Toshiba unveils new HD DVD players
UPDATE: High-end model competes with Blu-ray on picture, price
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 9/15/2006
SEPT. 15 | DENVER—Toshiba unveiled a sleek new line of HD DVD players with 1080P output and a new high price point on its higher-end model at the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Assn. Expo convention here Thursday.
In the HD DVD Promotional Group home theater truck,
users can try out new bonus features.
On the show floor, Blu-ray competitors Pioneer, Philips and Panasonic showed off their players, set for launch in the next month.
Outside, the HD DVD Promotional Group kicked off an 11-city promotional tour, opening the doors on its home theater truck to show off clips from upcoming releases, including Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which includes HD DVD interactive bonus features.
Blu-ray studios 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment threw a Moroccan-themed party complete with belly dancers and fortune tellers who delivered up personal fortunes predictably foreseeing Blu-ray in the future. Fox president Mike Dunn and Buena Vista president Bob Chapek were on hand, as were other execs from Paramount Home Entertainment and consumer electronics companies Philips and Pioneer.
“Everybody’s excited about movies in [high-def] and the confusion’s there, and that’s not surprising,” Fox executive VP and general manager Simon Swart said.
The long-rumored second-generation HD DVD players will come in two models—the entry-level HD-A2 and the higher-end HD-XA2—and offer improved player performance over the current line. Studio sources said the company also will be able to produce and ship significantly more players than they have so far, though neither Toshiba nor the studios would estimate how many units the company would ship.
The HD-XA2 will debut in December and will output to 1080P, an upgrade from the current models that only go up to 1080i. The player also will get a price upgrade to $999, up from the current $799 on the first-gen HD-XA1. That’ll put the HD-XA2 closer in price to competing Blu-ray Disc players, which start at $999.
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The HD-XA2 also will upgrade its signal output to HDMI 1.3, the most current HDMI specification.
The HD-A2 will be shipped to retailers next month with a suggested retail price of $499, the same price as the current entry-level HD-A1 model. The player will output to 1080i and will feature a new remote with faster response times.
The new black players are about half the size of the original players, which were introduced in April. Toshiba VP of marketing Jodi Sally, said the company has sold through 30,000 units of the first-gen players to consumers since launch.
Citing research from NPD Group that showed HD DVD players outsold Blu-ray players during the first six weeks that both players were on the market, Sally said the launch of HD DVD has been a success.
“Market demand remains strong,” Sally said.
Early adopters appear to be continuing their strong support on the movie side, just as they did when DVD was first introduced. Sally said studios estimate that 25 to 30 HD DVD movies are sold for every player sold.
Sally said Toshiba estimates 3,500 retail locations have been selling the players since its launch, with many using the players on display to sell HDTVs.
The new players are backward-compatible with DVD and will play CDs, like the current players. They also feature an Ethernet connection for firmware upgrades.
Universal’s upcoming Tokyo Drift release will be the first to feature dual-layer 30GB on one-side and a DVD-9 standard version of the film on the flip side. HD DVD bonus features include a scene in which users can pick out their own car and access a GPS satellite map of Tokyo while the movie runs and a running calculator from Progressive Insurance shows the dollar amount for each collision.
USHE president Craig Kornblau called the dual-layer hybrid an industry first and said it could allow the studio to reach consumers who aren’t yet in HD DVD but plan to enter in the coming months.
“We are very, very excited and pleased about HD DVD,” Kornblau said.
At the HD DVD truck display across the street from the convention center, attendees could catch clips from upcoming movies from Universal, Warner and Paramount in an air-conditioned screening room. Outside on a porch area, Xbox 360s with the HD DVD add-ons were set up but weren’t playing because of the heat. Execs from Universal, Paramount and Microsoft were on hand explaining the format’s capabilities. Execs on hand at CEDIA said by December, they expect to have a better feel for which way the consumer market will lean but expect the format battle to continue into next year.
