Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Sony vs. Toshiba HD arguements - schoolyardish, yeah?...

Invalid comparison, imo

I hear this argument a lot; that DVD players were very expensive in their infancy. But that was an absolutely complete paradigm shift in media playback devices vs. VHS/Beta video tapes. Here you're talking about a more incremental change insofar as what consumers see. BluRay will still play your DVD's. You would have been hard-pressed to put a VHS tape in a DVD player, although I'm certain some people tried, lol. Given that there's no reason to have to abandon one's video collection (a la VHS) with the format change, the product cycle time you cite doesn't apply in my view. We can agree to disagree on that, however.

As for the upscaling, sure, there are cheapos out there. And I haven't seen outright reviews for this one yet. But engadget got its hands on one, and here's what they said:

"If you're looking for something to magically make DVDs look like HD, this isn't it, but it bests Toshiba's best upconverter easily, and we'd venture to guess it's probably tops yours as well."

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/19/eyes-on-toshibas-new-xd-e500-upconverting-dvd-player/

I do agree with you that oft times built-in scalers in HDTV's can outperform some of these DVD players. That said, though, my cheapo Toshiba HD-DVD does a really nice job in upscaling, and, according to Endgadget, at least, this new box surpasses anything they've put out before. That would include the upscalers built into the HD-DVD boxes, as I read that.


I, too, have no love for either company. I'm no fanboy, and I always wonder about people that get sucked up into becoming huge devotees of one company's products when all the company really cares about is making a profit.