New DVD Hi-def Player Within '08 by Toshiba

From credible Japanese news site Yomiuri Online:

-View Current DVD's in Hi-def, Toshiba to Release New Player within the Year-

Toshiba has announced plans to release a new DVD player within the year, which will have the ability to allow Hi-def playback from currently existing normal DVD's.

Toshiba is aiming the new product for a comeback, after losing the format war to Sony's Blu-ray with their HD-DVD back in March.

On video quality, the current DVD displays at roughly 350 thousand pixels. Current Blu-ray and other hi-def videos are displayed at roughly 2 million pixels, about 6 times in density compared to DVD, resulting in a more vivid and clearer output.

Toshiba has created a new type of LSI (Large Scale Integration circuit) which will instantly convert the current DVD video output into hi resolution.
Using this technology, Toshiba has succeeded in making the DVD's image competitable with current hi-def standards.

The president of Toshiba, Atsushi Nishida, expressed that Toshiba does not plan on releasing a player that will be compatible with Blu-ray.
Instead they are looking at releasing current DVD players with the new LSI attached, and aiming to sell them at a lower price than Blu-ray players. They will appeal with concept of being able to view the mass library of current DVD's in hi-def.

The war over the hi-def formats started after 2002, with Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray competing for the world's standard format.

May 29, 2008. 2:38PM Japanese Time. Yomiyuri News.

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Editor's Note: The above is a direct translation of the original Japanese Yomiuri.com news article, by me. Link provided is a google translation, and the credits link is to the original Japanese article. Google translation is very in accurate in wording and also in numbers, which is why I decided to do a full translation.