Toshiba confirms several week delay of HD DVD players
Posted on 28/03/06 00:06 by Seán Byrne                             
Toshiba confirms several week delay of HD DVD players

As recently predicted, Toshiba has confirmed that they will delay the launch of their HD DVD players for several weeks such that they coincide with the time HD DVD movies hit the shops.   So far, Toshiba has not yet fixed a date for the launch and said that they are still working with the major studios and retailers to set a suitable launch date.  Toshiba has also confirmed that its HD-XA1 and HD-A1 HD DVD players will be priced at US$799 and US$499 respectively.

With Time Warner Home Video still planning to release their HD DVD tiles on April 18th, there is still a good chance that this will be around the date of the HD DVD player launch also.  Sony on the other hand expects to have the Blu-ray format launched in May, however their PlayStation 3 will not be available until at least November.

Toshiba Corp. is delaying the launch of its next-generation DVD player for several weeks to coincide with the launch of movies created in the new HD DVD format, the company said.

The exact date of the launch has not been fixed, but the company said it is working with major studios and retailers to finalize the date, a spokesperson said. Toshiba had said in January that its Toshiba America Consumer Products would ship its first HD DVD players, the HD-XA1 and HD-A1, in March.

HD DVD is a DVD format developed by a group led by Toshiba, the other one being Blu-ray created by a group led by Sony Corporation. HD DVD is expected to give a boost to the sagging video market across the world.

With just a few weeks to go until the HD DVD launch, it will be interesting to see how successful the format will be compared with the time the DVD format first launched.  Back at the launch of the DVD format, virtually all consumers benefited from upgrading from VCR to DVD for the playback of movies as most TVs were compatible and pretty much all TVs could show the full image resolution DVD is capable of. However, with this upcoming launch, only a small percentage of consumers have a HDTV set and very few of these can even show the full native resolution of HD DVD.  Worse still, most consumers will not be able to make proper use of a HD DVD drive in their PC unless they replace their monitor to something HDCP compliant, unlike the early days of DVD when PC performance was the main issue at the time.

Source: EarthTimes.org

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Reactions
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By psychoace, Tuesday 28 March 2006 00:17
"TVs were compatible and pretty much all TVs could show the full image resolution DVD is capable of" Um true but they didn't have dual layer media so they didn't have full quality video. Also they seemed to just do quick nasty telecine transfers for the first generation of dvd's while later on they finally spend some time remastering the footage. HD-DVD/Blu-Ray shouldn't have to much of a problem since a lot of recent movies have already been mastered in high def in there transfer into dvd so they shouldn't have to much of a problem with looking high qual on hdtv's
By RichMan, Tuesday 28 March 2006 06:17
RichManHaving dual layer media has nothing at all to do with video quality when it comes to TVs.
By psychoace, Tuesday 28 March 2006 06:54
um yes it does. Dual layer media= more space which = higher bitrate for the video and audio. If you read reviews of superbit dvd's vs there lower bitrate counter part they will say the superbit version is head over heels better then the lower bitrate version. Find any older movie that is a single layer disc then find it's newer updated version and tell me it dosn't look 100x better.
By byb3, Tuesday 28 March 2006 20:15
You can still get plenty of films which are only single layer and a high bitrate. They just cut the crap (ie deleted scenes) out and give you the entire movie on its own.
By Kenshin, Tuesday 28 March 2006 23:06
Dell's new 2407 LCD monitor seems to support HDCP and it costs as low as about US$600.
By DukeNukem, Tuesday 28 March 2006 23:37
DukeNukemUmm... no, it doesn't. Having dual layer media is great and gives the studio more space for a higher bitrate movie. However, they usually fill it with extra languages, director's comments and useless crap like that. I prefer 1 movie, 1 language and a WHOLE LOT of extra bits to make it look and sound its best.
By psychoace, Wednesday 29 March 2006 16:34
Not many movies are released that way unless they are junk in the first place. First generation dvd's also still had some sort of extra's be it trailers or directors commentary. Usually first gen releases were laser disc transfers so the quality never was as good as you see it today. Anyway look at the quality of a first gen dvd and look at the quality of that same movie after it was remastered. It has improved even though it's the same technology so expect the same for HD-DVD's
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