Toshiba's XDE DVD player lands in Singapore

Reuben Lee | Nov 21, 2008

Toshiba may have lost the HD format war against Blu-ray earlier this year, but the company's not giving up on the movie player market just yet. In fact, its latest XD-E500 DVD player may just be what the Japanese vendor needs to get back into the mix.

Introduced for the very first time in Asia (outside Japan), the XD-E500 has a rather unique proposition. It is aimed at enhancing DVD playback on HDTVs, rather than to compete directly with Blu-ray. While some may dismiss this as a stopgap solution from Toshiba, the XD-E500 does fill an important role in extending the life of DVDs which are still the dominant format in the industry. At S$199 (US$143.29), it is a much more affordable option for the mainstream crowd who have amassed a huge collection of DVDs to the expensive Blu-ray players and movie titles. The timing also couldn't have been better, given the current economic recession and belt-tightening.

According to Toshiba, the XD-E500 uses a combination of 1080 upscaling, edge enhancement and color remapping to improve the DVD playback quality. The company calls it the eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE) technology, and this comes in three flavors for users. The basic Sharp Mode enhances details, the Colour Mode adds color richness, while the Contrast Mode improves the quality of dark scenes.

The XD-E500 DVD player is expected to launch in Singapore from December, with no firm dates yet on its availability in other Asian markets. The player was rolled out earlier in Japan, the US, Europe and the Middle East. In Japan, the XDE technology is extended to selected Toshiba DVD recorders as well.

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