You've got to love competition, price slashing is great.
Originally projected to have a price tag of $599 after shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD player will actually debut at a price of $499. Toshiba's HD-A20 supports full 1080p resolution unlike its cheaper HD-A2 brother which only supports up to 1080i. Unfortunately, the HD-A20 doesn't feature the HDMI 1.3 interface and instead relies on HDMI 1.2. Without HDMI 1.3, the HD-A20 misses out on xvYCC support, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio and automatic audio syncing. In order to get HDMI 1.3 on an HD DVD player, you'll have to step up to the $799 HD-XA2. With the rare $499 USD 20GB PS3 now discontinued, the only other Sub $500 HD player which supports 1080p is Microsoft's $199 HD DVD drive when paired with a $299 Xbox 360 Core.
Toshiba also announced that is has sold over 900,000 HD DVD titles to date and promises that 70 more titles will be released between now and July 2007. The company is also talking up its promotion where anyone who purchases a new Toshiba HD DVD player can receive five HD DVD titles for free. Despite the excitement from Toshiba over HD DVD, it looks as though the Blu-ray standard is putting up quite a fight.
News source: DailyTech
Originally projected to have a price tag of $599 after shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD player will actually debut at a price of $499. Toshiba's HD-A20 supports full 1080p resolution unlike its cheaper HD-A2 brother which only supports up to 1080i. Unfortunately, the HD-A20 doesn't feature the HDMI 1.3 interface and instead relies on HDMI 1.2. Without HDMI 1.3, the HD-A20 misses out on xvYCC support, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio and automatic audio syncing. In order to get HDMI 1.3 on an HD DVD player, you'll have to step up to the $799 HD-XA2. With the rare $499 USD 20GB PS3 now discontinued, the only other Sub $500 HD player which supports 1080p is Microsoft's $199 HD DVD drive when paired with a $299 Xbox 360 Core.
Toshiba also announced that is has sold over 900,000 HD DVD titles to date and promises that 70 more titles will be released between now and July 2007. The company is also talking up its promotion where anyone who purchases a new Toshiba HD DVD player can receive five HD DVD titles for free. Despite the excitement from Toshiba over HD DVD, it looks as though the Blu-ray standard is putting up quite a fight.

Everywhere I go, I see much more movies in Blu-ray than HD-DVD. And price wise, they cost the same.
To steal the market, it would be easy to do. Undercut the price of the player... Like they do for console machine. Sony do get a little royalty for each BD movie sold...
Do you mean besides the 20GB PS3?
Seriously, Sony needs to suck it up and give us a $500 BD/DVD/SACD player.
Everytime I goto a store in my area the Blu-Ray rack is always half the size of the HD-DVD rack.
The 20GB PS3 was discontinued.
Everytime I goto a store in my area the Blu-Ray rack is always half the size of the HD-DVD rack.
HD-DVD isn't even being sold in most countries. In Europe and Australia (from what I heard) it's all Blu-Ray. Here in the Netherlands I haven't seen a single HD-DVD movie to date.
Everytime I goto a store in my area the Blu-Ray rack is always half the size of the HD-DVD rack.
HD-DVD isn't even being sold in most countries. In Europe and Australia (from what I heard) it's all Blu-Ray. Here in the Netherlands I haven't seen a single HD-DVD movie to date.
Not in the UK. I don't know anyone with a Blu-Ray player. HDDVD is ahead here by a small margin. (small margin in a small market but it's still ahead... loads of people brought a 360 drive)
I've rented 4 or 5 HDDVD's so far... own 16. HDDVD is region free and importing American discs is pretty big here. We are more likely to be a HDDVD country than a Blu-Ray one.
i dont know why Sony or the like wouldnt match prices w/ Toshiba.
on, keep in mind, there are either none or very very few TVs on the market today that support HDMI 1.3 anyway. as far as im concerned, the A20 isnt "missing out" on anything by only supporting 1.2.
yes, youre right, i was only talking about the Deep Color support.
these HDMI 1.3 supported receivers are still too expensive for the mainstream market. another reason the A20 ISNT missing out on 1.3
Hey, Jerz, check out the newer Onkyo receivers. Looks like the 2007 line will have at least one, maybe two models under (well under) a grand that support the HD audio formats. The only drawback is that, for me, there aren't enough HDMI inputs for switching.
I bet there will be hybrid players that can play DVD/HDDVD/Bluray before either format really "wins." You can't compare this to the betamax vs VHS format war. That was a format war to establish a new market... this war is taking place in an already well established DVD market.
And even if "The Matrix" is coming for HD-DVD, it's just not enough. And it's going to be made for Blu-ray a couple of months after that... The 70 new titles Toshiba is promising are not, IMHO, of the best movies.
All I say is that it would be best for everyone that this war end. Someone (Sony or Toshiba) need to do a drastic move to make one the clear winner.
I could definitely use it :p
$500 is sure in the right direction, but still a long way to go
But right now, I just think they're still expensive.
But right now, I just think they're still expensive.
Toshiba has a lower unit than this, the A2. It retails for $399 but goes for $310 on amazon + 5 free movies: http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HD-A2-HD-DVD...r/dp/B000IJV4BC
We shouldnt let marketing trick our perception of how much we actually have to pay for a product, and calling it "sub" doesnt help either, it makes it sound like its under $500 when its really not. It is $500! We should really, in news, just write 0.99 as the next dollar. Take away marketers power to trick us.
We shouldnt let marketing trick our perception of how much we actually have to pay for a product, and calling it "sub" doesnt help either, it makes it sound like its under $500 when its really not. It is $500! We should really, in news, just write 0.99 as the next dollar. Take away marketers power to trick us.
and im pretty sure i read that some places are selling it for under MSRP already... hence, sub-$500. but yes, it's a little misleading yet still got your attention didnt it?
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