Those crazy kids over at Engadget got their grubby hands on Toshiba’s new XD-E500 upconverting DVD player. Their take? 

Most consumers will see a visible quality improvement when playing their DVDs, particularly in the realm of sharpness. Toshiba’s new filters are “intelligent” enough to spice up the grass while leaving the sky and clouds free of noise, and while the contrast and color filters are less necessary, many consumers will enjoy their effect — even if video purists would scoff at such alterations

Toshiba seems to know that this isn’t a Blu-ray killer. It certainly isn’t HD DVD but whose to say that this $179 DVD player isn’t going to be a hit with the ‘ma and pa’ crowd. They’re too old to upgrade their video collection again anyways. 

Oh and yeah, Amazon has these bad boys sitting in their gigantic warehouse right now, just waiting for you to buy one.