Toshiba upscaling technology rivals Blu-ray

Toshiba’s rejection of the HD DVD format, six months ago, was expected to mark the end of the format wars and the rise of the rival Blu-ray technology, but Toshiba has other ideas.

At a recent press conference, the company said that it still has no intention of using Blu-ray technology in its DVD players and recorders.

Instead, the company has introduced three DVRs with eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE) upscaling technology, which it believes is a viable alternative to Blu-ray.

Toshiba first introduced XDE, which provides near-HD quality, in its XD-E500 DVD player.

It now plans to launch three XDE DVRs in Japan, in November, under the Vardia brand.

The RD-X8 DVR includes a 1TB hard drive to record TV from its digital TV tuner.

It can burn dual-layer DVDs, supports both MPEG-4 and AVC/H.264 formats, and has Deep Color HDMI outputs.

The 500GB RD-S503 has just one HDMI output, as well as digital and analog connections, and the last of the trio, the RD-S303 has a similar spec but a smaller 320GB hard disk.

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