We've just had one of the first working demos of Toshiba's new QuadCore laptop range, two of which feature 'Blu-ray rivalling' upscalers to deliver High-def pics without having to fork out for the compatible next-gen Blu-ray discs. And amongst howls of derision from certain rude, aged members of the UK press, the demonstrations looked pretty damn great in our expert opinion. And anything that's going to save us the ignominy of having to replace our entire DVD collection with Blu-ray has to be worth giving a go.
But now a new contender has strolled onto the Hi-Def block and its claims are equally as grandiose.
The new Kaleidescape standalone DVD player claims to 'provide a viewing experience that rivals Blu-ray', which is huge considering there are around 170,000 titles on DVD compared to just 6,000 on Blu-ray. Six thousand - really?
The idea then is that there's just no point in upgrading when you can get the same experience without the added cost.
Catchily called the 1080p Player, it features a Sigma Designs Gennum VXP chip, 10-bit processing and full support for Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG and PCM audio formats. A mini version called (you guessed it) the Mini 1080p Player is also released doing exactly the same thing but with a far smaller footprint.
So they're as good as Blu-ray, will polish your existing DVDs to within an inch of their lives and offer access to Kaleidescape's extensive Movie Guide database - what's not to like? Erm, how about the respective $4,300 and $3,000 price tags, oh and the fact that to make them work you'll need to already have the $10,000 Kaleidescape System installed. Suddenly, Blu-ray doesn't look so pricey.
kaleidescape.com
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