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

[DaViD Boulet]

Teranex has been designing military-grade upscaling for years... and is beyond cutting edge in terms of what they've achieved in comparison to any commercial algorithm. Even Teranex doesn't claim that the results of their technology will be indistinguishable from an HD native source.

The more sites like this give credence to these claims by reporting them as per the manufacturer, the more these rediculous notions will take root in the minds of some HT enthusiasts.

Unsubstantiated rumor has a tenacious way of establishing itself as "fact" in the minds of many enthusiasts. Just look at the format war.

[bgcat57]

What I find interesting about the original post is that, after claiming that customers and the press were unhappy with Toshiba's current direction, the article goes on to show a blatant bias against Toshiba. While on one hand complaining about Toshiba's statements about SD DVD upscaling technology and quality, and specifying the literal limitations of the process, it then goes on to praise Kaleidescape's technology which is essentially doing the same thing. This bias makes me automatically suspect the objectiveness of the author's reporting.

It would be like me saying, "I can't believe that my neighbor's sone is allow to own a dog, that's no better than slavery. My son, owns a dog, and it shows that he cares about animals." Same situation, but obviously biased and therefore renders both statements moot.
VHS 'won' the VCR war because of the consumer, in spite of the fact of Sony's beta having higher quality.
Blu-Ray 'won' the war through corporate strong arming in spite of the fact that consumers had bought far more HD DVD players. Blu-Ray had more proponents fighting for it in the early adopter market (a limited but zealous market) and deals were made based on that. It is clear how consumers feel about it now by the significant drop in sales of BD machines and disks after the fray was over. The consumer market showed obvious signs of being burned. In the past six months, I have not seen the size of the BD section grow any larger, muchless take over the space left by HD DVDs in places like Walmart, Circuit City, or Best Buy.

[hodedofome]

To follow-up what Moosepond said the Kaleidescape was $3995 on the PREVIOUS dvd player model. It is now $4300 with all the new Gennum processing they are doing. You are paying mostly for the media streaming portion, just the streamer alone is $2995 so really they are charging $995-1300 more for the dvd player/ripper. Denon is still charging $1500-3800 for their high end dvd players and Meridian is charging an arm and a leg so it's not out of the ordinary considering the market Kaleidescape is selling to. They are coming out with blu-ray support next year and I wouldn't quite put them in the same group as Toshiba. Toshiba is trying to sell to the general public while Kaleidescape is selling to high-end home theater/automation clients. There are features in the Kaleidescape that nobody else has so when you have no competition you can charge what you want

[jimmygeorge]

Hi
You have done a good question, it’s really interesting. If you get any good reply, so please let me know. So I’ll also get some good idea.
Thanks for your future help.

[hodedofome]

Originally Posted by jimmygeorge

Hi
You have done a good question, it’s really interesting. If you get any good reply, so please let me know. So I’ll also get some good idea.
Thanks for your future help.

Spaayaaam!!!

[DaViD Boulet]

The consumer market showed obvious signs of being burned. In the past six months, I have not seen the size of the BD section grow any larger, muchless take over the space left by HD DVDs in places like Walmart, Circuit City, or Best Buy.

Quite the opposite. The war ended during a normal down-cycle in the market, and now that the annual cycle is coming round again, BD sales are actually up significantly over combined HD sales this same time last year. So much so that the buzz at the Home Media Expo in Vegas last week was about the almost startling adoption pace that BD is now experiencing... which outpaces DVD in its same point during its lifecycle.

Regardless of what corporate actions did or didn't get us to the point of a single format, over this coming year anyone who continues to pretend that the consumer market hasn't benefited from a single HD disc solution is merely playing Toshiba's game of baseless claims out of spite.

Agreed, however, that if Toshiba gets criticized for making false claims about the inability to distinguish upconverted SD material next to optimally mastered 1080p native material, that Kaleidescape should receive the same criticism. Hence my original post.