In what appears to be an end-run around Blu-ray, and, ironically, likely taking advantage of the delays in adoption, Toshiba just announced the XD-E500, the first of what appears will be a series of DVD players offering “video enhancement technology for DVD.” The XDE technology, or “eXtended Detail Enhancement,” takes DVD pictures from 480i up to 1080p. But Toshiba says it’s more than just upconversion. XDE also offers user selectable picture enhancement modes for greater sharpness, color and contrast.

Toshiba plans an extensive print and online advertising campaign.

Let’s be honest here. We all know this is simply another DVD player with up-conversion (scaling) to 1080p. And, no matter what you do, you can’t make garbage look perfect inside of a $150 box. So, once SD, it’s always SD. In scaling, you get what you pay for…

This is already shipping with MSRP of $149.99
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