start to gain ground.

Right now it is not totally clear what Toshiba’s XDE technology will give the average consumer beyond an upconverted DVD from 480p to 1080p. Toshiba suggests that while their technology will not give you the same kind of resolution and detail that Blu-ray offers, they do say that their technology includes enhancement technology that improves the sharpness and edge detail of a standard DVD while at the same time a color mode works to make the colors look more vivid without washing out.

While it is really unknown what kind of real world impact the XDE technology will have on the average consumer who can’t even figure out how to properly connect their DVD play to their television, the post processing technology come become a favorite among those DVD owners looking to increase the look of the DVDs that they currently own if they care about such things.

Rumors suggest that Toshiba is using a stripped down version of the Cell Processor to provide the power to handle the complex image enhancement and upconverting that they doing on the DVDs to enhance the picture quality. However, Toshiba provided no details that this was the case, and we have been unable to confirm this rumor as true.

Last modified on 19 August 2008
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