Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Man, what a toll the loss of HD DVD has taken on Toshiba. Judging by the vast expanse of floor space at Tosh’s booth not covered with people (seriously, look for anyone in the gallery below) and the inclusion of CES-announced DVD / VHS recorders (yes, really) as premiere products, we’d say the outfit is still hurting from the outcome of the format war. In all honesty, we felt kind of sad sashaying through its installation while reading slogans like “See everything in HD (even the non-HD stuff).” We even viewed the Super Resolution Technology demonstration with an open mind, and while there’s certainly a mild difference with SRT, these sets hardly make SD signals into high-def. Grab a tissue and wander through the gallery at Engadget HD.

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Toshiba got official with its new RV / XV REGZA families last week at IFA, but now Tosh is debuting ‘em along with a smattering of other lines at CEDIA. The main news here is the US pricing and availability, but if you care to get neck-deep in marketing hoopla, we’d be happy to oblige. The company is trumpeting its Super Resolution Technology (now available in the REGZA RV535 and XV545), which purportedly uses a “proprietary processing system” to “improve image sharpness, brightness and color, [thereby] enhancing standard movies, TV shows, camcorder movies and most video games to near HD quality.” For details on how much he AV500, RV525, AV502, RV535 and XV545 sets will cost here in America, head on past the break.

[Image courtesy of TWICE]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

We’re still pondering the difference between Toshiba’s Cell-based Resolution+ technology and its “good enough for everybody else” XDE tech, but we got a look at Resolution+ today — featured in Toshiba’s new ZF575 Regza TVs — and it seems to work well enough. Unlike XDE, which is designed with DVDs in mind to mess with contrast and colors, in addition to sharpness, Resolution+ just focuses on sharpness, for a multitude of SD inputs, and seems to do a decent job of it. Comparison shots up ahead, don’t poke your eye on any jaggies!

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV

IFA’s apparently given Toshiba just the opportunity necessary to refresh its line of Regza LCDs, for those without the Resolution+ itch with a few new sizes and features. The existing entry-level XV line of 1080p LCDs gets 46- and 52-inch models, plus a gloss black design that helps it fit in at the Regza family reunion. The brand new RV line of 1080p LCDs bring similar features to the ZF Series, sans Resolution+ technology and one HDMI port, but with Active Vision M100 HD 100/120Hz 5:5 pulldown image processing intact. 37-, 42- and 46-inch sizes are confirmed for the October Euro launch, prices and U.S. availability for both TBD.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Storage

IO Data took the wraps off of a new HDD unit made specifically to attach to those new Regza ZH500s, the DiXim HVL4-G2.0 is compliant with the latest DLNA / DTCP-IP standards to easily record TV shows via the network. It’s got space for four drives up to a maximum capacity of 2 TB in a RAID 5 array, limiting recording space to a max of 1.5 TB. Because of copy protection, it only records from Toshiba’s TVs right now, and can be controlled completely via remote. Doubt we’ll be seeing this here anytime soon, but it’ll be on store shelves in Japan later this month for 111,615 ($1,090 US).

[Via AV Watch]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

In Japan, the hand can be used as a knife. And you can’t swing a Yume Neko Smile cat without defacing a 1080p TV with built-in Ethernet and a hard disk drive recorder. Case in point, Toshiba’s latest batch of REGZA LCDs, ten in all. The top of the line ZH500 series measures in at 52- (52ZH500) and 46-inches (46ZH500) with 120Hz VA panels, 4x HDMI (1080/60p, 24p) inputs, 3x Ethernet (with DLNA support), 2x USB, Bluetooth, Firewire, SD slot, and a DVR to record your shows to the built-in 300GB disk. These lack the eSATA jack found in the 42-, 37-, and 32-inch RH500 series, but you can add more disk over Ethernet via an I-O Data REGZA drive wrapped in DTCP-IP DRM to keep your HD recordings off the global torrents. Rounding things out are the 42- and 37-inch ZV500 series of 120HZ IPS panel LCDs and the relatively low-end, 42-, 37-, and 32-inch CV500 series of diskless TVs. Prices will range from ¥160,000 ($1,560) on up to about $5,850 when products start hitting shelves between April and June. Pics of the in/outs on the ZH500s after the break.

Read - ZH500 and ZV500 series
Read — RH500 and CV500 series

Continue reading Toshiba’s 10 new REGZA LCDs: 3x Ethernet, built-in DVR, and much much more

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Filed under: CES, Displays, Features, HDTV

As you’ve surely saw in our liveblog of the Toshiba press conference, the firm went wild with new LCD releases for 2008. The overriding theme was thinness and early release dates, with essentially every set listed shipping by April. We’ll get down to the dirt: two new 720p sets were introduced — the AV500 and REGZA CV510 — the first of which will be available in sizes ranging from 19- to 42-inches and feature DynaLight, HDMI and a PC input, while the latter will only be available in 32- / 37-inch sizes and sport PixelPure4G 14-bit internal processing, a 1.5-inc ThinLine Bezel design and a trio of HDMI 1.3 ports. For more on the outpouring of 1080p sets, click on through.

Continue reading Toshiba announces slew of LCDs for 2008: hands-on and video

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