NeoDigits announces the HELIOS H4000 HD Upscaling DVD player

With all the fuss over HD optical discs, sometimes we forget that there are some nice low cost solutions to tide our HD cravings over till the next-gen format players drop in price. NeoDigits' latest offering into the crowded market of DVD upscalers -- the widely versatile H4000 -- is a great example. This player not only supports DVD, SVCD, VCD, CD, HDCD, MP3, WMA, MPEG 4, and DivX but also allows users to output nearly any resolution over its three high-def outputs. Say for instance a person wants to output 1080p over component, this player can do that (just like its older brother) or perhaps a higher-end A/V owner wants to output the signal to an external video processor at 480i via HDMI, that's kosher too. All in all there are eleven different resolutions the H4000 can output over the composite, S-Vid, component, HDMI and VGA jacks. We hear ya if the whole HD DVD/Blu-ray battle is just to scary right now to jump feet first into at least a $500 investment, but maybe the $169 tag on the H4000 will be a tad easier to swallow when the player is released on October 17.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2006 2:39PM]

Before anyone says anything stupid: This year's Samsung and Mitsubishi DLPs can accept 1080p over component.

[wryker Posted Oct 10th 2006 3:03PM]

I love my Toshiba sd-6980 upscaling DVD player connected to my Denon avr-987 that ALSO upscales all inputs to 1080i(or 1080p) using the 2 HDMI inputs and one out put to my 62HM196...and the SD-6980 was $95 from Amazon - half the cost of this one..

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2006 5:47PM]

If my HD display automatically uprezzes everything to the native resolution of the display, what is the point of moving that uprezzing to the external player? I mean, it's not like my HD display is using every third pixel with the component video out of my DVD player. It's scaling.

It looks to me to be a gambit to make DVD players, which can be found for as cheap at $35, more "valuable" by adding a few chips to do what the display, or the AV receiver, was already doing.

Maybe I'm missing something.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2006 5:44PM]

This is great news. I'm glad people are seeing that component is actually the most vibrant way to watch content still, and not just an outdated connection. DVI and HDMI and go rot, the color reproduction just aren't there.

[Xeno Posted Oct 11th 2006 1:51AM]

Well Anthony, Usually you would want to do this because the upscaling chip in most TV's is outdated at best and cheap at worst. Plus some DVD players can delay the audio to match the time the upscaling took.