Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player: $100, this Friday, Wal-Mart
by Ryan Block 
posted Nov 1st 2007 at 1:46AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
daryl austin @ Nov 1st 2007 1:52AM
Man that suks just bout mine little over a month ago for 250 bucks. well things are looking up for all of the hd people in the world. Looks like K-mart is getting into the hd\dvd and blue-ray format war.http://www.dvdtown.com/news/kmart-choose-hd-dvd/4873
Nfinity @ Nov 1st 2007 2:10AM
It seems that Warner has not renewed their BDA membership either.
More deals on HD DVD players too. It's absolutely fascinating that Engadget simply doesn't report on ANYTHING that's been going on. Talk about Blu-Ray fanboys.
Okay let's start:
- Warner BDA membership expired today and they recently have said that they will be going single format
- Sears, Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Costco, KMart ALL offer or will offer very soon $169.99-$198 HD DVD players both A3 and A2 + 5 free movies in addition to A3s 2 included HD DVD movies (Bourne and 300).
- Walmart will also sell HD DVD titles for $14.96.. the following list is included for the first run:
Clerks 2
Lucky # S7even
Pulse
Failure to Launch
4 Brothers
Italian Job
Sleepy Hollow
Casino
12 Monkeys
Backdraft
Big Lebowski
Sea Biscuit
Alexander Revisted
Blood Diamond
Full Metal Jacket
The Last Samurai
Swordfish
Unforgiven
- Buy.com offers now:
Xbox 360 HD DVD Player plus Heroes Season 1 on HD DVD for $165. The player comes with a King Kong HD DVD and is also eligible for 5 free select HD DVD movies This is whopping 13 free discs + the player for $165
HD DVD is in an upswing and is completely set to annihilate Blu-ray.
Q4 -> This is how the world ends* (for Blu) - FINISH THE FIGHT 2007!
TrentD @ Nov 1st 2007 9:24AM
Man, this is probably the most radically anti-HD DVD post I've seen yet. The price is actually $98.87, and this is a fully capable HD DVD player. If we forget 1080p support (which most TVs can't benefit from anyway), this HD DVD player at less than $100 is more feature-laden than today's best Blu-ray players.
Jason @ Nov 1st 2007 2:07AM
Damn Engadget... what's up with the HD hatin' going on?
"weaker cheaper player"? The picture from the HD-A2 is stunning on my 60" Sony LCoS rig. Transformers in HD-DVD equals or betters ANYTHING that BD has offered to date.
Additionally this "cheaper weaker" player is spec final with the ability to do all of the advanced features TODAY. When you see $299 or $199 BD players they will be the crapo Profile 1.0 boxes that won't be able to do ANY advanced features.
Tone it down, eh?
smee @ Nov 1st 2007 2:45AM
@Nfinity
Welcome back buddy, myself and a few others here have been keeping the faith, but the return of the "information king" is great news.
Have you met h4idol yet, I'm sure you will enjoy his posts, not.
M'ichal @ Nov 1st 2007 8:51AM
If your info is correct then those are some crazy prices. The A3 for sub 200 would be sweet. Not sweet enough to make me make the jump, part of the reason I don't even have an HD TV yet, and once I get one I'd like a 1080p player. But if I had the TV and wasn't so picky...perhaps I'd join the HDDVD camp.
The Warner info you gave is perhaps even more interesting, because everyone thinks they'd go the OTHER way, to the blu-ray camp. It'd be really hilarious if they made everyone think they're going blu-ray and then they actually go HDDVD.
And the Xbox drive is just insane with 13 movies. That's crazy, the deal is even better than a DVD player.
Virtua Fanboy @ Nov 1st 2007 11:44AM
Not that I don't believe you but where's your proof? Because if you got it and can show it that will all be GREAT news for HD DVD fans.
Ed @ Nov 1st 2007 1:43PM
@ Nfinity
YOU DA MAN!!! Just like "smee", it's great to find someone on here that deals with facts and not BS like our favorite punching d-bag, "h4Idol"!
Oddly, I wrote in a post about a week or two ago that wouldn't it be funny that Wal-Mart and not the Adult Film industry, settled the format war? Looks like I was almost right since Best Buy has jumped into the game.
Nfinity @ Nov 1st 2007 2:16AM
Wow Ryan, sour grapes for picking the wrong format eh?
Last I heard 1080i IS the same as 1080p. Don't believe me.. here educated yourself a bit:
http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoffreymorrison/0807061080iv1080p/
Yeah, I'm definitely gonna be running to buy a Panasonic Blu-Ray player that ALMOST does the same things as this $98.87 HD DVD player for $500. Um, um..yeah I'll go and buy 3 of them. LOL!
HAHHAHA we've been CPRing Blu-Ray fans all day today and yesterday. Mods don't know what to do first on Blu-Ray.com, they can't delete threads fast enough that have anything to do with this.
We are all just waiting for Warner to make an announcement and my friends, it's over. There's really nothing else to talk about with this war. $100 HD DVD players, huge support behind studios, this thing will be over before Q2 2008.
James Rainey @ Nov 1st 2007 2:21AM
NO 1080p... Why bother.
People are gonna be pissed when they buy this, then go "uh, you'se tellin' me this aint playing the best picture!? I'm a gonna go bak to Wal-Mart and demand my money back. You kids stay here with the babies".
The BluRay camp does need to step up the heat on pricing, and hopefully this will happen sometime before Black Friday.
Nfinity @ Nov 1st 2007 2:27AM
There's no reason for them to be pissed.. they are getting the best picture. 1080i is the same as 1080p. Read above and stop talking out of your ass.
Yeah, I'm sure that $500 Panasonic (THE ONLY 1.1 player that MIGHT be available) will absolutely kill sales. Or maybe you are talking about $400 PS3 that nobody is interested as, you are right, there are no games for it. Oh wait, I'm sorry 3 good games, other stuff is down right embarassing.
Wait, oh I know.. they'll be selling you OBSOLETE Blu-Ray players that have stopped being manufactured and will not provide full functionality on future titles for $300. COOL!!
You just go and buy that, and the rest of us will be buying $100 HD DVD players that do EVERYTHING right.
Deathwish238 @ Nov 1st 2007 6:00AM
I'm a BluRay fan. That said, the HD-A2 for $100 is a steal. It does a great job upconverting DVDs...I was gonna get an Oppo but this is cheaper!
Who cares if it can't do 1080p? 1080i=1080p@24fps
stretchsje @ Nov 1st 2007 9:16AM
You clearly don't understand how this works. HD-DVD's are encoded at 1080p24, meaning 24 frames per second. That can be encoded into 1080i60 without any loss of information. Any modern TV will reassemble the signal back into 1080p60 or 1080p24, whichever it supports.
Even the expensive HD-DVD (and Blu-Ray) players decode to 1080i internally. The better ones have an extra chip that reassembles the signal to 1080p60 so your TV doesn't have to. However, if your TV already does this well, then it doesn't make sense to pay extra for that chip in the DVD player.
The only raw video output is 1080p24, which only a handful of HD-DVD players and TVs support. The amount of benefit from native framerate (24fps) viewing is debatable, but again, only the absolute newest TVs support it anyway.
leland @ Nov 1st 2007 10:35AM
90% of people that have a HDTV have a 1080i screen (See also - "Vizio the #1 HDTV maker in the country"). So this applies to them.
Mike @ Nov 1st 2007 2:22AM
It was also reported Wed that Sears has gone HD DVD exclusive. How long did it take to report Target was going to have endcaps?
Yes we know engadget is blue...but we need to stay to educate those that aren't getting all the info here.
bhuddamonk @ Nov 1st 2007 12:34PM
Sears, Sears? Are you serious? Sears? Thats like saying Home Depot has gone HD-DVD exclusive. Who cares, I buy my tools and dishwashers at Sears.
Sears? If thats the best you HD-DVD adopters have, then the war is already over...
Mike @ Nov 1st 2007 2:29AM
James,
1st realize how many people only have 1080i HDTV's
2nd realize 1080i HDTV is cheaper then a 1080p so guess which spec is going to sell more
3rd those that buy the cheaper 1080i HDTV's are the targeted consumer of the A2 and A3 players...those that have more important stuff to spend their money on then the top of the line...exspensive...video, audio equipment.
last if you do get a good 1080p set...and I am sure a big spender like you only buys the best...the TV deinterlaces the 1080i signal back to 1080p. go to the avs forums and read about it.
Mike @ Nov 1st 2007 2:32AM
BTW...here is the link to Sears going HD DVD exclusive.
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/10/kmart-hd-dvd-ex.html
Wal-Mart already has the $200 PC, and now it has a HD-DVD player at the same price tag. Furthermore, other stores are matching it's price, with Kmart announcing it will exclusively sell Toshiba's HD-A2 HD-DVD player. Let's hammer that point home: There will be no Blu-Ray for you at Kmart, unless you want a PlayStation 3.
"Toshiba spokesperson Jodi Sally said Kmart, which is owned by Sears, would exclusively stock Toshiba HD DVD players in retail stores due to their lower price. A clerk at the retail chain's Anaheim location confirmed the store only carried Toshiba players."
How can Blu-Ray fight a $200 price tag at America's largest retailer, a complete lock-out at the No. 2 shop, and everyone else following the leader?
DeadPlasmaCell @ Nov 1st 2007 2:36AM
No kidding, I sent in that tip Wed. afternoon and it never showed up.
Jason @ Nov 1st 2007 2:38AM
That's because Engadget and Gizmodo are boo hooing about spending $1000 on their first BD standalone or $500 on their crappy PS3 console.
Kevin Murphy @ Nov 1st 2007 2:55AM
"weaker" or "sufficient"
and that's the whole arguement in a nutshell.
Whether the HDDVD off-the-shelf engineering strategy that resulted in a COMPLETED product in 2006 is correct. Is HDDVD with a 1080i/Dolby Digital Plus low end product that includes ethernet, PiP and HDi in finished form for "cheap", sufficient to play actual HD movies?
Or do we accept that we are going to pay twice as much now, and replace it in a couple of years with the finished product in 2008 or 2009 in order to get some significant advance in video and audio?
Well, let's see: if we wait we get... exactly the same thing as HDDVD gives us now in terms of image quality and sound, but with a larger capacity and higher bandwidth.
Hmmm. Since we clearly don't need either of those things, what's wrong with the "weaker cheaper" thing? I mean, if there was a point to it, but there isn't. Seems more a case of "it's not how big it is, it's what can you do with it?"
TrentD @ Nov 1st 2007 9:59AM
The HD-A2 includes 5.1-channel Dolby Digital TrueHD decoding, onboard. TrueHD decoding is required by the HD DVD spec (at least 2 channel, but all current players support 5.1)
Kevin Murphy @ Nov 1st 2007 2:57AM
Well, there will always be games for those PS3s. Not a total waste.
DeadPlasmaCell @ Nov 1st 2007 3:04AM
Maybe.. MGS4 (PS3 Fanboys' #1 title to bring up when arguing the PS3 is getting games soon) got pushed back again to Q2 of 2008.
Jason @ Nov 1st 2007 3:06AM
How can you argue with $100?
Even if HD DVD lost this little 'war' you're only out $100 as opposed to the $500+ you would be out if you went Blu Ray and it failed.
DeadPlasmaCell @ Nov 1st 2007 3:11AM
Amen.. I mean it's got everything going for it. A brand name player, $100 price tag, A familiar name ("HD"-DVD as opposed to Blu-Ray, everyone knows what "HD" is), it would fit perfect with their HDTV (Which is more than likely a 720p LCD set or a big ass 1080i set) and 5 free HD-DVDs to start off with.. All they need to do now is include a free month of Netflix or something.
AZ_Tech @ Nov 1st 2007 3:18AM
HD camp has very good points and I have personally been on the fence for a while. However you can't ignore all the news. :) Anyone know a good place to see how good my 1080p set is at de-interlacing?
smee @ Nov 1st 2007 3:25AM
C'mon h4idol,jimmy and other blu trolls, where are you now,?????
Bye bye blu, hahahahahahahahaha.
Jimmy @ Nov 1st 2007 2:44PM
Smee,
As I have said in the past and will repeat here for you again. I own both formats. I do not care which format wins. I have a PS3 and so will continue to play games on it if Blu-ray loses. I have a 360 with attachment and will continue to play games there if HD DVD loses.
Furthermore, I may pick one of these $100 units up to have an extra upscaling DVD player. This is a great closeout deal and there is nothing else to say.
However, resorting to calling me a troll because I have disagreed with you in the past is pretty low. Please, post something I have said that is not accurate or on topic. The fact that I disassemble your rants combined with the fact that you are incapable of making valid and compelling rebuttals does not make me a troll, it makes you intellectually inferior. If you really want to go down the road of name calling, then go ahead, but I will not be following you.
AZ_Tech @ Nov 1st 2007 3:24AM
I mean HD-DVD Camp. :)
sprint_tech @ Nov 1st 2007 3:34AM
Not only are they cheap at WalMart but also at Circuit City, Sears, K-Mart and military stores. Best Buy and other retailers are going to respond as well. How can Blu Ray compete? The higher production cost is going to be a factor with it
Mike @ Nov 1st 2007 3:53AM
Costco has also droped to $199 and their includes a free HDMI cable and the Costco 100% satisfaction policy.
Also read on a deal site (so not sure if true) that someone bought at their local Sams for $143 before tax.
klew @ Nov 1st 2007 3:54AM
Even if you just want an upconverting DVD player, might as well get one that plays an additional format. In which case, this must be strongly considered.
DarkRogue @ Nov 1st 2007 4:33AM
As I said a year ago, (and kudos to you smee) the first format to get a player for under $100 in Walmart ....
smee @ Nov 1st 2007 5:56AM
What is it with this site and it's derogatory HD DVD comments!!
"Weaker", that's a slap in the face for all HD DVD supporters everywhere, and just another in a long line of insults.
Your blu bias is a disgrace, engadgetHD is obviously on the blu payroll.
Interesting, the spin article yesterday about Warner going blu,a major part of that story talks about the BR group specifically targeting internet sites to try and influence early adopters. No comment at all about that, obviously this site is a just sony bitch.
Region Free HD @ Nov 1st 2007 5:11AM
"Or just wanted another weaker, cheaper player for the last-gen TV you phased out to your rumpus room?"
Go Go Engadget HD Bias!
Anthony @ Nov 1st 2007 5:24AM
Wow Toshiba is getting desperate to win over Warner.
TrentD @ Nov 1st 2007 10:11AM
That's like saying "Man, that basketball team is desperate to win! They're playing the full court press AND they've got their best five players in the game!"
Anthony @ Nov 1st 2007 5:47AM
If Engadget is bias to Blu-ray then it just goes to show more people support Blu-ray.
nigel @ Nov 1st 2007 5:59AM
What a stupid, uneducated comment. What facts do you base that assumption on?
Your popping the same pills as h4idol obviously.
Anthony @ Nov 1st 2007 6:29AM
If you want to read uneducated comments just read some of the previous posts.
Mike @ Nov 1st 2007 6:08AM
The better the HD DVD deals get the uglier the blue ray fanboys get...and engadgethd is no different.
nigel @ Nov 1st 2007 6:36AM
I just don't get it with you blu trolls?
You support a product that is an unfinished spec, has less features, same A/V qualities and is a shit load more expensive. Why????
You are so obviously uneducated you just cant see the wood for the trees!!
Anthony @ Nov 1st 2007 7:26AM
I don't see you calling the HD DVD fan Jason uneducated when he uses offensive language as a retort. Maybe you just had a giggle?
Now who can't see the wood?
smee @ Nov 1st 2007 6:56AM
Walmart ad on YouTube for HD DVD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcfpJDcmq5M
MAK42868 @ Nov 1st 2007 7:26AM
Wow, h4idol hasn't posted yet :) Not happy at all. Nfinity, thanks for your posts. I almost forgot all the information you brought to the table. You're right in that it's hard to find HD-DVD facts... everything is warped blu. But if what you said is true about today being the expiration of Warner's Blu-Ray contract, and WalMart will be selling $15 HD-DVDs... and $100 HD-DVD players soon.... it really is all over!
Michael @ Nov 2nd 2007 6:37PM
I had to watch this commercial a couple of times before I really realized the subtle brilliance of the ad.
First, its the wife doing all the talking so we know she knows what shes talking about. No hard to understand jargon or excuses why this is such a great item to purchase, just simple logical reasons why this is going to be great for her whole family. She is the voice of reason. That also means she is NOT the voice of insanity. Or desperation.
Second, about the third time I watched this I realized that the father never says a word. He just sits there with this wide grin plastered on his face, while the world goes on and on about him. You can actually see the day go by twice the shadows in the background go dark and light and dark again and he never moves from that spot, smack dab in the middle of the couch. Oh, and hes wearing the same clothes the whole time and it doesnt matter if his kids and dog are bouncing all around him or his wife is curled up next to him, hes a happy camper.
Lastly wives, let me ask a simple question here. How often do you actually get to buy your husband something he wants before he buys it for himself? Thats the great point this wife makes at the beginning, that shes getting to do the impossible at Walmart this Christmas. Now, what wife wouldnt be up for that???
I know, this is WAY too much analysis for a silly commercial but hey, I had to do it since were all married to such smart women!!!
Beautiful!
nigel @ Nov 1st 2007 9:19AM
@Anthony
Whats wrong with offensive language dickhead, besides Jason isn't a blu troll! :)
Why cant you just be happy that this is a great deal no matter what way you look at it, no matter what side you are on, hell, if this was a $98 BR player I would buy one, who cares, it's a bargain!
Think about it, you can go & buy one for $98 and put it beside you beloved BR player and then you can watch ALL movies in HD.
You don't have to love it or tell your friends you have one, you can still hate it even.
In fact i bet you will hate it when you then realise it is just as good as your $1000 BR player and you wasted $902 for nothing!
Mike @ Nov 1st 2007 7:34AM
MAK,
Just remember that while the contract is expired...Warner has not said it will quit blue ray production. They already said they will be watching 4th quarter sales closely...but the expired contract does allow them to leave if they want to.
Ron @ Nov 1st 2007 9:11AM
This is great news for the war IMO. I want a blu-ray player but this helps everyone to keep jacking the prices down!