Panasonic has announced a new uber-box for the Japanese market. It is a combination 320GB DVR and Blu-ray & DVD recorder. But that’s not all, it also has a built in VHS deck. So you can dump your fuzzy VHS tapes to DVD, or Blu-ray to really capture the fuzziness in high quality. It isn’t completely clear from the translated AV Watch Japanese text, but it sounds like you can also record to VHS - though not from the tuner. You can also dump content to the hard drive, and then transfer from the drive to media. All this can be yours October 1st for the equivalent of $1,450 - only in Japan of course.

We need an HD DVD and Betamax combo deck just for the Epic Fail factor that would represent. (This system supports Digital Audio Tape, Digital Compact Cassette, and MiniDisc - it can’t fail!)

Picked up via Gizmodo.

Toshiba got its hindquarters handed to it in the HD DVD / Blu-ray format war, and that had to sting. But while all of the other HD DVD backers have sucked it up and moved on to embrace Blu-ray (even Microsoft has announced they’re adding native Blu-ray support to Windows, I hear hell had a run on ice skates), Toshiba just seems to have dug in their heels and is acting like Blu-ray doesn’t exist. If HD DVD couldn’t win, fine, then they’ll just put out high end DVD players. I didn’t know multinational corporations could be so Emo.

So today Toshiba dropped a press release entitled Toshiba ‘Breathes New Life’ Into DVD with XDE™ Technology. XDE stands for eXtended Detail Enhancement, which to me sounds like nothing more than upscaling with fancy edge enhancement and color contrast adjustment. Frankly it sounds like crap to me, based on the press release.

XDE Flexibility

In addition to upconversion from 480i/p to 1080p, XDE technology offers consumers the ability to customize their viewing experience to their liking with its picture mode settings. With these three selectable settings — Sharp, Color and Contrast — users can get the most out of their DVD movie-viewing experience on their terms.

– Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it’s needed.

– Color Mode makes the colors of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Color Mode combines the improvement in color with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes.

– Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical “washing out” that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience.

So ‘Sharp Mode’ cranks up the edge enhancement. But too much edge enhancement is one of the most common complaints videophiles have about many titles. This is the kind of cheap trick studios use to try to make an image ‘pop’, but it is unnatural. And now your DVD player can do it to all of your discs. Yay?

‘Color Mode’ sounds like it just tweaks the color palette to favor blues and greens, which can certainly make an image seem more vivid, but artificially so. This is the same kind of trick box stores use to make images on HDTVs look more striking on the wall of screens. And also why the first thing you should do is calibrate your TV, because the settings it comes with are great for selling the set in the store, but not for accurate color reproduction at home.

And ‘Contrast Mode’ cranks up the contrast. But if the contrast isn’t there in the source material, then it must be artificially boosting and/or suppressing some of the picture to increase the contrast. It all sounds like a high-tech, fancy way of doing what people used to do with the color, tint, and contrast knobs on old TVs - and the menus that replaced them on new TVs. This doesn’t sound so much like ‘breathing new life’ into DVD as it does ‘putting DVD in an iron lung’.

You know what these remind me of? Those silly audio modes most receivers have. You know, like ‘Concert Hall’? The settings that mess with the sound to supposedly recreate the feeling of a different space, but in reality are about as close the the real thing as Froot Loops cereal is to real fruit. The snozberries taste just like snozberries!

Sure, I’m just basing this off their press release and I haven’t seen it for myself. But even if they’ve been remarkably clever about the technology, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re just upscaling DVDs and tweaking the picture to try to make it look better. They’re just putting lipstick on a pig compared to real HD media like Blu-ray. No matter how you slice it, the best DVD can provide is one-sixth the raw pixel count as Blu-ray. And no matter how clever your algorithms are to interpolate the data, you just can’t recreate what isn’t there to start with. You can never start with a 480p source and upscale it to 1080p and match a native 1080p source.

So who is going to buy XDE players? People with extensive existing libraries of DVD you say? I have many hundreds of DVDs myself. But Toshiba is selling their XD-E500 1080p/24fps Upconverting DVD player, their first XDE-equipped player, for $149.99. Now, it also handles MP3 and WMA music playback, JPEG display, and is DivX certified, which is all well and good. But you can get a non-XDE player with all of those features (1080p24 upscaling, MP3/WMA, JPEG, DivX), for $50-$60. I myself have a Philips unit I picked up a while back from Amazon for around $60 which has those features, plus known codes to enable region free playback, and it handles NTSC< ->PAL. The Toshiba is unlikely to have either of those features. So is XDE worth the extra $90-$100? Or even $50 if the player is that much cheaper online? Will XDE and the Toshiba logo on the box convince people to pay double what they can get another unit for?

I doubt it will for the majority of users. Any improvement can only be just so good, and you’d need a good HDTV to really get the full benefit. And that’s after you manage to educate users on just what XDE is. When someone in standing in their local Best Buy, comparing units on a shelf, and the only differences are the brand, the price, and that the Toshiba has ‘XDE’, you’ve got an uphill battle on your hands to educate the user on what XDE is and why they want it.

So you’re really after users who are willing to spend more for a (supposedly) better quality picture. But then the users most likely to be willing to shell out more for such improvements are the very same group most likely to be willing to shell out for a Blu-ray deck. Entry level, current model decks are under $300 now, closer to $250 in some cases. And existing stocks of last generation units can be had for less than that. Even some of the best of the current models, with bells and whistles like BD-Live, are between $350-$400. And those prices are falling as supply and competition both increase, and component costs decrease. Entry level units should be under $200 by the holidays, with some well-equipped units under $300.

So where does XDE fit? Users who are just slightly more demanding than a non-XDE DVD player, but not demanding enough to go for even a low-end Blu-ray deck? All Blu-ray decks are also DVD players, all upscaling as far as I’m aware, most quite good at it, some very, very good. Once a person is willing to spend more money on the player, beyond the glut of sub-$100 upscaling players, they’ve already taken the first step toward being willing to make the jump to Blu-ray. It seems like XDE is there just to try to catch those who don’t quite jump high enough to clear the bar. I can’t believe that’s a big market.

The DVD player market is a commodity market now, even for nice upscaling players. It is getting such that there are fairly decent DVD players that cost less than some new release DVDs. Buy a movie, get a free player. That’s a joke, but sometimes it seems like that’s the next step. Toshiba is trying to be the odd man out, and they seem to think XDE will distinguish them from the hordes of commodity players. Enough that users will pay their higher prices. I don’t think it is going to be a big win for them.

Toshiba’s HD DVD decks were very nice units with some great features. They could easily have used the same platform as the basis for a Blu-ray player development. And now is the time (well, six months ago was the time) to get some nice BD players out and make revenue on them. In 2009 when the wave of Chinese BD players hits, there will be a lot of downward pressure on player pricing, making the market less attractive to ‘premium’ brands like Toshiba. That happened in the DVD market years ago. Instead of chasing yesterday’s market long after it has been commoditized, Toshiba needs to go after the marker’s of today and tomorrow, where the margins are higher and competition is lower. I really think it is just their corporate pride and stubbornness which keeps them from embracing Blu-ray.

The full press release:
Read the rest of this entry »

They may not be ebony and ivory, but as I’ve said in the past, Blu-ray and video downloads can live together in perfect harmony. When I see people saying things like ‘Blu-ray is DOA’ because downloads will kill it, I tend to either snicker or roll my eyes, or both. Because, while I agree that someday downloads will probably kill off physical media, that day is years away. Many years. People point to music download services, like iTunes, as an example - and I’ll point out that the vast majority of music is still sold on physical media, and downloads have a long way to go before they kill CD. (I buy all of my music via download, CD is a last resort.) And video downloads are many times the size of music downloads.

With video downloads it is always a compromise between speed and quality. For instant gratification you have streaming video, but that’s the lowest quality. Broadband speed limitations restrict the maximum possible streaming bitrates. Downloads can offer higher bitrates, but still require fat pipes to be feasible, and, of course, storage. But even the best download services don’t come close to matching the picture quality of Blu-ray, because they can’t match the bitrates. And don’t even get into bonus features, lossless audio (Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD-MA), multiple audio and subtitle tracks, etc. With most commercial Blu-ray titles using between 30GB or more of disc capacity, we’re not going to be downloading content at that quality in the near future.

So I was a little gratified to see this article in CE Pro, entitled Blu-ray and Downloads: Why Both Are Worth Offering. CE Pro is an industry magazine with a primary audience of consumer electronics professionals, the kind of folks who install custom systems in high end homes. The article focuses on Blu-ray for physical media and VUDU for downloads, but Amazon Unbox on TiVo, iTunes on Apple TV, Xbox 360, PlayStation3, NetFlix, etc, are all possible broadband video options for the consumer. Downloads aren’t about to replace discs for those who prefer a quality viewing experience, but downloads offer the kind of instant gratification that discs can’t match. I think having both available is the best approach, the best of both worlds.

I mentioned Amazon’s planned video streaming service earlier this morning in my post about YouTube on TiVo, and now I see that, coincidentally, Amazon is releasing it to “a limited number of invited Amazon.com customers” starting today, according to The New York Times.

The new streaming service will apparently be called Amazon Video on Demand, and it will be distinct from Amazon Unbox, Amazon’s purchase and rental download service. The Times reports Amazon will have 40,000 titles available for instant streaming. I don’t see the new service as a replacement for Amazon Unbox, but rather a compliment. After all, you will need an active Internet connection to stream video on the new service. Unbox allows you to download video to watch later, off-line - such as on your laptop while on a plane, or on a PMP while traveling. And it is a fairly open secret that Amazon intends to offer HD content through Unbox, and true HD content does not lend itself to streaming on today’s networks. Streaming vs. downloads vs. physical media (DVD/BD) really lay along a convenience vs. quality curve, as a generalization. Streaming is instant gratification, but the lowest quality. Downloads take longer, but will generally offer higher bit rates and hence higher quality. And physical media, in the form of DVD, offers yet higher bit rates. As well as extras, often times audio formats not found on downloads or streams (5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS), additional languages, subtitles, etc. But with the inconvenience of a wait to receive the media. And Blu-ray is at the end of the scale with the highest bit rates, full 1080p HD, often 7.1 lossless audio, etc. All of these options compliment each other and will appeal to different users, or under different circumstances to the same user. (I myself buy a number of Blu-ray discs and love the quality. I also still buy some DVDs, though less now with BD. But I also use Amazon Unbox through my TiVo to check out movies I don’t have as strong an interest in, or impulse rentals due to sales, etc.)

Currently, aside from a PC, Amazon has a deal with Sony to make the streaming content available via Sony Bravia HDTVs. Today that requires the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, which is a $300 add-on. But in the future Sony is expected to build the Internet connectivity directly into new models in the Bravia line. Amazon says they’ll pursue relationships with other TV and Internet device vendors. Which, of course, begs the obvious question - what about their current flagship CE partner, TiVo?

While TiVo isn’t mentioned in the article, I really have to believe this is in the works. TiVo releases H.264 and video streaming support, and they just happen to do so on the same day Amazon makes their streaming service available to the first users? TiVo and Amazon already have a relationship with Unbox, an apparently very successful one, so you know they had to discuss the streaming service early on. With the infrastructure in place with 9.4, TiVo could throw the switch at any time just by updating the HME application that is used for all of the broadband video options. No further software update would be required in the field. I think it is a safe bet that we’ll see Amazon Video on Demand on the Series3 & TiVo HD in the future, perhaps the near future.

Picked up via EngadgetHD.

UPDATE: I went looking around Amazon to see if there was any information on the streaming trial, and on the Amazon Unbox page there was a link in the upper right to sign up for the beta. It says space is limited, so I’d jump on it, don’t procrastinate.

And just to fully confirm that Unbox downloads are not going anywhere:

The goal of this Beta is to test our new instant streaming feature. Don’t want to wait for your video to download? Want to avoid downloading additional software? Want to watch Unbox videos on a Mac? Amazon Video On Demand is the solution to these common customer requests. Purchase or rent a video and you will have instant streaming access to your video from any PC or Mac. All of the existing Unbox functionality remains. You can continue to download your videos for offline playback on a PC or TiVo.

Well, it seems like Netflix is finally making a move to bring their Internet streaming service to the TV, as hinted at in their last quarterly call, and they’d partnered with LG Electronics to do it. They’re reportedly developing a set-top box with LG Electronics which will allow users to view streaming movies directly on their TV.

Personally, as I’ve said repeatedly in the past, I think a dedicated STB is a bad move. Unless they can make it dirt cheap, and I mean $99 or less, I don’t think a dedicated client STB is a good option. Remember, this is simply a device which provides access to a service you have to pay for via your subscription. And if it is just going to handle the streaming, then it doesn’t need to be that powerful.

But it sounds like they may have taken the route I’ve suggested before, making this a service that will be included on other boxes:

The leader of online DVD rentals will be entering an increasingly crowded and confusing market when it rolls out the new device via an LG-networked player sometime in the second half of 2008.

And:

Pricing and other specific details of the LG product were not available, but a person with knowledge of the situation said LG would likely embed the receiver into its $799 dual-DVD player, which supports the competing Blu-ray and HD-DVD high-definition DVD formats.

So they may be embedding this as a thin software client into LG’s DVD and/or Blu-ray product line. That would follow from what was said on the conference call, and it seems to make more sense than producing a dedicated Netflix STB. Certainly, a DVD or Blu-ray player which also happened to support the streaming service is a much better value proposition than a single-purpose streaming STB.

Actually, that’s another issue, I don’t know that Netflix’s streaming service is going to hold up to being displayed on large screens. It certainly is not going to be HD content as very, very few people have broadband connections fast enough to stream real HD content. Even if limited to 720p using H.264 it would be tough to stream real-time without massively over-compressing the stream. This is probably going to be limited to SD content, maybe 480p streams upscaled by the player - like a DVD. In a world increasingly going HD, that seems iffy. Especially with competitors like VUDU going HD, and Amazon Unbox/TiVo expected to go HD soon as well.

On the other hand, being a streaming-only service does reduce their hardware requirements, particularly in storage, and that could make it easier for Netflix to land additional partners. All HD DVD players have network interfaces, and a growing number of Blu-ray players do as well. TiVo is still a possibility, reviving their old partnership, though likely only on the Series3 and TiVo HD as the older boxes can’t handle the newer codecs. (And streaming MPEG-2 is unlikely.) Just about any media center extender product would be a candidate too. But the first thing to come to mind for me was actually the Sling Media SlingCatcher product, now due in 2008.

Hastings said the LG partnership was the first of many such deals for Netflix. “We’d like to see a hundred Netflix-capable boxes,” he said, noting he also was exploring partnerships with makers of Internet-connected game consoles, cable and satellite companies.

Still a lot of unanswered questions. But we’ll probably see and hear some more at CES next week.

From EngadgetHD.

EDIT/UPDATE: The New York Times has an article today which offers a bit more info. It confirms that the streams will not be HD, at least initially. And it has this:

The deal with LG is something of a strategy shift for Netflix. The company had been experimenting with building its own Netflix-brand set-top box. Last spring, to help create the device, the company hired Anthony Wood, the founder of ReplayTV and a pioneer of the digital video recorder.

But Mr. Hastings said that integrating Netflix into other companies’ devices made more sense. He said Mr. Wood would soon leave Netflix to return to another company he founded, Roku.

So it does seem that Netflix had been toying with their own STB, as rumored for a while. But they came to the same conclusion I’ve expressed all along - something like this is better as a service embedded in other boxes, than part of a standalone box. Standalone boxes that do nothing but download movies have not done well - see Akimbo and Moviebeam, Akimbo morphed into a service for Windows and dropped the boxes, Moviebeam is dead. I don’t think VUDU will be successful either, unless they can sell the box for $99 or less - then maybe. But it is still better to be a value-add on a box with other features.

Addonics is offering a multi-format external drive for many computing platforms.

Product Features

• Play Blu-ray™, HD DVD™ or regular DVD movie on your computer
• Reads data from all popular DVD and CD format - Blu-ray™ and HD DVD™, standard DVD and CD
• Write to DVD+/-R/RW/DL media and CD-R/RW media
• Records up to 8.5GB of data or 4 hours of video on compatible DVD+R DL (dual layer) and DVD-R DL(dual layer) media
• Choice of enclosure for eSATA or eSATA/USB 2.0 interface connection
• Bundled with Cyberlink High-Def Suite - software is for use in Windows XP, 2003, and Vista only
• Sturdy aluminum construction
• Compact size for convenient transportation
• Plug and play
• Stereo ear phone jack
• OS support - Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, Linux (Kernel 2.6 and above), Solaris 10, Mac OS X 10.4*

The drive can read Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD and CD, and can burn DVD and CD. It is a fairly peppy Blu-ray reader too, 6x reads. The eSATA version is $409, the eSATA/USB2.0 is $429.

Via EngadgetHD.

Sound and Vision Magazine has a nice article on the restoration and remastering process that films undergo as part of the process of bringing them to high definition, with the focus of the article being on the upcoming HD release of Blade Runner. A lot of work goes into cleaning up old films so they look their best in HD. I have some friends in the video production industry who have done this kind of work, even for SD DVD releases of older film. It is both an art and a science - you need to clean up dust and scratches, but if it is too clean it looks ‘wrong’, so you need to add ‘imperfections’ like film grain back into the video. It’s really quite fascinating - well, I think so anyway. I’ve also been told it can be utterly frustrating and maddening, especially if you’re, say, restoring an entire 36 episode classic anime series for DVD release. (You know who you are. )

I’ve had my deluxe box set of Blade Runner on Blu-ray on order for a while. I am very much looking forward to watching that.

Via Blu-ray.com.