While the next HD DVD players bearing the Toshiba nameplate may be
delayed in the US & Europe, they hadn't been officially announced in Japan yet. AV Watch has the details revealed there, where the lower-end model will be called the HD-XF2, to go along with the HD-XA2 as both will launch in December. The specs appear to be the same as the players due in other parts of the world, the HD-XA2 gets an
HDMI 1.3 connection and 1080p output -- deinterlaced 1080i via a Silicon Optix chip in the player itself, no native 1080p/24 here folks -- while the HD-XF2 has an old-school HDMI 1.2a connector and loses the analog 5.1 audio outputs of its predecessor in exchange for an
improved slim design. The HD-XA2 is set for 110,000 yen ($934 US) while the HD-XF2 will retail for a paltry 49,800 yen ($423 US). The company also acknowledged the US delays due to an unspecified problematic third party chip, but at this point we can still expect to see the new hardware on store shelves this year. Continue on for a picture of the HD-XA2 with its casing in place and unmentionables hidden away, or to AV Watch for even more pictures.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hmurchison @ Nov 15th 2006 1:47PM
With PS3 launch problems
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/11/15/ps3_allocation/
and the general malaise happening right now in the BD camp it's clear that HD DVD could be running away with this battle. Sure the delayed launch sucks but if they deliver in quantity to NA, EU and now Japan with sufficient quantity the whole landscape of the battle begins to change. I've sided with HD DVD right now.
Jason @ Nov 15th 2006 1:49PM
Hooray I can pay twice the price for deinterlaced 1080i instead of regular 1080i!
Rick Lyon @ Nov 15th 2006 3:11PM
Is $423 MSRP!? Or street? Wow, compare that to $1000 BRD players, all of them, and this war could be over quickly.Yes, PS3 will be out soon, but in limited quantities and for mostly gamers. Then take into consideration that the big box makers will not like the lack of hardware sales and who knows how'll they respond. Maybe with a HD-DVD player? Next year should help show us who will come out on top as the PS3 will be out, and the new Toshibas as well.
maemotaku @ Nov 15th 2006 3:14PM
In what fantasy dimension is HD-DVD running away with the format battle? Malaise?
88,000 BD players just landed in Japanese living rooms. 400,000 will hit the US in 2 days. The installed base of HD-DVD players is about to be dwarfed.
Everyone questions if PS3 owners will buy movies as if gamers are a subspecies of human. If you just spent $600+ on a device wouldn't you explore every feature of it? If games cost $60 then a few $20 movies isn't going to hurt once you get bored with the launch titles. I predict 2-3 movies sold at launch for every console.
3 Major CEs (not rebadges) have shipped first-gen players. By this time next year there will be a dozen 2nd-gen players on the market, along with the readily available $499 20GB PS3. HD-DVD has no support from other CE makers. No burners for PCs even announced.
ALL the major retailers support Blu-ray. Shoppers can't even find a working HD-DVD display unit in a store. How is it going to sell? Did I blink and miss the media coverage of the HD-DVD drive? Maybe they slipped it between the Wii and PS3 launch coverage.
Unfortunately, a console add-on is not going to save HD-DVD. Maybe a Universal player can when they arrive.
http://www.hdformatwar.com
http://www.shopforbluray.com
pliepl @ Nov 18th 2006 7:51AM
Hmurchison,
If the launch is any indication, it seems that the PS3 Blu-ray savior is a failure (at the moment anyways).
The resale price gouging wasnt unexpected; and the press for it wasnt too positive especially as its being touted as simply a game machine rather than the media centric machine Sony made it to be. If hardware availability mirrors that of the X360, itll be a while till it becomes the affordable Blu-ray player some of you out there have been claiming it to be. While at the same time, HD DVD will be gaining a lot of ground with the add-on unit for the X360 (reports say it works with pcs as well) and standalone HDDVD prices will continue to drop.
Rick Lyon,
Im not sure either, I think $499 is the MSRP and the $423 is street. When I first heard of the second gen unit, it was $499 for the US, but Ive seen preorder sites with prices closer to the $400 mark.
With the available of the HDDVD add-on for the X360, the PS3 was never a real threat to the format war. The strategy might have worked if the two competitors had launched at the same time last fall and that the HDDVD add-on didnt launch till now or never at all, but that didnt happen.
Maemotaku,
88,000 is a bit optimistic if youve been following the coverage of the PS3 launch. A lot of those probably wont even make it to the living room of the purchaser (but rather will be resold). The same is happening here in the states, you need only check on ebay to see. For anyone looking for a Blu-ray player, it would probably be a lot cheaper to buy the standalone units although we already know how well those are selling.
Spending $1500-2000 for a PS3 seems a bit outrageous to me and I doubt there are people who are buying it solely for Blu-ray play back. Unfortunately for Blu-ray, rich parents with more money than sense is the minority. $600 isnt realistic at the moment, there are only a few that will actually have gotten it for that price with the intention to use it; while a large majority of them will be using it as primarily a game machine. Every PS3 sold is a potential Blu-ray device while every X360 HDDVD sold is a confirmed HDDVD device. Considering its primary function is gaming, that potential is probably less than 50%.
Youve also completely disregarded the USB HDDVD drive for the X360, which has been shown to also work with computers, I guess you needed to in order to inflate PS3s relevance to the format war. If it didnt exist, I might have agreed with a lot of your PS3 points, but that isnt the case. Since it does, any numerical advantage the PS3 would have had is being meet with a competing counterpart.
Those 3 manufacturers havent done much to make Blu-ray competitive. Number of manufacturers for Blu-ray is irrelevant if prices dont drop to where theyre actually competitive with the competition. Right now, its not, thats why HDDVD outsells Blu-ray not only the hardware, but also the software.
Were talking about a movie format here, not a pc storage format.
Obviously the $1000 price is use as a symbol, much like $500 is used for HDDVD. Even with the price drop, the cheapest blu-ray player is still almost 2x of HDDVD with others almost 3x.
maemotaku @ Nov 15th 2006 3:34PM
$1000 Blu-Ray players is no longer an accurate statement. The Samsung sells new on Amazon for $700. Walmart is selling the Philips for $900. These units will be greatly discounted as the PS3 becomes more accessable.
"Limited Quantites" for PS3 means a half-million.
By spring 2007 when supply is more available there will be a few million snapped up.
The magnitude of PS3 owners that will casually buy/rent Blu-ray movies between playing games will cast a long shadow over the entire HD-DVD microcosm.
hmurchison @ Nov 15th 2006 5:19PM
Jason- I haven't a clue what you're talking about neither format stores interlaced format so the transmission format matters little unless your TV borks the input.
maemotaku- the PS3 will improve Blu-ray's movie sales/rentals but you're already at a 3:1 deficit. Blu-ray is going to want to improve that right away lest you lose some studios.
BTW the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on is doing very well. I think once again we have a dead heat between these two excellent formats. HD DVD is still cheaper $399 at some places
Ed @ Nov 15th 2006 6:11PM
I got my x360 HD DVD at Circuit City and this clerk told me "i hope we stop selling bluray players, they are just sitting there in the back, while HD DVD players sell out and the x360 HD DVD has sold more than BD, HD DVD and regular DVD players combine." i asked him what about the PS3? He said "frankly only sony will be using BD disc in the future"
Dave @ Nov 16th 2006 6:30AM
Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format. The future is Blu-Ray. It has the specifications needed for the next generation HD demands.
HD-DVD (for High-Density DVD) is a digital optical media format for high-definition DVD. Its and old generation format. Its cheap and easy to produce. It has limited specifications.
maemotaku @ Nov 16th 2006 2:13PM
Sony didn't push Beta to be a "next-generation" format. There was NO videotape for consumers. JVC and Sony fought to be the first. JVC won because they delivered on key points before Sony could figure it out.
The consumer will end up with the best solution (not necessarily the best technology) that suits their needs. The format that meets these needs first will win.
Nobody cares about Betamax in 2006. Enough with the lame analogy. Something pertaining to the demise of Laserdisc or D-VHS would be more relevant, but not be of any use to Sony-haters I guess.
Jugdish @ Nov 16th 2006 9:45PM
Yeah, and Beta was the next generation tape format...........look what happened.
SimonMW @ Dec 21st 2006 9:59AM
We go through this each and every time a new console or format is released. Delays and problems always happen, and they always sort themselves out.
Regarding Betamax, it didn't die. It became the premiere analogue video acquisition format in the world for television programming. In the US it is still the number one ENG format. So if Blu-Ray fails in the consumer sector, it will continue in the professional arena. I've been using the pro version of Blu-Ray for 2 years now (http://www.sonybiz.net/xdcam), and the format has been extremely successful. Given the quantity the XD equipment has been manufactured in, it does puzzle me as to why there have been so many delays with the consumer Blu-Ray format.