Berlin, Germany – Philips has found a new way to put a complete home theater system into another surprising form factor without compromising on quality: The Philips CinemaOne (http://www.philips.com/ambisound) combines a DVD and CD player, an iPod dock, a five channel amplifier, six speakers, and a subwoofer all into a single stylish box of the size of a football, This small, stylish all-in-one home cinema system is the perfect fit for small spaces and budgets.

Measuring just 27.3 x 17.2 x 27.3cm (wxhxd) the Philips CinemaOne surprises with a great surround sound experience caused by six precisely angled speakers which are positioned around the body of the CinemaOne. The 4” subwoofer is built into the base of the unit whereby the installation is clutter free without the need for extra power cables and speaker wires. With the Philips CinemaOne a cinema like experience can be created also in smaller spaces like the living room of a student appartment, the bedroom, or in the office.

Technical details
CinemaOne's five channel amplifier and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) unit can process Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG2 multichannel or stereo sound tracks and uses Philips' proprietary sound and array processing technology to create a realistic and immersive cinema sound effect with distinct and clear dialogue, a convincingly wide sound stage and powerful deep bass.

The CinemaOne is compatible with nearly any format of movie – including DivX, Mpeg and WMV - from just about every type of DVD, CD or iPod. The dock also allows an iPod to be controlled via the units remote control while all track information can be accessed via the TV screen.

Movies can be upscaled to 1080p HD resolution with a pristine digital quality transfer to the TV via the HDMI connector. The CinemaOne also offers the high quality display of jpeg photos and includes flip, rotate, slideshow and zoom functions.

A hi-speed USB port and MP3 link allows connection to a huge variety of portable devices - using PCM, WMA or MP3 - while Philips’ unique Fullsound technology uses the CinemaOne's DSP to restore the emotion, warmth and dynamics to compressed MP3 music tracks.

[Philips]

It still doesn't play real HD (Blu-ray support won't be around till 2009) like a much cheaper Xbox, AppleTV, Vudu or PS3, and we can already import DVDs for a streamer using the freeware Handbrake. If we did want to play high quality content without importing it, we'd just buy a $99 upscaling DVD player. Available now, hit the link for the full review, but please don't believe it. [Sound & Vision]

The Price: $399

The Verdict: Video quality is as least as good if not better than the previous Oppo 981HD we reviewed, which also does 1080p over HDMI. Even better than the 981, this DV-983H adds in a USB port in the back so you can play back DivX/XviD files off of a USB drive directly, without having to burn movies/TV Shows onto a disc first.

We watched several DVDs and were impressed with the quality, and the AV nerds on avsforum seem to prefer Anchor Bay's ABT1018 and ABT102 upconverting/de-interlacting magic chips to Faroudja's. On the audio side, we only have a 5.1 setup, but what we heard sounded great as well.

At $399, it's a player we'd recommend if you have a gigantic DVD library that you want to keep even when faced with the impending Blu-ray transition. After all, there's no sense in buying a movie again if you can get a somewhat reasonable upscaler (and Oppo's is much more than just somewhat reasonable). It's their new flagship model, so you know this is quality DVD playback. It's also the last upconverting DVD player Oppo will ever make, so you might want to get in on this latest generation before it goes out of style. [Oppo]

[Ziova]

Among the sparklers are upscaling PS1, PS2 and DVD movies to 1080p, remote play on PSPs over the internet, and streaming of pictures, music, and video over the network from DLNA3 enabled devices. We haven't heard much about Digital Living Network Alliance before, but it's a bunch of companies that collaborated into making interoperability easier. We're not sure which products support this though. If Sony keeps up this line of fantastic firmware updates, the PS3 may actually be something worth buying by the middle of 2008! – Jason Chen

Press Release [Sony]

Although the high definition players are already fairly cheap (HD DVD at $299 and Blu-ray getting close), the lack of content and their uncertain future is still putting a lot of people off. What's the alternative? An upscaling DVD player that turns all of the movies you own—plus all the ones you can rent from Netflix or Blockbuster—into high definition goodness.

Sure, the quality isn't going to be as good as HD DVD or Blu-ray, but if you add in the extra features that these very refined DVD players have—streaming, Internet radio, and DivX playback—you can possibly get an even richer media experience. Here are the ten things you should know before you buy one.

0) Before we start, you should understand that Upscaling DVD players aren't the same as actual HD DVD or Blu-ray players. You still have the same amount of data in terms of pixels you came in with, namely, a lot less pixels than actual HD players. These don't turn SD content into HD content technically, they just make your SD content look a whole lot better than they do on regular SD players.

1) Does it upscale to 1080p? Not all players do—especially the very cheap ones (under $100). If you've got a fancy HDTV that supports 1080p, you'd want a player that can output everything your display can handle. However, it's not a huge deal if both your TV and the player are 1080i. The difference in quality isn't enough to make it worth your money to upgrade your equipment for at this point.

2) Does your TV support HDMI? Some players that do upscale to 1080i or 1080p only do it over HDMI. If you've got an older set with only component cables, check to make sure the DVD player you get upscales both DVDs and other video files over component and not just HDMI.

3) Does it support DivX, WMV, XviD, and other file formats? One of the benefits of getting an upscaling DVD player over either Blu-ray or HD DVD is the addition of file playback. If you regularly download TV shows or movies off of BitTorrent, you'll be happier if the player you get can play these back on your widescreen TV. For the DVD fans, you'll want to find out whether it supports playback of DVD images as well. Instead of having to switch out DVDs, you could essentially make your own DVD changer by dumping 100 of your favorite movies onto an external hard drive.

4) Does it support video/audio streaming? Instead of having to burn DVD-Rs (which could get costly) or DVD-RWs (still time consuming) whenever you've downloaded something new to watch, why not just stream the files directly from your PC or file server? If the player supports audio streaming as well, you've got yourself a nice music player in your living room at no extra cost.

5) Does it have wireless? If your player does stream, check to see if it supports 802.11g as well. You may not necessarily have your entertainment center wired up for Ethernet cables as well as it's wired for audio/video equipment. With wireless, you can stream data with no extra wiring involved.

6) Does it have 5.1 audio? Is it a built-in receiver with speaker tabs? Almost all the upscaling DVD players will have 5.1 audio with either optical or coaxial audio outputs, but if you're going the super cheap route ($50 and under), you should make sure it's got the right connections. If you don't have a receiver already, you could go the opposite route and spend a little more on a DVD player that's also a receiver built in (Home Theater in a Box gives you speakers as well).

7) How are the extras? This is optional, but some players have extras like shoutcast Internet radio streaming, Internet TV stations, and Weather forecasts. If you're into stuff like Internet radio then make sure the player you have supports it.

8) Is it region-free? Not all players are, and if you're going to be playing back DVDs you buy overseas for $2 a pop, you should make sure the player you buy supports it.

9) Does it play back burned discs? Again, if you're going to be copying discs "you already own", you should be sure that there's support for it. Then again, there's nothing more fun than taking merchandise back to the store because it doesn't work the way you want. So, it's mostly up to you.

10) Would you be better off with a Home Theater PC? Instead of getting a set-top box that tries to emulate everything a PC can do, why not get a PC? If you're looking for all these features, plus DVRing (for recording your TV shows), gaming, Internet browsing, and BitTorrenting all in one, then you won't go wrong with an HTPC. The only thing to worry about is the price, which will probably be a bit more than what you'd spend on one of these upscaling DVD players.

– Jason Chen

Upconverting and Upscaling players [Gizmodo]

Product Page [Via DH]

Although both this and the Apple TV stream video, they're in totally different classes. Apple TV is made for playing back movies and music purchased from the Apple store, and unless you re-encode your downloaded BitTorrent movies from DivX, it's not going to play on Apple's offering. This and the Helios X3000 are for every other non-Apple format.

In many ways, the Ziova CS505 is even better than the Helios X3000 we tested before—which technically makes it the best streaming, upscaling and DivX player we've used yet. Make the jump to find out why.

First off, the format support is pretty complete, playing back just about everything we threw at it. There's DivX, of course, plus "Windows Media Video 9, XviD, Nero Digital™, MPEG-4, QuickTime MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, DVD and other formats." Audio support isn't taking a nap either, with FLAC, OGG, AAC, MP3, WM9, CD and various others. You'll be hard-pressed to find something this sucker doesn't play, unless you're talking about Real Media formats.

The video quality is fantastic—noticeably better than the Helios and on par with the Oppo DV-981HD. Both DVDs and DivX files are played back at 1080i, which loses out to the Helios's 1080p, but isn't a huge deal unless you've got a very new set. It's the first player to support HDMI output with HDCP, but to most people that doesn't matter all that much.

What does matter is the player's ass-kicking ability to read files from pretty much anywhere. The CS505 can support SMB (Server Message Block) shares, which is just basic Windows shares, but can grab data off of Macs and Linux machines as well (since they support SMB). Not only that, there's UPnP support, which works with the Orb software we tested a while back, and USB (FAT and NTFS) disk drive support. That means you can dump a bunch of files onto an external hard drive, walk to your living room, and have days' worth of stuff to watch.

There's also standard photo streaming/playback as well as music streaming/playback, which both support SMB and UPnP as well. Both these worked well for us, and it was nice that the audio kept streaming when we got out of the audio menus and into the photo menus.

Oh, and there's a weather app on there, too. So you can get weather. Kinda superfluous, but neat nonetheless. The 802.11g wireless was a nice touch, but we prefer its 10/100 Ethernet since we've got so many wireless devices and don't want any skipping.

Now for the things we didn't like. First, it took about 50 seconds for the thing to boot up to where we could do something. Then there's the fast forwarding through DivX movies—not very responsive, but better than fast forwarding on our Motorola Comcast DVR. You'll often go past where you wanted to stop, and then have to rewind again.

Oh, and the unit's not exactly pretty. The silver design reminds us of a late '90s VCR or DVD player, but if you've got it stashed away in your entertainment cabinet, it's not a huge deal. Other than these, we didn't really find anything else to complain about, which is great news.

We can confidently say this is our favorite upscaling DivX and DVD player we've played with so far. It's responsive, has lots of playback options, and can handle just about every file we have. And the best part is that the price is only $299, which is only a little bit more than the Neodigit's Helios X3000 at $269. If you're into watching streamed DivX files without all the hassle of burning discs, this is the one for you. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Ziova]

In a recent interview, Phil Harrison said "...we're going to have DVD upscaling on Playstation 3." What'd you think he said? That Batman's going to use a PS3 to save Gotham in next year's movie? – Jason Chen

Loot: The Phil Harrison Interview, Part IV [Newsweek via Kotaku]

Image via Gamesblog

Update: Apparently 360 already does upscaling via VGA. Looks like we need to trade in our component cables for some VGA action. Wonder if they've fixed all the Gears VGA problems yet?

Taking a look at the results on a 1080p set over HDMI, DVDs just never looked so good. That Faroudja up-rezzing technology under the hood pretty much performs magic, but don't get too excited: even at 1080p, up-rezzed DVDs don't look like real HDTV. Still, it's a remarkable value for $230. – Charlie White

Review: Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player [Consumer Electronics Net]

This DV-981HD is an improvement over its predecessor, the highly-regarded DV-970HD which I've favorably reviewed. That player upscales DVDs to 1080i or 720p over HDMI or component, and even though its video output looks better than any DVD I've ever seen, it's still nowhere near the quality of HDTV.

Jump for more pics, including the nice ass-end of this mofo, and a bit of pointed editorializing.

Thank goodness this new model loses the useless SD card reader of its predecessor, which was pretty much a joke. We're looking forward to reviewing this DV-981HD, though, which will probably be the best way to watch plain ol' DVDs on a 1080p HDTV. – Charlie White

Product Page [Oppo Digital]

The H4000 is solidly constructed, with a metric asston of outputs. HDMI, component, composite, S-Video, VGA, 5.1 surround audio, optical audio and coax audio makes the back more holey than Jesus' beer mug.

Upscaling DVDs to 720p (they didn't have 1080p) looked fantastic, and was dramatically better than just a standard DVD player. In addition to great image quality, the fact that you can play back all of your BitTorrented movies, TV shows and British Comedies on a $169 player makes this a great deal for HDTV owners. – Jason Chen

neodigits Helios H4000 1080p Upscaling DVD Player Review [i4u]

The player can also play back "DivX, XviD, MPEG1, MPEG, MPEG4, SVCD, VCD and HDCDs", which means pirate-fans are right at home as well. Like boy-band N*SYNC and that screaming bald dude from basic cable say, "BUY! BUY! BUY!" – Jason Chen

Product Page [NeoDigits via Crunchgear]