Kaleidescape and Toshiba Claim 1080p Upscaling Players Rival Blu-ray

[faberryman]

Originally Posted by TheMoose

I guess Toshiba can put a DVDO upscaler in a DVD player & sell it at a loss like they did their hd-dvd players but how long can they do that?

I suspect until Blu-ray players dip into the sub-$200 price range?

[rex]

Sound & Vision had a review of the Kaleidescape upscaling player; here it is: http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-...ayer-6000.html
I would not consider this player competition for BD players, simply because of its price of $4,295. Anybody who spends that kind of money on an upscaling player, surely will also have a BD player (which can be purchased for close to 1/10th of the price). Still, most movies are not available in Blu (and many may never be), so many people will want to have the best upconverting player they can get.

[AVB]

I have a Key Digital scaler hooked up to a fairly high end player modified for SDI output all going to a tweeked 8501. I have done an A-B test with both HD-DVD and Blu-ray against my system and you really have to look close to see any real difference. Critical watching and not enjoyment watching. That said, it took over $4K worth of player and electronics to get there so Blu-ray is really the way to go for future purchases.

[Bob Walters]

IMHO, one of the key parts to all the contoversy is DISTANCE from the display! With all my own "screwing around" at 10-11 feet there is minimal difference between FIOS, HD DVD & upscaled DVD.......again, a subjective point of view [pun intended!!!!!]. The consumer in a non-dedicated HT room sits at that distance and most of the time, even when they're shown the MAGNIFICENT difference, the couch never gets moved!!!!!!!

[MoosePond]

Originally Posted by rex

I would not consider this player competition for BD players, simply because of its price of $3,000.

Keep in mind that neither of the new Kaleidescape "1080p" players will work as standalone products, both need to be connected to a Kaleidescape server which ups the ante a few $$$$$. That being said, I suspect that these might be the current "ultimate" upscaling DVD players and capable of producing stunning images from SD-DVDs that are all but indistinguishable from Blu-ray by a large majority of viewers. Anyone who can afford a Kaleidescape system can certainly afford a PS-3 and the upgrade price for Blu-ray DVDs - but it's really all about convenience and in that realm Kaleidescape is king.

[oskee]

It just doesn't make sense for a potential buyer to even consider this upconverting player. No matter what type of scaler/engine chip they use there will always artifact introduced to the resulting signal. For the sake of argument, let say Toshiba perfected this machine, will it decode DTS-Master or Dolby Tru-HD? I don't think they could cram more information to the DVD media. Perhaps they could in the expense of splitting the movie to 5 discs.

Toshiba is acting like Sony when Betamax lost to VHS. It took years for Sony to produce a VHS machine.