Toshiba slashes HD DVD player prices
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Enlarge By Jae C. Hong, AP

HD DVD logos are shown at the Toshiba booth during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Toshiba is cutting the price of its players to compete with the better-backed Blu-Ray technology.





Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?NEW YORK (AP) — Toshiba on Monday announced an aggressive campaign to bolster its HD DVD movie disc format against Sony-backed Blu-ray technology, cutting prices on players to as low as $149.99.
The HD DVD camp suffered a serious blow on Jan. 4, when Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would stop publishing movies on HD DVD in May, to focus on Blu-ray and regular DVD.

That leaves only two major studios, Paramount and Universal, still supporting HD DVD, while five support Blu-ray.

Toshiba on Monday slashed the suggested retail price of its cheapest player, the HD-A3, from $299.99 to $149.99. The price for the HD-A30 was also halved, from $399.99 to $199.99, while the price on the high-end HD-A35 went from $499.99 to $299.99.

HD DVD players have been cheaper than Blu-ray players for a while, and sales of standalone players have been strong. But Blu-ray has benefited from Sony's cachet among video enthusiasts, as well as the ability of the PlayStation 3 game console to play Blu-ray discs.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: DVD | Sony | Warner Bros | DVD players | Toshiba | HD | Blu | Consumer Electronics Show
"While price is one of the consideration elements for the early adopter, it is a deal-breaker for the mainstream consumer," said Yoshi Uchiyama, group vice president of digital audio and video at Toshiba America Consumer Products.

Toshiba also said it planned an extended campaign of TV, print and online advertising to promote the format.

The availability of two competing formats — and the confusion and uncertainty it's sowed among buyers — has been widely blamed for the slow adoption of high-definition players in general.

Warner Bros. Entertainment is owned by Time Warner.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

so HD is the new Betamax

@ technology

ZombieKitten said:

laserdiscs lasted longer ( still have mine too )

lol i dont even understand why they even bothered with Blu-Ray and HD DVD as regular DVDs are still going strong, and not everybody is into the whole HD crap...let alone has TVs and good sound systems to warrant getting them. Yes there are technology freaks out there but for most people in general it isnt a thing of need...perhaps in a few more years when prices of all this crap gets cheaper yeah i can understand the push for it, but really of the people i know who have huge HD TVs and the like, i ask them "do you really know the difference?" and they cant give me an answer, they just give me the spiel that the salesman gave to them which when they say it out loud makes no sense to them

On another note when this was announced all the PS3 fanboys were up in arms because for some deluded reason they thought this brought the end of the Xbox 360.....they must be putting crack in the PS3s these days or something because the reasons they were coming up with made no sense...they seem to think movies are more important than games on a GAMING machine.....

I swear that now when they make regular dvds the make them crappy on purpose.

blah who cares...both are the new betamax...

and dont 4get sony has launched a fuk-ton of failed media...almost more than any other company..

MiniDisc
UMD
BetaMax
SACD etc...

Blu-Ray next? me thinks so...

xperience319 said:

If so, what will usurp it? Obviously not HD-DVD. This time they may not have backed a dud.

Let's not forget that Sony, alongside Philips, were responsible for the CD.

Fauxie said:

It may become a dud if what I think will happen in broadband technology actually happens. Comcast and other cable and satellite companies are working on HD video on demand that can be downloaded to your TiVo/DVR, and once all broadcast TV signals are required to go digital next year, Google is expected to be a huge bidder on the remaining analog spectrum, which they would like to turn into a massive wireless broadband system that will exceed even the fastest WiFi currently on the market. So people will basically be able to receive HD movies on their laptop for free, and the Blu-ray disc will already be obsolete.

728huey said:

so in essence that means its going to become harder and harder to actually own any media, it will be all on pay per view/rental type of deal?

Any word on copying blue-ray? My friend was saying something the other day about how he'd bought the new Nero and he was talking about using it with blue-ray discs. Can they be copied yet?

kcwm said:

The difference is ridiculously obvious if you actually have a 1080 HD television. People opposed opposed color televisions, opposed CD's to tapes and records, and really opposed DVD's when they came out ("I'll never get rid of my VHS's or stop renting VHS's")... I still remember people saying they couldn't really see a good enough difference between DVD and VHS (which I couldn't understand, I thought that was obvious too), but this difference of HD vs NTSC/PAL is dramatic.

xperience319 said:

Actually Beta was used by the professional media (news, tv stations, cable) until digital technology started catching on in the late 90's.

Another reason is that these new format wars are being backed (mostly) by tech nuts.Your average Joe dont give a hoot about blu or HD.

When DVD was incoming, it had a MASSIVE difference over VHS.

- clearer, non-deteriorating video quality
- chapter searches
- extras
- 5.10 surround

Whats HD/Blu got over DVD?

- larger disc size (storage capacity)
- clearer images
???

Are these reasons enough for average joe to upgrade? NO.

Is the average consumer going to replace his massive DVD library just cause he can get an extra few lines of detail in Police Academy? Doubt it.

There is nothing "wrong" with the dvd format as the average consumer sees it. Its clear, got extras, good sound, extras...and most movies are DIRT cheap now...

there was allot wrong with VHS when dvd was incoming...this is the difference.

728huey said:

This is what I read also--that HD discs are just a stopgap until movies can be accessed as digital files. But where's the fun in that? I like packaging and owning a physical product. How soon before books become obsolete too?

xperience319 said:

Blu-ray discs also have uncompressed sound.

xperience319 said:

I'm comparing below
[Edited 1/15/08 8:54am]

Blue ray smokes Hd dvd's.

To get the real benefit of an HDTV you have to have an HD cable Box or Direct HdTV to see the real benefit.

Once you see true HD tv on an HDTV you will be amazed.

For the true blue ray experience you need a 1080 p hdtv. It's better to buy a tv with a higher contrast ratio as well.

mannotamyth said:

Blue-ray and HD-DVD are identical. They are both 1080p formats. I own a blue-ray player, and work in the HD spec. Blue Ray can hold more info, but the picture resolution is the same as an HD-DVD. Blue can hold longer movies or more supplemental stuff or more soundtracks...

ufoclub said:

dont you think that they have lessened the quality of regular dvd with new releases?

And say like my collection of 60's70's films on DVD that were quite pricey. The quality of their picture is likely impossible to get any better right? Because of how they were originally filmed

ufoclub said:

horatio said:

All those old movies were filmed at BETTER quality than HD. Even the black and white ones.
1080p HD resolution is less than that of low grain 35mm film. 35mm film was used to make movies since the 20's. All the old movies ( if they find a quality negative or print) will actually look better than HD. They scan these movies in at a higher resolution and then dumb it down to HD resolution and then dumb it down further (scale it down) for the soon to be discontinued ntsc or pal releases.

So simply put, even a 30's movie like The Wizard of Oz was shot in slightly better quality than HD! There is a new digital format that they are developing to shoot movies... the RED CAMERA.

All your movies that were shot for the big screen will look much better in HD.

xperience319 said:

You look thoughtful.

xperience319 said:

lol so true.

UFO clearly you know all about it and are interested in everything HD related and are in the know, but to the majority of consumers they know nothing on the subject and just get suckered into buying this stuff because its the new "it" product when they really dont NEED said item, and to the average consumer they really cant tell the difference between a normal DVD or a HD DVD/Blu Ray besides (assuming its on a 1080p tv) "wow it sure is big" they wouldnt be able to tell you the difference in the sound quality, hell if you were to tell the average joe its got 7.1 surround sound they would just nod their head oblivious to what it really means.

my point being not everybody really cares nor needs this technology...and if they do get it the majority dont use it to its full potential, sure it may be bigger over in the US but here in Oz its taking its sweet assed time getting people to convert.....hell the most of our free to air tv stations havent switched over to HD yet...and the ones that have in some areas in Oz like where i live (Canberra) you cant even pick up the channels because they havent gotten it down pat yet, which is rather annoying but hey ive still got a tv antenna so i can watch tv the "old fashioned" way

kcwm said:

You probably have a year left of watching TV the "old fashioned" way before all the stations convert to digital.

yeah most likely, but i really dont watch much free to air TV here....it really is pretty ordinary, if theres a show i must watch i just torrent it....as most of the time its a good 4 - 5 months before it airs here after it 1st airs in the US and i really would prefer to be watching tv in its digital form....but as i said until they get their shit together its gonna take a while here in Oz

I bought my Blu-Ray player over a year again and never reconsidered it. HD-DUD has been at a disadvantage from day one, yet they're refused to give in. It's their own fault they've waited this long. Warner's announcement last week at CES was the nail in the coffin. Paramount and Universal won't be far behind, no matter what they're saying publicly.

The only thing HD-DUD could hold over Blu-Ray's head was picture-in-picture but with 1.1 on Blu-Ray now, it's not an issue. Blu-Ray does, however, need to work on making better minimal standards where audio's concerned. There's no need for lacking an uncompressed audio track, especially on new films.

kcwm said:

All the sports bars and sports watching average joes can easily tell and LOVE the difference, and cannot watch regular tv after getting used to it. This is a key market with billions of $$$ spent on a fundamental cultural staple worldwide. I personally have NO interest in sports myself, but HD haslready caught on with this crowd.

Regular tv's will soon go out of production just like black and white ones did. It's not really a choice to switch to HD!

And it is true, it will be illegal to broadcast tv (HD or NTSC) in a year or two in the US. This is already set in motion. They are selling those frequencies to other users for other uses.