Toshiba has announced that it will ship its SD2300 DVD-Video player, the company’s first DVD player to include NUON®-enhanced functionality, in September 2000. The heart of the NUON system is an advanced media processor that permits new feature sets, as well as performance and playback capabilities never before available in a DVD-Video player.

Craig Eggers, Toshiba’s Director of Product Management for DVD, noted, ‘By combining NUON capabilities with Toshiba’s engineering enhancements, the SD2300 delivers advanced performance and interactivity. The SD2300 represents the first of a line of innovative Toshiba DVD players that will greatly enhance and expand the possibilities of home entertainment.’

Developed by VM Labs Inc. of Mountain View, California, the 128-bit NUON Media Processor enables the SD2300 to function as a complete interactive home entertainment system. The player’s user interface is enhanced with advanced graphic capabilities that provide a new look and feel to on-screen menus, with 16 million colors, multiple overlay capability and picture-in-graphics displays. With NUON technology, the SD2300 also boasts dramatic advancements in special effects, such as seamless slow-motion and reverse playback images. The unit also includes a unique 16-power pixel zoom feature that allows viewers to enjoy extreme close-ups with virtually no image-degrading artifacts, a result of advanced digital filtering. Other playback features include a Strobe Picture Viewer, which allows users to view high-speed images in successive order by selecting the number of picture ‘samples’ desired and varying the time between each successive display. The SD2300 also includes a special Angle Viewer function that displays thumbnail views of each available camera angle as a series of still pictures across the bottom of the screen.

The SD2300 also provides playback of NUON-encoded game software. In addition, NUON paves the way for a new generation of interactive educational, edutainment and reference-based multimedia DVD software.

The NUON platform also enables new interactive audio capabilities. For playback of CDs, the SD2300 features a Virtual Light Machine™ mode that provides users with a variety of distinct visuals and graphics that pulse and beat in sync with the music.
A newly engineered advanced remote control features a unique eight-way compass cursor design. NUON expansion ports located on the front panel allow convenient connection of NUON peripherals such as a game console, or other device.

The unit features a 10-bit, 27MHz video DAC, as well as 24-bit/96kHz audio compatibility. It also includes ColorStream® component video outputs, as well as S-Video and composite video outputs, and all video outputs operate in parallel.

The Toshiba SD2300 DVD-Video Player carries a suggested retail price of $399.99 and is available as of the third quarter of 2000.