New Onkyo HD-DVD player a re-badget Toshiba HD-XA2?

[ctebah]

"The crew at AreaDVD.de took the screwdriver to the Onkyo DV-HD805 and were none too surprised to find a Toshiba HD-XA2 laying inside the Onkyo-badged packaging. There has been quite a bit of speculation around the "heritage" of this player, so the results of the teardown aren't too surprising. Still, we would like to know what specific tweaks were made to the HD-XA2 to justify the $899 MSRP. At least Onkyo didn't do anything harmful to the player design; our rusty German leads us to believe the AreaDVD gang liked what they saw and heard from the unit despite the finish of the cabinet being "not quite as opulent as" as the HD-XA2. All this makes the HD-XA2 look like a relative bargain among the high-spec HD DVD players."

Sources:

EngadgetHD

AreaDVD

Also here is a source to the HighDefDigest Forum where the topic has been discussed.

[phantasmorph]

So the HD-XA2 is an even better deal than what was first thought...interesting.

[TruckWEB]

So the HD-XA2 is an even better deal than what was first thought...interesting.

But the XA2 is the second generation of player... I was hoping that Toshiba would be out with the XA3 by now (to follow with the A3, A30, A35).

The A35 don't seem to have the high quality Reon HQV processing. So I hope that the A35 is not replacing the XA2...

[Boz]

But the XA2 is the second generation of player... I was hoping that Toshiba would be out with the XA3 by now (to follow with the A3, A30, A35).

The A35 don't seem to have the high quality Reon HQV processing. So I hope that the A35 is not replacing the XA2...

XA3 is coming. That's why A35 doesn't have Reon.

[TruckWEB]

XA3 is coming. That's why A35 doesn't have Reon.

Okay then, correct me if i'm wrong but the only thing better on the A35 (over the A30) is deep color? What do you get for $100 more?

[ludeboy12]

Unlike what some sites are posting in the specs the A30 actually only has HDMI 1.2. Therefore you can only send out a decoded pcm track to your receiver.

The A35 on the other had has HDMI 1.3 and can do HBR audio. Meaning you can bitstream over hdmi to you receiver and let it do the decoding of the new audio formats. This is of course provided you have a new receiver with hdmi 1.3 that can decode them.

Thats the main reason for the price increase.