Toshiba lost battle with Blu-ray, now focusing on DVDs

Even though it conceded the high-definition format to Blu-ray six months ago, Toshiba is back with its recently announced XDE DVD upconversion technology, and a new DVD player that offers the technology.

The extended detail enhancement obviously hasn't been designed to compete with Blu-ray, but will instead allow consumers to have near HD quality from their DVD collection.  The format offers 1080p on HDTVs that do not have an official high-definition format.

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The Toshiba XD-E500 DVD player has a $149.99 retail price tag, which has left industry analysts scratching their heads.  There is at least one other upconverting DVD player available on the market, but its price is almost half of the XD-E500, with only subtle differences between the two.

During a press conference held by Toshiba last week, Toshiba played a standard DVD with an XDE player and a regular DVD player on LCD HDTVs side-by-side.  The upconversion helps sharpen edges and helps reduce blurriness that typically happens when DVDs are played on larger TVs.    

Toshiba's HD DVD format painfully lost a battle with Sony's Blu-ray format, in which Toshiba officially killed the format in January.  The company now will launch an advertising campaign, including the toshibaxde.com web site, in an effort to help promote its upconversion technology it hopes consumers will graciously adopt.

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Blu-ray is especially popular among home-theater gurus, but hasn't caught on among mainstream consumers in North America or anywhere else.  ABI Research reports Sony PlayStation 3 console sales are helping Blu-ray sales stay afloat, as interest in standalone Blu-ray players has been dismal.

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