DVD/VHS combo upscales everything to HD via *magic*

Okay, somebody needs to explain to me how “upscaling” works. I’m assuming it’s just a matter of blowing up a picture to fit a specified resolution, kind of like the crappy digital zoom you find on many digital cameras. In yesterday’s Xbox 360 HD announcement, I described it yesterday as voodoo , a fact that’s exhibited no better than with this upscaling VCR/DVD combo player.

It might be marginally believable to say that DVD might not look too bad when blown up to HD, but VHS ? At 1080i or 720p over HDMI? I might go so far as to say that that would look craptastic . JVC would have us believe otherwise; how else can you explain that they packed this box with a DVD recorder (with the full alphabet soup of DVD-RW/-R/+RW/+R formats), Dolby Digital/DTS output, and 3D surround sound.

Not only will it play back your 1980s home movies on VHS, but it’ll handle CDs, VCDs, JPEG CDs and MP3 CDs. All for the low low price of—wait, $270? Holy mother of…

[via SCI FI Tech ]