Toshiba stubbornly launches the un-Blu-ray, XD-E500 DVD player

Oh Toshiba, has it really come to this? After a humiliating loss to Blu-ray, Tosh just unveiled its new $150 XD-E500 DVD player. It's no run o' the mill DVD player mind you, this unit touts Toshiba's new eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE) technology -- that super-duper resolution upconverting tech meant to fill the void between ubiquitous upconverting players and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, the player demonstrated offered just "subtle but noticeable sharpening of the image" when compared side-by-side (in a controlled demonstration) with an unnamed $70 upscaler -- to its credit, Tosh did not try to compare its new player with an HD-capable Blu-ray machine. Still, more than twice the price for "subtle" hardly sounds like a compelling purchase to us.

Update: Official press release is now out which, oddly enough, helped us upconvert our 480i/p cynicism to full-blown 1080p/24fps skepticism.

[Muhammed @ Aug 18th 2008 1:43AM]

Nice price too.
good job.

[LondonConsultant @ Aug 18th 2008 4:54AM]

Nice over-sharpening too. No need increase the level of detail for consumers: just over-egg the existing sharpening algorithm and then sell it to consumers who'll incorrectly assume a sharper image has more detail. The more we piss on consumers, the cleaner they'll think they're getting.

[DrXym @ Aug 18th 2008 6:41AM]

Hmm no mention of SpursEngine in the press release. Samples of the chip were selling for $100 and presumably they're at least $50 in production at the moment. I wonder if this DVD player even contains one and if so what the profit margin is. And if it doesn't, I wonder what *is* in the player. Maybe all it's doing is regular interpolated upscaling with some glorified edge enhancement / colour saturation / gamma correction slapped on top.

[Ed @ Aug 18th 2008 1:44AM]

Badass.

Die Blu-ray, die!

[andres @ Aug 18th 2008 2:20AM]

ohh, i see you made a typo. you meant to type HD-DVD

[andres @ Aug 18th 2008 2:52AM]

btw
/joke

[Colin Potter @ Aug 18th 2008 3:37AM]

Hmm, yes, I too dislike HD content with high bitrates and great audio quality.

[/sarcasm]

[E71 @ Aug 18th 2008 9:26PM]

When the hell are those losers gonna man up and accept defeat?

[Totalfixation @ Aug 18th 2008 1:49AM]

I figured if i invested a great deal of money and time in a format and lost. I wouldn't be too happy paying the competitor royalties either. I think they would continue to improve DVD upscaling quality and hope for the best with downloadable content. Also made a bet with a friend that when the opposing competitor make a player of the opponent's format, loser would buy dinner. So far so good that Toshiba and Microsoft haven't made a Blu Ray player.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Aug 18th 2008 4:01AM]

Boo hoo. There's happy and then there's profit. Corporations are in it for the profit.

[Juxtah @ Aug 18th 2008 4:32AM]

Sony does not own Blu-ray, if Toshiba were to go Blu-ray they would not be paying royalties to Sony...

[icepop4who @ Aug 18th 2008 8:46AM]

@juxtah

now, he said pay royalties to the competitor, which is absolutely right. whether it's sony, BDA, or whatever, toshiba still has to pony up pretty pennies.

[3dpenguin @ Aug 18th 2008 10:54AM]

@Juxtah

Not to start a fight, but you're mislead if you think BDA owns Blu-ray, Sony was the first licencing company for Blu-ray technology and logos back in 2001/02, they still control all these patents and trade marks today, they just let another company handle the paper work for them now through BDA. Yes there are 3 companies that hold patent and rights to Blu-ray technologies, but Sony holds the majority of them.

[A.C.E.R. @ Aug 18th 2008 1:51AM]

To hell with this upconverting nonsense. Give me a DVD player with H.264/AVC decoding + usb port.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 18th 2008 3:38AM]

PS3?

[y3k.nik @ Aug 18th 2008 8:50AM]

Oh... did you hear?

It does bluray too!

[Martin Kinnamon @ Aug 18th 2008 1:58AM]

You know, the person or persons that write this crap for Engadget can get a little decency. Toshiba was the clearly better platform and the company was on the side of the customer, for crying out loud. Sony is on the side of the movie industry and their machine is only about making more money for them by making the customer need more than the HD-DVD format did. Toshiba is on record speaking how they wouldn't follow suit with the pressures to get on board with the movie industry and all involved with making the HD format costly for the consumer.

Try to have a little knowledge, will you? You're biting the ones who were on your side...unless you, too, are getting kickbacks from the whole mess.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 18th 2008 2:04AM]

I can only thing of one way to reply to a comment like this.

LOL!

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Aug 18th 2008 2:08AM]

What are you talking about? Toshiba wasn't on the consumer's side, they were on their own side. Toshiba was in it for the money.

BluRay costs more because companies are trying to make money selling it. I know this may seem annoying, but the alternative is the format dying, as happened with HD-DVD.

No company was able to compete with Toshiba's prices on HD-DVD players because Toshiba was selling them at a huge loss, hoping to make it up on sales of HD-DVD movies. Since no other company got a significant amount of royalties from disc sales, that left Toshiba as the only significant player in the HD-DVD market. Unless you count the $1,000 LG players.

HD-DVD was a go it alone format, like Betamax. It reached the normal fate of go it alone formats, as Betamax eventually did.

The only really amazing part of HD-DVD is that they managed to convince a group of people that somehow Toshiba was "pro consumer" and not just in it for the money.

I agree that HD-DVD was a fine standard. BluRay 1.0 is fine too. I have no need for video overlay nor internet connectivity. I am greatly disappointed that competition from HD-DVD caused BluRay to have to add a lot more hardware to the spec (for dual decode) that most customers will rarely use. It adds a lot to the price and doesn't really add much to the movie experience. If I want to play games or get internet connectivity, I'll use a computer or console. I want my disc player to play movies in HD.

[Mike @ Aug 18th 2008 3:28AM]

Some people need to move on. Blu-ray was clearly the much better technology, and thankfully it won out.

I wonder why Toshiba don't want to do a side by side with proper HD??? LOL

[Juxtah @ Aug 18th 2008 4:34AM]

So Blu-ray with the larger capacity and faster read speeds didn't deserve to win? Blu-ray was the better platform technologically, and as if Toshiba were out for the consumer they were out for themselves like any self respecting corporation would be.

[Zeus.:God @ Aug 18th 2008 5:25AM]

Juxtah, Blu-Ray was a better platform, but not by much, and the price difference at the time HD-DVD was still alive didn't justify going Blu-Ray for those slightly higher capabilities. Not only that, HD-DVD had all the movie features of Blu-Ray (not movies, but the features inside them) that Blu-Ray is still trying to get with 2.0.

HD-DVD was not a bad platform, and when you really get down to it, was a better platform for everyone considering the price. It's too bad HD-DVD died (though I have not purchased a player from either platform)...

[DrXym @ Aug 18th 2008 6:47AM]

Toshiba even managed to screw over their OEM partners Alco (Venturer) and Onkyo with their predatory pricing. Imagine slashing the price of the A3 so low that even an A3 clone can't compete with it. I can understand why Toshiba did it in their desperation to win the war, and then eventually to clear their bloated inventory. Even so its clear why most CEs ran a mile from the format.

As a side note Alco's 2007/2008 financial statement says they will be producing a Blu Ray player. Expect to see a Venturer BD player at some point in the next 12 months. Who knows, maybe Alco & Toshiba kissed and made up and this is the first clue that a Toshiba player is in the works too.

[Juxtah @ Aug 18th 2008 6:52AM]

Juxtah, Blu-Ray was a better platform, but not by much, and the price difference at the time HD-DVD was still alive didn't justify going Blu-Ray for those slightly higher capabilities. Not only that, HD-DVD had all the movie features of Blu-Ray (not movies, but the features inside them) that Blu-Ray is still trying to get with 2.0.

HD-DVD was not a bad platform, and when you really get down to it, was a better platform for everyone considering the price. It's too bad HD-DVD died (though I have not purchased a player from either platform)...

Not by much but it was better, and HD-DVD players were just as ridiculously expensive as Blu-ray players were when it was still alive, the only price advantage to HD-DVD was lower costs changing production lines to make them, apart from that I think that competition between companies making only blu-ray will drive prices down much more then HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray could have.

And I think HD-DVD's death is good, it means competition between blu-ray devices can start which drives prices down and settles us on a unified physical format. The price difference was so small it's pretty much irrelevant, and when it comes down to it I'd much rather pay 5% more to get a platform that is about 10% better, considering firmware upgrades, extra capacity, faster read speeds etc.

[icepop4who @ Aug 18th 2008 8:48AM]

You know, ranting about something dead isn't gonna make it come back alive. move on with your life, will ya?

[z0phi3l @ Aug 18th 2008 11:12AM]

What good is all the so called good points of BluRay if it is LOADED with DRM and garbage like that? That was the only edge HD-DVD had, it wasn't catering to the *AAs by adding crap the consumer doesn't want

[David Fitzy @ Aug 18th 2008 2:04AM]

You can't put back what's not there. You can guess but at best all that's it's gonna be is an (semi-educated) guess

I have an upscaling DVD player, swapped for my fubar'd old SD DVD so it probably isn't the best but still when I play a DVD it looks like a DVD.

[John @ Aug 18th 2008 12:37PM]

My dad bought a philips upconverting DVD player. I hooked it up to my LCD TV, watched it. Then, I set my PS3 to output 480p and let the TV upscale it, and watched it. Then, I set my PS3 back to 1080p so it did the upscaling and watched it on the TV. We agreed that just letting the TV (samsung LNT4071f) upscale the content ended up looking better than the upconverter. There is no magical algorithm to restore missing details. This is like selling a photoshop knockoff and saying it can let you remove parts of the foreground to show you the original background.

[Justin @ Aug 18th 2008 2:35AM]

I like how they've capitalized the X, as to firmly establish that this product is not merely 'tended,' but eXtended! Hooray!

This just seems like an unnecessary step to me, I dunno.

[Ignatius @ Aug 18th 2008 7:20AM]

It's not eXtended, it's eXTREEEEEEEEEME.

[Rantrev @ Aug 18th 2008 2:35AM]

Ah, I can't blame them for being bitter and stubborn, after all the backstabbing, lying, and back door deals Sony made, bribing the studios with incredibly invasive DRM that they later dropped for example, I'd be bitter and stubborn too.

[ArcticFox @ Aug 18th 2008 3:45AM]

I suggest you go look up the $150m deal Toshiba/HD-DVD did to get Paramount exclusivity.

Both sides threw money at movie studios and offered underhanded deals, it just happened that Sony had more money to throw out than Toshiba did.

[DrXym @ Aug 18th 2008 7:03AM]

Rantrev, does the doctrine of unclean hands mean anything to you? I fully expect the chairman of Sony rang up the chairman of WB / Fox etc. and promised certain things, as I'm sure the chairman of Toshiba did likewise. I am also sure that Sony, Microsoft & Toshiba would sell their top deal brokers into discussions with all major studios and CEs to persuade them to join their camp. Why do you expect otherwise? I don't know why you might choose to rail against one camp and not the other. We certainly know for example that Toshiba & Microsoft paid money for Dreamworks & Paramount exclusivity so you're hardly in the best position to complain if you're sore at Sony for winning.

[Andy Anonymous @ Aug 18th 2008 2:41AM]

I'd like to know how this compares with an Oppo DV-981HD and DV-983 HD, respectively.

[HookEm @ Aug 18th 2008 7:32PM]

The format war is over. Blue-ray is king. period.
Now, let's put that aside and let's discuss up-converting technology (as that discission is orthogonal to HD formats - that is, there is merit in up-converting older DVD libraries to newer, blue-ray compatible, display technology. Can we agree on that?).

So, going back to 'Andy Anonymous' question: How does this Toshiba compare to the Oppo?
(Perhaps it's too early to ask?) Has anyone actually tried the Toshiba?
Thanks,
HookEm

[MK @ Aug 18th 2008 3:03AM]

Not a chance, I know how Sony is, I've seen and read the reports. This is about Sony making money for the other interests involved as well as itself off of the consumer. Next you'll say it's okay to charge the consumer whatever they want.

The reason Toshiba's format failed was because the movie houses stopped supporting it because Toshiba did not want to add all of the screwy copyright crap to their format like Sony was more than willing to prostitute on. The movie industry wants ALL of your money and you are supporting it. Toshiba tried to be on the consumer's side and got screwed by the movie industry.

[Mike @ Aug 18th 2008 3:31AM]

HD DVD died for many reasons.

It lost studio support, because it did not enforce region coding.
It had a cracked DRM format.

Whilt you may think both of the above were great advantages, ultimately they mean jacksh1t if your movie stuidios dump you because of them.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Aug 18th 2008 4:00AM]

HD-DVD has plenty of DRM on it (AACS, HDCP). There's no room to try to pretend it is any more pro-consumer than BluRay in this way.

[icepop4who @ Aug 18th 2008 8:50AM]

I like movies and i'm willing to pay for it. I don't know what's your problem.

[Mike @ Aug 18th 2008 3:13AM]

Toshiba Get over it HD is Dead Blu Ray is the way to go stop being a bunch of gready sore losers.

[Mike @ Aug 18th 2008 3:32AM]

These so called HD enthusiests will continue to cut off their nose to spite their face for many years to come. Kinda proves how un-HD they were, when they make pathetic little personal protests like this..

[nohone @ Aug 18th 2008 3:33AM]

People pay double for "subtle" difference all the time. In electronics there is a subtle difference between my Klipsch F-3 ($425 ea.) speakers and a friend's MartinLogan electrostatic ($1300 ea) speakers. But they were worth the money to my friend. There is a suble difference between my Onkyo 875 and my older Onkyo 605, but the almost double price was worth it. In LCD TVs, you can pay $1000s more for a "subtle" difference between a high end Sony and a Philips.

With food, there is a "subtle" difference between store brand and name-brands, with the name-brands usually costing twice as much - and usually the store brand is the name brand but with a different label.

Porsche, BMW, Ferrari, Lambo, etc. often offer packages for thousands (or $10,000s) more, when all they do is add 5-10 extra horsepower. Sport packages on these cars can cost thousands, when all they do is tighten the suspension and drop the car a couple millimeters.

Even with Blu-ray, the Denon costs $2000, while the PS3 starts at $400, but why are you not mocking the Denon, which offers "subtle" increases in AV quality?

And here, with this DVD player, people may find the extra cost for a "subtle" increase in PQ worth the value. But because it competes (and not even that, this is like comparing the Apple TV to a Tivo or Media Center - Apple TV does not even offer DVR functionality) with your favorite format of the day, it must be derided. And why are you not laughing at all the Blu-ray players? the cheapest one is almost 3X more expensive, and to those who do not have a HD TV, a Blu-ray player offers no better increase in PQ.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 18th 2008 3:41AM]

if you think the difference is subtle between your F3s and the ML speakers your friend has you are sadly mistaken... I have the Klipsch RF-35s and they put your speakers to shame, and the MLs put my 35s to shame.... your other examples were okay, but the 605 to the 875 is another one that is poorly thought out.

[Kit @ Aug 18th 2008 6:21AM]

I think it's more likely a licence issue...

Maybe Sony demand so much money from others, so that they can sell more PS3.

[Juxtah @ Aug 18th 2008 6:56AM]

Kit, seriously Sony do not own Blu-ray they simply developed the format. So people building blu-ray devices do not pay royalties to Sony. I believe the Blu-ray disc association owns the format, Sony does not!

[nohone @ Aug 18th 2008 5:06PM]

@Colin:

I will concede that point only because my hearing is not as good as it used to be, so to some it may be a big difference, but to me it is not. Which kind of proves the point, to one person a subtle difference may not be worth as much to some people. The difference was not worth it to me being I cannot hear the difference.

[nicko.dvz @ Aug 18th 2008 3:37AM]

I say bring on a VHS upscaler! Screw this Blu-Ray nonsense!

[Colin Potter @ Aug 18th 2008 4:44AM]

[/joke]



wtf! how did the end of your comment get into the beginning of mine??

[dr_jewish @ Aug 18th 2008 3:46AM]

No way this upconverts better than my HD-DVD player.

HD-DVD was an undoubtedly better, well thought-out, and finalized format. Boo hoo. It's over. Don't make this "the good guy vs. the bad guy," it's ridiculous to believe that any corporation is really in it "for the consumer." Toshiba wanted to make money like everyone else. Underselling players wasn't enough to escape Blu-ray's marketing muscle. You can, however, take comfort in the fact that Blu Ray will probably not take off like Sony'd hoped and will remain a niche product, if that's any consolation. Toshiba either needs to bite the bullet if they wanna make some of that money they lost back and make nice and produce a BD player. They'd make a damn good BD player too, judging by the quality of their HD DVD players. Or they can sit in their corner and stay mad while most of the other major electronics manufacturers are getting a piece of the pie with their repsective BD decks.

[Colin Potter @ Aug 18th 2008 4:30AM]

I don't understand how HD-DVD could possibly be called a better format. Yes it was finalized, avoiding version number crap like we have now with Blu-ray, but the features that it added on were ones we never really needed.

Better technology points go to blu-ray for the 50gb in 2 layers, as well as the ability to play back higher bitrates. If you own Transformers on HD-DVD you'll see why a higher capacity disc was an advantage, as the movie was not able to support HD audio (or lossless for that matter)