Toshiba began selling its first player for the HD DVD format today in Japan, beating the rival Sony-made Blu-Ray Disc format to the starting line. The HD-XA1, priced at about 110,000 yen ($936), is the world's first commercially available HD DVD player. In April, this product will be available in the United States for around $799. It was planned to be launched this month, but unavoidable delays pushed the date back a few weeks. Movies on the HD DVD format will arrive in Japan in April also, but will be even more limited than the U.S. launch line-up.
Blu-ray Disc players are still months away from arrival, with Panasonic (Matsushita) and Samsung planning to get their players in quickly for prices of $1000 and more. Blu-ray enthusiasts were upset by the delay of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console launch, which will now be in November. Despite the staggering number of PlayStation fans wanting to buy the console to asses its next-gen gaming abilities, it is also viewed as a "cheap Blu-ray player" as it includes a Blu-ray drive.
Supporters of Blu-ray are also not shy to cite the gaming console's ability to play Blu-ray movies as being a major part of the format's push for dominance. Microsoft, which backs the HD DVD format, has announced plans to provide an external HD DVD drive to provide a similar "cheap high definition player" to gamers who already own an Xbox 360 console. This clear tie between the next generation console war and next generation format war has been frowned upon occasionally, with one such critic being Warner Home Video president, Warren Lieberfarb.
The HD-XA1, launched today in Japan, has 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. It supports the video compression standards of MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1, as well as MPEG2, it utilizes 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. It features built-in multi-channel decoders for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (2 channel), DTS and DTS-HD.
Source:
ABC
Supporters of Blu-ray are also not shy to cite the gaming console's ability to play Blu-ray movies as being a major part of the format's push for dominance. Microsoft, which backs the HD DVD format, has announced plans to provide an external HD DVD drive to provide a similar "cheap high definition player" to gamers who already own an Xbox 360 console. This clear tie between the next generation console war and next generation format war has been frowned upon occasionally, with one such critic being Warner Home Video president, Warren Lieberfarb.
The HD-XA1, launched today in Japan, has 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. It supports the video compression standards of MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1, as well as MPEG2, it utilizes 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. It features built-in multi-channel decoders for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (2 channel), DTS and DTS-HD.
Source:
ABC
