Toshiba HD DVD Players
Toshiba’s Blu-Ray Double Threat HD-XA1 and HD-A1
CES was ground zero for the salvoes of the format war known as HD DVD vs Blu-Ray. After visiting Panasonic’s Blu-Ray, visitors of CES ’06 were treated to Toshiba’s two HD DVD models.
Toshiba used the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show to strut some of their new HD DVD hardware. No surprise there. There won’t be just one but two models using the new blue laser optical storage format coming up in ’06.
Toshiba says its tandem of blue laser HD DVD players should ship by March of ’06. The HD-A1 will list for $499 while the HD-XA1 will go for $799. These aren’t cheap by any stretch but actually represent the best bargain in next gen DVD you’ll see.
One of the many strengths of the HD DVD format over its Blu-Ray rival is price. Considering these players stand to beat the major Blu-Ray players to market and could be thousands of dollars cheaper HD DVD could have a sudden influx of interest in this war. They have significant opposition to overcome against Blu-Ray. Fewer studios have agreed to release their movies on HD DVD than Blu-Ray, giving the launch time variety nod to Blu-Ray.
The HD-XA1 demonstrated at the CES was just a prototype of what is slated to be the first HD DVD player commercially available. The HD DVD players produced by Toshiba will support the Mpeg2, Mpeg4, AVC and VC-1 codecs. A few differences will exist between the two devices is that the slightly more expensive model (HD-XA1) will have an automatic motorized drawer. It’ll also have a premium backlit remote control and two USB ports for gaming controls.
The gaming controls seem a bit odd but then the HD DVD format will support interactive elements like iHD that Blu-Ray does not. Both players will only output HD resolutions via an HDMI port. This is bad news for people with only component inputs on their HDTV. This is to be one of those limitations on HD DVD that is actually a good thing for the majority with a digital HDMI input. It prevents the downrezzing of the video signal by forcing it to endure the analog treatment before going through the video outputs. This will provide you with a cleaner signal than a device that must convert all video to analog for the benefit of older HDTV. Sony claims that Blu-Ray players will support component only HDTV but this might be more of a curse than a blessing.
