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.
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.
