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

[kennyt]

I find this so funny, when Toshiba spent so much cash educating the public on how much better 1080p was/is, for them to do a 180 and say upscaled DVD is as good is hypocritical at best.

[wes]

Originally Posted by 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 VERY VERY 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

Kaleidescape is tailored to the very high end market not aficionados like us. It is a bare no cost type of products people who buy Kaleidescape have no budgets just loaded with $$$$$$$ and they could care less of the price just the best that is all they want.

Lucky them

[kbahr]

I have a Marantz DV9600 and it can output a very nice 1080p signal. When you are up close on an object or face it can look just about as sharp as HD DVD or Blu-Ray. BUT; as the camera pulls back and the object or face becomes smaller it cannot retain the sharpness. HD DVD and Blu-Ray always have a sharp picture no matter the size or how close up.

I agree you cannot fully make 480p look like a 1080p source.

[wes]

Originally Posted by kbahr

I agree you cannot fully make 480p look like a 1080p source.

Amen, yes finally someone is nailing that thing 480p even upscale can not create 1080p

[rex]

Originally Posted by kbahr

I agree you cannot fully make 480p look like a 1080p source.

That is correct; and legacy DVD's are actually encoded in only 480i, so "progressive scan" players are already upconverting (deinterlacing) to generate the 480p output.
Since the Toshiba super upconverting players apparently will require an internet connection to fully take advantage of the "super upconverting" capabilities, it would appear that they require access to additional information contained in an online movie database. If this is correct, then these "super" capabilites, may be limited to the library of titles contained in that database.

[faberryman]

Originally Posted by rex

Since the Toshiba super upconverting players apparently will require an internet connection to fully take advantage of the "super upconverting" capabilities

That doesn't make sense. Why would the player have to access the internet to upconvert?