Toshiba promoted its two technologies, Extended Detail Enhancement (XDE) and Resolution+, for turning standard definition content into high definition, at the IFA electronics show on Thursday.
Toshiba has no plans to introduce Blu-Ray products, which earlier this year won the HD format war against the Toshiba-backed HD-DVD, said Alan Thompson, executive vice president in Europe. There is still no love lost between the two camps.
After licking its wounds Toshiba decided to focus on turning a standard definition picture into HD. We still live in a standard definition world, and using a technology such as XDE makes the benefits of HD available to more people than just buyers of Blu-Ray products, according to Thompson.
At IFA it introduced the new Regza ZF family of flat screen LCD TVs to Europe, which both feature support for Resolution+, which will turn a standard definition picture into something that comes close to HD. REGZA ZF series is available in 40-inch and 46-inch screen sizes, and also support 1080p at 24 frames per second. Pricing hasn’t been announced.
At IFA Toshiba also showed the XD-E500, its first DVD player with support for Extended Definition Enhancement (XDE), which sets out to enhance resolution, color and contrast, according to Toshiba.
The XD-E500 will available from the end of September 2008 in Europe, and will cost about
The fact that it uses two different technologies has to do with which signals they have to be able to handle. In the XD-E500 XDE only has to bother with the DVD signal, but in the Regza ZF Resolution+ has to be able to handle lots of different signals. But the end result will be about the same, according to Toshibas Olivier Van Wynendaele.