Toshiba Goes Back To DVD As HD-DVD Pain Subsides

Japanese Consumer Electronics Manufacturer and unfortunate HD-DVD backer Toshiba has announced a new DVD player on the market with what can be described as a "revenge is a dish best served cold" attitude.

The XD-E500 looks like one of the company's own old HD-DVD players and comes with an onboard technology called XDE for Extended Details Enhancement which as you might have guessed, is a grandiose expression for, DVD Upscaling.

Supporting upscaling up to 1080p, the DVD player also comes with a HDMI connection as well as compatibility with WMA, DiVX, MP3 and JPG file formats.

There are also rumours that Toshiba is also set to release LCD TV which would make use of onboard hardware upscaling chip as well - although this remains to be seen.

The appliance is expected to be released fairly soon in the UK but will probably cost more than the USD150 suggested retail price in the US.

While it costs more than a standard DVD player and substantially less than a blu-ray player, it could fill a nice niche for an audience who wants to maximise the shelf life of tens of thousands of DVD titles already on the market.