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Toshiba details U.S. launch of HD DVD players

5 January 2006 17:21 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 12 comments

Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. ("Toshiba") has unveiled the details of its line-up of HD DVD players for the U.S. market. The two players, HD-XA1 and HD-A1 will cost $799 and $499 respectively and will be available in March 2006. Toshiba has originally priced players at $1,000 before the launch was delayed. The company said both players will take full advantage of the capabilities of the HD DVD format. Of course, both players will connect to TV sets using HDMI.

"As a leader in home entertainment and a pioneer in DVD technology, we are very excited to introduce our first HD DVD players for U.S. consumers," said Jodi Sally, Vice President of Marketing, Toshiba America Consumer Products Digital A/V Group. "With the support of some of the hottest films, we can confidently say that Toshiba's HD DVD players will come to market with important industry backing in time to meet the HDTV transition."

Both players have backward compatibility so owners can still enjoy their DVD and CD collections. DVDs can also be upconverted to output resolution of 720p or 1080i which is useful if you own a good HDTV. They support the video compression standards of MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1, as well as MPEG2, both models will utilize a new video decoder chip developed by Broadcom.

The mandatory audio formats for HD DVD include both lossy and lossless formats from Dolby Labs and DTS. Both models feature built-in multi-channel decoders for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (2 channel), DTS and DTS-HD. For more information on the players, see the Toshiba Press Release (Source).

Source:
Toshiba

Interested in the competing Next Generation DVD formats? Don't forget to visit our HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discussion forum.

Permalink to this article

Universal & Microsoft bring VC-1 to HD discs (26 April 2006)

First HD DVD players on sale in Japan (31 March 2006)

HD DVD representative points out problems with Blu-ray (17 January 2006)

A HD DVD and Blu-ray player in one? Not for a long time (11 January 2006)

Samsung will sell first Blu-ray Disc player (6 January 2006)

200 HD DVD movies for 2006 (5 January 2006)

HD DVD drive to be released for Xbox 360 (5 January 2006)

Hewlett-Packard backs HD-DVD format (19 December 2005)

HD-DVD launch may be delayed again (15 December 2005)

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Discuss this article!
philipman (Senior Member) 5 January 2006 18:02
sounds cool, but I don't think that I will get one for a while I don't think I could fork out $799 or $499 anytime soon. [ + quote]
neo1000 (Junior Member) 5 January 2006 19:45
$500? sign me in,can`t wait till march. [ + quote]
mikey_ray (Member) 6 January 2006 2:11
its says mpeg4 and mpeg 2 does that mean DivX and XviD are playable----just wondering but HDTV is the new way [ + quote]
rihgt682 (Senior Member) 7 January 2006 15:30
Well i'm not getting this. I mean some people don't even have a dvd player yet. [ + quote]
GHANDY (Newbie) 9 January 2006 4:02
its to high $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ [ + quote]
miata (Newbie) 9 January 2006 7:52
For once in my life I think I am gonna wait and not be the first kid on the block to have the new toy! Let's see how long it will take for the price to DROP DOWN. I am so tired of buying right off the bat and watching the price drop in six months or so. Miata [ + quote]
Pittfan (Member) 9 January 2006 15:52
I'll take 3 please! [ + quote]
miata (Newbie) 9 January 2006 16:57
Hmm, money bags! LOL [ + quote]
Pittfan (Member) 9 January 2006 17:00
Nah , Just want to put the other 2 on Ebay for 2,000 :P ...P.S... Kidding :) [ + quote]
mikey_ray (Member) 10 January 2006 2:30
its says mpeg4 and mpeg 2 does that mean DivX and XviD are playable----just wondering but HDTV is the new way [ + quote]
Pittfan (Member) 10 January 2006 4:23
Mpeg 2 is DVD , Mpeg 4 is that Nero Video [ + quote]
Pittfan (Member) 10 January 2006 4:47
mikey_ray it should . MPEG-4 is one of the latest (audio and video) compression method standardized by MPEG group, designed specially for low-bandwidth (less than 1.5MBit/sec bitrate) video/audio encoding purposes. Probably the best-known MPEG-4 video encoders are called DivX and XviD, which both are nowadays fully standard-compliant MPEG-4 encoders. :) [ + quote]