Toshiba haven’t given up trying to needle Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray companies.
Their latest idea is XDE.
At the start of this year we all witnessed Toshiba’s HD-DVD as it was going, going and then gone. Well now they’re back enhancing DVD, possibily to try and disrupt the uptake of Blu-ray.
XDE, or “eXtended Detail Enhancement,” technology is, Toshiba claim, more than just a DVD upconverter – taking ‘normal’ resolution DVD up to being able to show them on HD TVs.
The theory is that people have invested considerable amounts of money in their DVD libraries over the years and rather than have to replace them by buying Blu-ray versions, they can spend $149 on buying an XDE DVD player instead.
While changing the resolution from 480i/p to 1080p, there are three other selectable enhancements – Sharp, Colour and Contrast.
They details these as …
- Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyses the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it’s needed.
- Colour Mode makes the colours of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Colour Mode combines the improvement in colour with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes.
- Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical “washing out” that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience.
All of these enhancements are achieved by clever chippery that examines the video frames as they are to be displayed and manipulates them before they are shown. The kind of chippery that NXP does.