While Toshiba's first-ever Blu-ray player was grabbing all the headlines at CEDIA Expo, the manufacturer was also promoting the latest entry in their "XDE" ("extended detail") line of upconverting 1080p DVD players. Billed as a way to "fall in love with your movie collection all over again," the XDE600 transforms standard-definition DVDs from 480i/p up to 1080p/24 frames per second with several stops in between, although that maximum quality requires content created in 480p/24fps. The resulting video exits via HDMI-CEC to match the resolution of our HDTV and offer interoperability via a single remote control.
In addition to the automatic enhancement, three user-selectable modes provide extra oomph: Sharp for added edge detail, Color for richer blues and greens, and Contrast for improved detail in darker scenes. This new model offers a modest step up in overall sharpness versus its previous generation, but a big improvement in the price. This $79.99 deck comes in at $50 less than the first XDE machine.
The XDE600 is DivX Home Theater Certified for playback of the latest Divx-encoded videos and will also play back MP3/WMA music and JPEG photos. If you're not currently HDMI-ready, the XDE600 offers ColorStream Pro component video output with progressive scan and Digital Cinema Progressive 3:2 pull-down correction. Even the rapidly disappearing S-video output can be found here. The XDE600 is available in stores now.
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