Before Toshiba has embraced Blu-ray and announced its first Blu-ray player, it was a staunch advocate of technology to upscale standard definition DVDs, to the point that it suggested the technology was almost as good as Blu-ray itself.
Well, although it now has a foot in the Blu-ray camp, it hasn’t given up on the XDE (eXtended Detail Enhancement) technology which significantly improves SD DVD picture quality above and beyond what simple upscaling players do, and has announced the XDE600 DVD player.
For those with a large DVD collection who don’t want to upgrade to Blu-ray (or are happy to keep two machines under their TV), the XDE600 may be a good choice.
XDE incorporates three picture enhancement tools: sharp mode improves visible edges in the picture, while colour mode improves vividness of colours, particularly blues and greens, while contrast mode improves the visibility of darker scenes without washing out the picture.
Naturally, as it’s an upscaling player, it has an HDMI port and cable for direct connection to a high definition TV. It’s also REGZA-LINK compatible, for controlling from a single remote, plays a wide variety of disc formats, and has a USB input for playing back JPG and DIVX files.
Available from October, price to be confirmed.