Toshiba remains stubborn, looks to DVD upscaling while brushing Blu-ray off

For the attentive in attendance, you likely noticed that none of Toshiba's newly announced laptops (yes, even the absurdly powerful Qosmio rigs) have built-in Blu-ray drives. Like, there's not even an option. When questioned about the obvious oversight (ahem), Tosh's Europe CEO Alan Thompson noted that "Blu-ray was just one of the many ways that you can get HD content and is not required for accessing HD content." Furthermore, it seems as if the outfit is continuing on in its pursuit to develop the best DVD upconverting technology in the whole wide world, as it explained to the press in London that its forthcoming technology would "fill in the gaps" and "add resolution." Company representatives even remarked that "Blu-ray was only a storage medium," and reiterated that BD "wasn't the only way to view high-def content." It's one thing to bow out gracefully, pick up the pieces and get on with life. It's another thing to douse yourself in ignorance and pretend that Blu-ray (let alone HD DVD) never happened.

Read - Toshiba's London press event
Read - Toshiba Europe CEO comments

[Josh @ Jun 17th 2008 3:30PM]

"Blu-ray was only a storage medium,"

...that happens to be storing hd content

do they plan on getting studios to print standard dvds with higher res data?

[Shinigami @ Jun 17th 2008 3:42PM]

If they can make a standard DVD look as good as Blu-Ray with $100-200 DVD player and there isn't a single Blu-Ray player with higher quality for $200 that can play Full-HD content on HD-Ready TV and Blu-Ray disks are not sold at the same price as DVD, I'll get a Toshiba :)

[Chuckles McGee @ Jun 17th 2008 3:44PM]

Yeah... sort of sad.

But I guess if I had blown all my R&D money on a dead format, I'd be bitter too.

[oddsareihateyou @ Jun 17th 2008 3:47PM]

how do you make a standard 480p DVD look as good as a 1080p BD on a 1080p set?

you don't, it's not possible.

you can stretch and add, and fill the space, but your still dealing with 480p data.

[Dave @ Jun 17th 2008 3:47PM]

Sure... they can call those Hi-Res DVDs. No... wait... resolution is confusing to the consumer... maybe they can call them Hi-Def DVDs, or HD-DVDs. Yeah... that's a great idea... 'cause then they can deny HD-DVDs ever happened and repeat the failure. Ingenious.

[Shinigami @ Jun 17th 2008 3:49PM]

Dave
If toshiba makes High Defitinion-looking player for DVD, guess how they'll call it?

HD-DVD player xD

[zargon @ Jun 17th 2008 3:50PM]

Maybe you will need two DVDs, the player will have two trays and you put both discs in. Then, through the magic of electronics and TV, presto, HD!

[Kiwi616 @ Jun 17th 2008 4:17PM]

So according to Toshiab "Sony should have never made VCRs when BetaMAX failed"

Nope!.....get over it and make some low price BD Players to take that market Toshiba!

[kal326 @ Jun 17th 2008 4:23PM]

@oddsareihateyou
The better question is how many people have 1080p displays? Even with HD-DVD dead Blu-Ray isn't taking off all that much. If you can upscale a DVD to 720p which is the resolution the vast majority of people have, if they have HD at all, with very good image quality the Blu-ray is a pretty hard sell for the money.

I have to agree it will not have the absolute exact picture quality of a 1080p BR movie on a 1080p display, but if you can get close with a old 720p HDTV you already have and a $200 upconverting player which way do you think people with go? I have a 50" Samsung 1080p DLP and running off a Sony 1080i upconverting DVD player most movies look pretty damn good. I also have a HD-DVD player for my 360 and play movies at 1080p and I have to say the difference is not night and day.

[Chad @ Jun 17th 2008 4:30PM]

So if they can manage to get the picture looking decent, what about the audio? I'd like see them fit an uncompressed 7.1 audio file on it with the movie.

[sdragon @ Jun 17th 2008 4:48PM]

Blu-ray is just a storage media... sure it is possible to put a 1080p movie / video on a DVD. It may require some DVD's cause there is more data, but apply some hardly noticeable compression and you have your BD killer for a fraction of the price (of course companies would prefer BD, cause they want to sell their tech)

[Jason @ Jun 17th 2008 5:10PM]

Well, don't forget these are the same bizarre comments that come out of the Creative camp claiming that the X-Fi 'Crystalizer' technology adds data that was never there to begin with. While I don't doubt that you could get really really good with it, there's no guarantee the data you're adding was there in the original content. At best you'd have something interesting but different.

[chefgon_ign @ Jun 17th 2008 5:43PM]

@Kal

I have a nice quality 720p set and trust me, there is absolutely no possible way to make an upscaled DVD look remotely as good as a Blu-ray or HD DVD. It is simply impossible, the difference between true HD content and upscaled DVD is ridiculously huge, even at 720p resolution.

The difference between Blu-ray and DVD makes the old VHS to DVD picture quality jump seem insignificant. This is vastly more dramatic.

[SITEiNK @ Jun 18th 2008 12:46AM]

the money they are making off of DVD royalties is so much that it is blinding them.
Sure HD DVD was a fine product, just as Blu-ray is, but the poor guys are trying to do whatever they can to hold on to their DVD sales at the detriment of the new true Hi-def standard.

Toshiba throw in the towel and do Blu-ray for now.

It doesn't mean that you cannot work on a new 4k compatible system for the next shootout.
just work real hard on getting your marketing down.
you can do it!

[LiQuiD_FuSioN @ Jun 17th 2008 3:35PM]

Momma told me to never sit too close to the TV or you'll go cross-eyed.

[From my Cube @ Jun 17th 2008 3:35PM]

bitter company is bitter

[John B @ Jun 17th 2008 4:56PM]

What? Are you some kind of peacenik? There was a LOT of bad blood in that war -- backstabbing, back-room deals, secret negotiations on both sides. Do you really expect after all of that for Toshiba to just say, "Hey, no problem. It's all good. We

[Demaar @ Jun 18th 2008 2:20AM]

True, but I certainly don't hate competition, like some people obviously do...

[Allan @ Jun 17th 2008 3:36PM]

With the way it ended and them being essentially muscled out of it, I wouldn't be too happy about it either. I wouldn't put BR in my laptops if I were them either.

[letstakeawalk @ Jun 17th 2008 3:46PM]

...Because spite and bitterness driving the business plan is a sure way to impress the shareholders.

[Shinigami @ Jun 17th 2008 3:47PM]

You and Toshiba should learn to lose. Its not about ignoring everything not satisfactory to you just like it doesn't exist. Its about being able to accept your mistake, learn your lesson and finally start working in a better direction.

Just like Sony did xD They learned their lesson well - installed Blu-Ray by default in PS3 and make lots of games and movies for it and sold it really cheap compared to other HD players. So, before you knew it yourself, you already had a Blu-Ray player in your house and question about HD-DVD or Blu-Ray wasn't a question any more.

[Kiwi616 @ Jun 17th 2008 4:14PM]

So that implies that Sony should have never made VCRs when BetaMAX failed.

Nope!.....get over it and make some low price BD Players to take that market Toshiba!

[captainpease @ Jun 17th 2008 3:41PM]

Blu-ray and HD DVD never needed to happen. That research would have been better spent on improving SSDs or another superior high-capacity internal storage medium. Maybe then we would finally have terabytes of available space on our laptops.

[Keith @ Jun 17th 2008 4:50PM]

Except Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are proprietary formats that they would have exclusive control over. The same can't be said for some sort of network-based delivery to a hard drive.

I suspect we're soon going to see another RIAA/MPAA/DRM-style show-down regarding the format of content delivery...

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 17th 2008 6:23PM]

seriously?

[ethana2 @ Jun 17th 2008 3:42PM]

They're right, we have the internet now. Screw optical disks.

[Kamokazi @ Jun 17th 2008 3:58PM]

Exactly...Toshiba should pour that R&D into what is going to replace Blu-Ray...IP-based HD video, whether it be streaming over the web or local fiber networks. Get technologies, hardware, and patents out for that, and stop prolonging a format that won't be around in five years.

The best way to spite Blu-Ray is to make it obsolete before it has time to make much (or any) return on the investment cost.

[Jeff @ Jun 17th 2008 4:06PM]

Patents for IP-based video? Holy Christ, did you even read what you wrote before posting it?

Maybe I'll patent posting comments on a blog while we're at it. You owe me 10 dollars.

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 17th 2008 6:29PM]

yeah right...i do a lot of downloading, and i must say my internet connection sucks. i'm def not getting what i'm paying for (1.5 mbps down).
once i can consistently hit 1+ MB/sec downloading (w/out having to pay more than 40-45 a month for my internet) i'd think about downloading movies. but to be honest, i dont trust ISPs worth shiet.
http://gizmodo.com/5016514/google-tools-will-tell-you-if-your-isp-is-slowing-down-your-connection

[Jensen @ Jun 17th 2008 6:52PM]

My tv is capable of showing finer details so I say "no, thanks" to seriously compressed content. I'll take HD DVD or Blu-ray over that over-compressed stuff.

[Kamokazi @ Jun 18th 2008 8:44AM]

Holy christ, did you think about what I said before you wrote? If you actually think I meant to patent "IP-based Video" as a whole, then you lack some higher brain functions, or assumed that I am a patent lawyer. I meant develop new/better ways to deliver the video, and get patents out on specific aspects of it that other companies would want to license.

And for the rest of you whining about your bandwidth:

A) I'm not talking release the tech tomorrow, I'm talking 3-5+ years.

B) Better streaming technology=better bandwidth efficiency! Optimizing HD video to run with current bandwidth limitations would be a great boon for the industry, and would product a lot of nice ROI for Toshiba, as well as make us happy that we can have downloadable HD content sooner rather than later.

[The 3rd Hot Dog @ Jun 17th 2008 3:42PM]

I've stuck with my 9600 baud modem for the very same reason. Broadband internet access is just a means of delivering content. It's no big deal.

[Low Ranked @ Jun 17th 2008 5:38PM]

My 14.4kbps pwns your 9600.

[Superstition @ Jun 17th 2008 3:45PM]

Creating the best upscaling-DVD technology right now is sort of like creating the best 32-bit game system. Sure, plenty of people use the old stuff, but shouldn't you be concentrating on the future? Build a Blu-Ray player with the world's best upscaling built-in, but flat-out ignoring Blu-Ray is sort of crazy at this point.

[El Taco @ Jun 17th 2008 7:41PM]

but you gotta admit, some of those 32-bit games are still pretty good.

[Vash63 @ Jun 17th 2008 9:00PM]

32-bit games... like Crysis?

[DRock067 @ Jun 17th 2008 9:55PM]

Nintendo made the best "gamecube" and it's currently kicking ass all over. your argument is moot.

[TheGeektoriousBIG @ Jun 17th 2008 3:45PM]

Ok so, the format war would have never happen if Toshiba or Sony would have been SMART and made DVD resolution upscale players and kept the standard going. This Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD was just a media circus. Glad I bought neither format.

[Michael Scrip @ Jun 17th 2008 4:20PM]

So... you'd buy a fancy 1080p flat screen... and watch all your favorite network shows in HD.. but you're stuck with upscaled movies?

I'm sorry, native 1080p screens demand 1080p content. The future of TV is not new TVs with scaled old content. Blu-Ray might not be the best answer... and the war sucked... but could you imagine if you bought a shiny new 1080p TV and all there was is upscaled DVDs? At least Sony and Toshiba "tried" to get a new hi-res standard. I would feel cheated if there were all sorts of new HDTVs but no new HD content.

[a @ Jun 17th 2008 3:45PM]

"fill in the gaps" and "add resolution"...

You, sir, can add all of the resolution you wish, but you can not create information without 'wild ass guessing' what those added pixels should look like...

(the problem comes from the wild ass guessing).

[matthewlikestoburn @ Jun 17th 2008 3:46PM]

Doesn't anyone else thing DVD upscaling is a gimmick? I mean, there only so much data there, you can't just add more on in exactly the right places. We should just leave DVDs now, and any other disks, and move on to just getting everything off the internet. For that i think we should get on with developing faster internet. it's not like we don't have the technology

[Shinigami @ Jun 17th 2008 4:03PM]

Ever heard of bicubic interpolation? xD

[Andrew @ Jun 17th 2008 4:24PM]

It's not a gimmick. Sure, you can't add information that does not exist. But you can use different algorithms to generate (what you believe to be a close approximation of) the missing data. And some of those algorithms are vastly better than others. Just because data is missing it doesn't mean you can't have an idea about what is missing by looking at the picture (e.g. if you recognize a large area as grass, you might know how grass looks in high resolution and process it accordingly). On close inspection the detail might not look anything like the original but the "new" grass could still be a high resolution picture and look good in its own right.

[neofolklore @ Jun 18th 2008 8:44AM]

So I guess nobody remembers 2xSAI , it made my Gameboy Advance emulator games run so nicely at 800x600

What better upscaling algorithm do you need?

[Eh @ Jun 17th 2008 3:48PM]

I cant remember the last time a company has been such a sore loser. Toshiba needs to grow up, dont they know how childish they are acting?

[Peter F @ Jun 17th 2008 3:51PM]

I can even see the blurring in the picture.... I was an HD-DVD fanboy, but comeon Toshiba, it's okay to lose with some dignity.... let it go

Go to your RND area, take all the HD-DVD and upscaling research. Put it all on boat with a whole in the bottom, and push it out to sea.

[phanbouy @ Jun 17th 2008 3:56PM]

I can even see blurring in your avatar

[Starnerf @ Jun 17th 2008 4:12PM]

Maybe he should ask Toshiba to upscale it.

[Peter F @ Jun 17th 2008 4:25PM]

Oooo, good idea. I bet they could AT LEAST take her up to 1080p.

[Jerry @ Jun 17th 2008 4:00PM]

Well I for one was sad to see HD-DVD die, but that is neither here nor there anymore. The problem here is that unfortunately Toshiba's HD-DVD format lost, yet they won't concede and do what's best for the consumer by adopting the winning format, instead they decide to go and create....DVD-HD...