Toshiba Launches HD-DVD Player Fire Sale

http://www.dailytech.com/Toshiba+Lau...ticle10318.htm

A3 for $139, A30 for $179 (Amazon and Tiger Direct) with reports of even cheaper prices at warehouse stores.

I looked at Amazon and the prices were about $5 less than what the article reported. Amazon says the list price of the A3 is $149.99, so it's really only about $15 off the list price. Is that a fire sale? Seems like just another dramatic headline.

-David

I guess the $149/$199 MSRPs are the new lower MSRPs.

http://www.allthingshidef.com/ME2/di...61CD3909BD6A42

What were the street prices of these units before the price cut?

-David

Thats almost tempting... thats about the price point that I think is reasonable but I still cannot rip them effectively...

If/when they hit $99 (like the A2 before Thanksgiving) I think anyone with a Tivo S3 or HD should pick one up as a means to play their HD content backed up to an optical medium. 1hr of HD content on a single-layer DVD-/+R and 2 hours on a dual-layer DVD-/+R is pretty impressive and the Tivo records in MPEG2 making it very easy to delet comercials w/ VideoRedo and burn right to an HD-DVD compliant DVD-/+R with MovieFactor 6.

I was thinking that this format war would continue for years, but it looks like it's just about over. I mean if HD-DVD isn't going to have a single studio using their format can't we call this one? I'm not going to run out a buy a BluRay player or anything, but you would be hard pressed to get me to dedicate an HDMI port to an HD-DVD player at any price at this point.

For the record, there are still three studios that remain committed to Red: Universal, Paramount, & Dreamworks. I consider news of Red's demise very premature or wishful thinking on the part of Blu fanboys and Michael Bay.

Universal and Paramount are reportedly jumping ship by March. With Warner Bros. and now the porno industry moving their weight behind BluRay it seems pretty clear. In the short term 75% of HD movies released will be BluRay only, and in the future that will be more pronounced.

I have the HD-DVD add on for my 360 and I've been reasonably happy with it, though the fact that it can't output Dolby True HD or DTS HD sucks big time. I don't currently have any device that plays BluRay. I got it cheap and got a few great movies free with the purchase so I don't feel a huge loss on it. When (OK "if" though it seems pretty certain) Universal and Paramount go BluRay only I hope we will finally see some full-feature, reasonably priced Blu players.

That's really just two studios, unless you want to also count New Line and other names that are part of the big studios as separate names in the BD camp.

However, I agree with you that the war isn't over yet.

-David

How do you figure that? The cheap players are not recorders. You would also need an HD recorder or drive to do that, if the software allows you to do it or you can figure out other ways to bypass the copy protection on anything flagged. (Yes, I know you can get around that if you are willing to do that.)

-David

I think his point is that you wouldn't need an HD recorder, as you can play HD-DVD compliant recordings on conventional DVD-/+R media in HD-DVD players. From a prior post of his I believe he is doing just that today.

ok, I get it. He did say dvd+/-r.

Thanks.

-David

For those who are Sam's Club and Costco members, the A3 is now down to $129. With the news of what really motivated Warner's move, this war is coming down to lowballing vs. bribery...

Exactly... the HD-DVD spec allows you to record in HD format on regular 4.7gb and 8.5gb DVD-/+R discs... obviously with less capacity, but still 1 hour on a 4.7gb disc and 2 hours on a 8.5gb disc it is attractive for backing up Tivo HD files that are easily transferred using Tivo ToGo. Once a file is transfered to you computer, the entire process of removing commercials (automatically with Video ReDo) and starting the burn process (Using Ulead Movie Factory) takes around 15 minutes.

I bought the Toshiba A30 from Amazon just before Christmas. Thanks to your alerting us of the price drop, Amazon is refunding $61.12 to me. Anyone else who made a recent purchase, at least you may be able to get some $ returned under price a price guarntee.

Apparently even Wal Mart has now bailed on HD-DVD, after several other retailer defections. Death seems to be imminent.

This all started with a news item in the Hollywood Reporter on Friday, but now it also seems to be picked up by the mainstream press. The Reuters article quotes a source at Toshiba.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080217/.../japan_toshiba

Walmart's Defection: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080215/...n4P0YdxTlv24cA

Reuters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080216/...eTwvvzQ6mb.HQA

Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...d0bfb0c25aa58d

-David