New Technology TV

With Sony and Toshiba duking it out in the marketplace in an effort to bring their proprietary high definition digital video disc formats out on top, both now face a threat from the outside in the form of a new DVD player that claims to be able to up convert standard definition DVD's all the way up to the high definition resolution of 1080p. Both Sony and Toshiba have released their own proprietary high definition DVD formats with the result of a format war between the two. The winning format promises to make a lot of money for the company that introduced it in the form of royalties and licensing fees. The problem is that consumers have been slow to adopt either format because of fear of being left with technology and media that are only supported by the losing format. The recent introduction of a standard DVD player manufactured by OPPO that will supposedly up convert standard DVD's to 1080p resolution is a major threat to both Toshiba and Sony because it provides consumers who want to watch movies in high definition with an alternative to the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats that are produced by the two electronics giants. This DVD player- the DV-981HD- will supposedly increase the resolution of a normal standard definition digital video disc all the way up to a high definition resolution that so far is only supported by the HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc formats. It's still relatively rare for high definition television sets to support the 1080p resolution which is also referred to as "Full High Definition Television."

The high definition picture produced by the DV-981HD is further ensured by the fact that it connects to a high definition television set using a HDMI cable. To make matters even worse for Toshiba and Sony's stakes in the high definition digital video disc market, the OPPO DVD player is also much more affordable than devices that play HD-DVD discs and Blu-ray discs. HD-DVD players run about five hundred dollars and Blu-ray disc players run up to one thousand dollars (with the exception of the Sony Play Station 3 which serves as a Blu-ray disc player and runs between five and six hundred dollars- if you can still find one for retail). These prices are in stark contrast to the DV-981HD which costs about two hundred and twenty nine dollars.

Of course the danger that the DV-981HD poses to Toshiba and Sony is presented by the fact that it allows consumers to enjoy movies in high definition without having to take the risk of buying a high definition DVD player that has a good chance of becoming obsolete in the near future, and allows consumers to avoid the extra expense associated with buying both the more costly high definition DVD players and the more expensive high definition DVD's themselves that would be played on them.

It seems that the risk to buying a DV-981HD is that it's still a relatively new and unproven technology that will inevitably have bugs to work out of it. That said technology that can consistently and cleanly up convert standard definition DVD's to high definition resolutions will give consumers what they want at a reasonable price and end the high definition DVD format war with both Sony and Toshiba as losers.