Toshiba Cuts HD DVD Player Prices
Techtree News Staff, Jan 15, 2008 1321 hrs IST
Toshiba's move is significant, especially when earlier this month, Warner Bros announced it would exclusively support the Blu-ray disc format.
The battle between Gen-Next formats is hotting up with Toshiba having announced slashing prices of its HD DVD format players by a good 40 to 50 percent. This -- even as major Hollywood studios move to adopt Sony's Blu-ray high definition DVDs.
With the announcement, Toshiba's HD DVD format players will now cost anything between $149 and $399.
The price cut, which according to Toshiba America Consumer Products, is towards accelerating adoption of its HD DVD format players by mainstream consumers, is effective since January 13, 2008.
A Toshiba executive, Yoshi Uchiyama, said that while price is an element of consideration for early adopters, it's almost a deal-breaker for mainstream consumers.
Toshiba's move is significant, especially when earlier this month, Warner Bros announced it would exclusively support the Blu-ray disc format. Prior to that, the company supported both Gen-Next formats.
In addition, Toshiba is stepping up marketing efforts around its HD DVD players, including offering five free HD DVD titles along with any of its HD DVD players.
The company has garnered support from Hollywood studios the likes of Universal Home Video, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation SKG.
But then Blu-ray has the support of News Corp's 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, and Lions Gate Entertainment.
As regards gaming consoles, Sony's PS3 plays Blu-ray movies while Microsoft's Xbox 360 plays HD DVD. Then again, Microsoft announced at the recently concluded 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that it might consider supporting the rival Blu-ray format should consumers want it.
USER COMMENTS
the HD dvd addon is only $200.. *both the xbox & the player are *still cheaper then the PS3.. the PS3 is a stripped-down version of a blue-ray player.. with no bitstream/trueHD support anyway.
by Chris, Buffalo, on Jan 15, 2008 09:38 PM, Report abuse
Chris from Buffalo: The PS3 includes an on-board Dolby TrueHD decoder which will convert TrueHD into multi-channel PCM and analog sound, but won't pass Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD bitstreams over HDMI (yet at least). On the PS3 you can change your Blu-Ray Disc audio output setting for HDMI to "PCM" instead of "bitstream" and it will output lossless Dolby TrueHD as pure multi-channel PCM for decoding by your receiver. It isn't a cut down Blu-Ray player by any means. It is still a top player which now supports full Profile 1.1 (as well as DivX and WMV playback) and is online for easy firmware updating in the future. Not to mention the bonus of playing PS3 games, Web browsing, video conferencing, a media centre etc. etc.
by Frank Zappo, UK, on Jan 21, 2008 04:31 PM, Report abuse
by Arunprasad, chennai, on Jan 20, 2008 05:50 PM, Report abuse Reply
The price-cut has all the hallmarks of a Fire Sale to offload stocks of HD-DVD players on an innocent public before it goes the way of BetaMax!
by JustMe, New York, on Jan 15, 2008 02:55 PM, Report abuse Reply
i just bought an A-30 hd dvd player for $49 and i plan to load up on cheap hd dvd movies too. whether it survives long term or not does not matter to me, i am getting very good deals right now and the dvd player will always play dvd's
by brian, osceola, on Jan 16, 2008 10:53 AM, Report abuse
"Sony's PS3 plays Blu-ray movies while Microsoft's Xbox 360 plays HD DVD." This is a false statement. The PS3 plays Blu-ray movies out of the box, but the Xbox 360 require a separate, add on player that costs between $179 and $200. When you add the cost of the console to that, it comes out a bit more expensive than the lowest priced PS3. I find it truly amazing how much misinformation is circulating out there about these 2 formats. If you are going to write articles about technology, do your homework. Get your facts straight before printing.
by Phil Voss, Toluca Lake, on Jan 16, 2008 10:38 AM, Report abuse Reply
2 things First, if you want to show your readers the difference in studio support available for both formats, then you should show them the reality of the situation. It apears in your article as if hddvd and blu-ray are on equal ground, (each with the support of three studios) this is very misleading when the reality is as follows - HDDVD Universal studios, Paramount Blu-ray Fox, Disney, Lions Gate, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, and MGM and if you wish to attach Dreamworks as a seperate entity (from Paramount) towards hddvd's line up, then you should also include both Buena Vista and Pixar (from Disney) as well as Newline (from Warner) into blu-ray's line up. Second, you say that the Xbox 360 plays hddvds - this is not true. The xbox can only playback dvds. If you wish to play hddvds with your xbox, then you must purchase the seperate hddvd addon for $180 before it can be possible. I'm sorry to be correcting you like this, but in the future you may want to do some more research before posting an article that carries mistakes.
by Obed, Studio City, on Jan 15, 2008 10:24 PM, Report abuse Reply
I consider myself neutral or as the saying goes, "PURPLE". I do have my personal opinion about this format war and the sales so far. I do admit that while Blu Ray has clearly had the best marketing scheme from day one, it hasn't been enough to convinve the general "Joe Public" who are waiting to see what happens. In all reality I dont think the general public is online researching this material, they are going to local electronics stores and asking sales associates which is better, all while staring at the extreme prices of these players and movies. Most of general public also will purchase from retailers and not be able to take advantage of the Amazon sales. Bottom line, price & quality is what people want. This seems to be the HD DVD advantage. However, sales are Blu-Rays advantage! unfortunately as much as people promote the PS3, I must admit even as a male who loves video gaming systems, that I would rather not my movie player be on a video game. I would want the game system for games, and the stand alone for movies as the general public would. Let's not kid ourselves, PS3 owners did not purchase that system for bluray movies, it was an added bonus to the purchase. Also, most females, adults, and many others do not wish to purchase a gaming system just to watch their movies on. this is why the war continues, you have toshiba selling more stand alones, and Sony selling more PS3's that include blu-ray players. At this point its anyones ball game, may the best format win!
by Wil, Livingston,NJ, on Jan 15, 2008 08:37 PM, Report abuse Reply
This is no "fire sale" it's a great marketing move. I support hd dvd all the way. Now that most hd dvd's have both high def and standard there's no better choice. Yes bluray has more supporters right now, but that doesn't mean anything. Hd outsold bluray 2 to 1 during christmas time. Plus the only reason anyone even has a bluray player is because of PS3(which is selling horribly). There's over a million installed hd dvd players worldwide, and these people actually went out and bought a hd dvd player.
by Paul, Irvington, on Jan 15, 2008 07:39 PM, Report abuse Reply
considering HD-DVD has the 2 best studios and blu-ray has lots of not so good studios (just look at the top 10 dvd's in your supermarket and see who they're made by), there is always a chance HD-DVD could turn this around. Theres no reason why another studio might not jump back to HD DVD. Oh and microsoft said they have NO plans at all to go blu-ray.
by The Fatty, Plymouth, on Jan 15, 2008 05:07 PM, Report abuse Reply
"The 2 best studios"? I don't think so. Disney/Pixar, Warner Bros., Fox, Sony, MGM and Lionsgate are all Blu-Ray exclusive now. With the huge sales figures and greater studio support, Blu-Ray has pretty much won the HD movie format war. All those people waiting to see which will be 'king' before making a purchase will now be buying Blu-Ray players (most likely PS3's which offer the best value for money). This is just going to push HD-DVD further down the plug hole.
by Frank Zappo, UK, on Jan 15, 2008 06:04 PM, Report abuse
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"Sony's PS3 plays Blu-ray movies while Microsoft's Xbox 360 plays HD DVD" should read "Sony's PS3 plays Blu-ray movies while Microsoft's Xbox 360 plays HD DVD as long as you buy the expensive HD-DVD addon"
by Frank Zappo, UK, on Jan 15, 2008 05:47 PM, Report abuse Reply