Death blow to Toshiba's SRT/SUC/Res+ upconverter: It doesn't work in real-time!

[JBlacklow]

Looks like anytime Lee Stewart, mikemorel, Lestat, or their ilk bring this up, they're gonna look damn foolish:

Great, here we go again. OK, first, I have to state that I do not believe that this laptop is doing SRT. Merely upscaling which any tv can do. Why? Remember back in early summer (Actually it was CES 2008 in January) when Toshiba revealed the prototype for this laptop and showed off all the whizz bang gadgets including the motion control? No? I do. They stated that the laptop would do regular upscaling on the fly and that SRT was possible, but not real time. The guy in the video even stated that this laptop will reduce the SRT time from 15 hours (again actually it was 24 hours) per hour of video to 3 hours per hour of video. Toshiba stated that, not me. That was with the Intel processor and the SpursEngine. The demo he showed with the flamingos was processed before hand and he stated that it was "not" real time.

If you do want to believe me, that's ok, I won't blame you. I'm just saying, we've seen people mish mashing articles together for the last few months to come up with something that is vaguely reminiscent of truth. I don't believe this one anymore than any of the others. To me, unless someone says without question this laptop is doing SRT processing real-time, I don't believe it.

That brings me to the second point. Considering the statement from Toshiba that they were in the process of creating a system that would reduce SRT from 24 hours to 3 hours and that was an amazing feat, I think this laptop is bogging down just trying to do regular upscaling honestly. That's my 2 cents, you all can go back to beating each other up.

http://www.highdefforum.com/showpost...6&postcount=26

Took me forever, but I finally re-tracked down the video from CES 2008. January this year. Cnet took a look at the then prototype Qosmio with the brand new (at the time) SpurEngine BE. There were 4 demos running. One of them was the SRT upscaling demo.

Here is the exact quote from the article:

"Toshiba had four demos running, the first of which transformed standard-definition video into 1080p. This takes any grubby-looking 640x480-pixel video -- of the sort you might record with a mobile phone or digital camera -- applies some hardcore image processing, and spits it out a few hours later as full 1080p. The effect was extremely impressive, and proves that you can, to some extent, polish a turd. Toshiba says it's possible to do this using an ordinary Intel Core processor, but the Spurs system speeds things up considerably -- what would take 24 hours with an ordinary laptop can be done in just three hours with the aid of Spurs. Stop s******ing, Arsenal fans."

Here is the link: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39...9295004,00.htm

Please pay very close attention to 1:53 of the video where the reporter asks, "Is it all done in real time? ..." and the Toshiba rep responds, "This particular demo is not real time. It takes approximately 3 hours to process one hour of video."

I mistakenly thought it was 15 hours to do the same, but it is actally 24 hours without the SpurEngine.

http://www.highdefforum.com/showpost...3&postcount=27

The implication here is that the user can choose the level of processing. The lowest level is simple upconverting as any available upconverter and most TV's can do. Any thing more and you lose real-time and gain resolution. That makes 100% sense. It also means that real-time SRT is still not here and will be a while since this is as quantum leap forward over any other system.

I won't say SRT is vaporware because I believe it will happen. But at the least it is still dreamware.

http://www.highdefforum.com/showpost...1&postcount=29



The best part is that this is all with high-powered laptop computers. There's no way a on-board solution can do this anytime soon in any player, DVD, HD DVD, or otherwsie. Remember, HD DVD players essentially had last-gen Centrinos to help them, and they still took a minute or two to load.

[stockstar1138]

omg they have to be the stupidest company EVER!!

why in the fu$& would anybody want a DVD player that can't run in real time. what a waste of a billion dollars.

I am just floored that they thought of something this stupid. i mean this is way dumber than downloads, hd dvd, hell even hd vmd.

[The Guardian]

lol. So on a two hour movie, that's a load/buffer time of... four hours, before you can start watching it

And I presume that is with 100% CPU time, if you do other stuff it'll slow it down more

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by The Guardian

lol. So on a two hour movie, that's a load/buffer time of... four hours, before you can start watching it

And I presume that is with 100% CPU time, if you do other stuff it'll slow it down more

"This particular demo is not real time. It takes approximately 3 hours to process one hour of video."

a two hour movie would take 6 hours before you can watch it.

talk about load times.

the only way this is feasible if its a one time occurance and the DVD player comes with a massive HDD to store the data on, so once you process everything once, you can play it in SUC from then on without the massive delay.

[Blu Titan]

To$h really needs to go away with their DUDs, HD DUDs, Super DUDs and the rest of it.

[SkillzthatKillz]

hey man, who wants to pop in a blu-ray disc and enjoy the best pq/sq available when they can pop in a dvd and wait around all day for average pq? blu-ray is dead man!!! LoL

[CptGreedle]

That is such a joke!
You have to dedicate your computer for 6 hours, that is 1/4 of a day, just to watch a DVD. Even digital downloads are better than that!

Maybe someday this can get as fast as real time... but that day is long off and Blu-ray will just continue to dominate HD, and eventually Home Media before this even takes off.
I see this as a great way to get youtube videos to look better in 5 years

[Beta Man]

I could go to the video store, pick something out, come home, watch it, take it back to the store, return it, come back home..... all in the time it takes to load up one of these things

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by JBlacklow

The best part is that this is all with high-powered laptop computers. There's no way a on-board solution can do this anytime soon in any player, DVD, HD DVD, or otherwsie.

Ironically the PS3 is the only current player where it would be feasible. The PS3 has 50% more usable SPE's and is running the Cell twice as fast as the spurs engine .. which would bring it within range of 1 hour to process ........ 1 hour of video. The algorithms are not a big secret .. poor poor Toshiba.

[Monkey]

LOL, much crappier than expected LOL!! Best part of it is more Anti-blu-ray hopes and dreams shattered. Poor Lee

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

I could go to the video store, pick something out, come home, watch it, take it back to the store, return it, come back home..... all in the time it takes to load up one of these things

you must live in the middle of nowhere, no stores within 45 min. of your house.

i can go to the store, pick something out, come home watch it TWICE, make myself dinner, eat it, go back to the store, return it and come back

toshiba this is how much your tecnhologies suck. gtfo.

5 minutes to store
5 minutes in store
5 minutes back to house
4 hours watching movie twice
30 min. making dinner
30 min. eating dinner
5 min. to store
5 min. back to house

total: 5 hours 25 min.

or i could load up a movie on my SUC player instead.

toshiba this is how much your tecnhologies suck. gtfo.

[Monkey]

So who is going to post it at AVS

[JTK]

I think this is easily the best thread I've seen here in many moons.

[4K2K]

I thought they were releasing a standalone DVD player that can do this "super upconversion" or whatever they're calling it these days. I assumed they were using some special chip similar to what's in the PS3. If it's a standalone dvd player, and without at least 9GB of memory/hard disc space (for dual layer DVDs), I'm sure it would have to be realtime. I seriously doubt they'd release a standalone DVD player that would need hours to convert the video before it could be played. Other than the buffer of however many frames it needs to look at (7 frames or so?) I'm sure it will be realtime.

This won't be any threat to Blu-ray as it won't be anywhere near Blu-ray quality and won't make much of an improvement on many types of content (eg. where the camera is still). Instead of criticising the tech, if it is any good at upscaling some DVDs, why not ask the Blu-ray player manufacturers to include an option for this sort of upconversion in their Blu-ray players too (for any DVDs you may have that haven't yet had a Blu-ray release), seeing as Toshiba don't own this tech and anyone can use it.

[RUR]

Heh, is PFC5 the mod the same PFC5 as the erstwhile HD DVD apparatchik on AVS?

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by RUR

Heh, is PFC5 the mod the same PFC5 as the erstwhile HD DVD apparatchik on AVS?

??? I thought he was another die hard at Lee Stewarts base camp Highdeforum.com who posted on rare occassion at AVS.

[quexos]

I already mentioned in some other thread that the Toshiba upconverter took three hours to upconvert in HD ...

EDIT: here it is - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=58819

[The Guardian]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

"This particular demo is not real time. It takes approximately 3 hours to process one hour of video."

a two hour movie would take 6 hours before you can watch it.

talk about load times.

the only way this is feasible if its a one time occurance and the DVD player comes with a massive HDD to store the data on, so once you process everything once, you can play it in SUC from then on without the massive delay.

I was thinking they could buffer/stream it so once you are 2/3 of the way through upconverting the movie it could start playing, and catch up to itself at the end same way video streams off the net.

[Sean4000]

You have to be kidding me. They lost 3, wait 4 times in the same war, right? When will Toshiba throw in the towel? SUC(k) is now defunct and they still don't get it.

No wonder I stopped buying Toshiba all together. What a bunch of morons!

[RUR]

Originally Posted by Monkey

??? I thought he was another die hard at Lee Stewarts base camp Highdeforum.com who posted on rare occassion at AVS.

See the post history. The records don't go back to pre-AVS "reform" days, when PFC5 was IIRC a very outspoken poster (to put it politely), but there's plenty of telling stuff remaining. His "Ooh! Amir, you're the bestest insider ever!" posts are an easy find.