Toshiba cuts HD DVD player prices

Toshiba may have taken a huge hit recently, but the HD DVD supporter is striking back.

Barely a week after Warner Bros. announced it would no longer put out movies on the HD DVD format, of which Toshiba is a primary supporter, the company announced it is lowering the prices on all three models of next-generation DVD players.

Toshiba will now sell its entry-level HD DVD player for $149.99.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The entry-level model, the HD-A3, now goes for $149.99, the HD-A30 for $199.99, and the HD-A35 for $299.99. That's about $150 to $200 worth of discounts on all models.

The new pricing from Toshiba is well-timed, according to Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research for The NPD Group. Holiday promotional pricing is essentially over for all the major manufacturers of rival disc format Blu-ray, as well as other HD DVD makers.

"For them to drop MSRPs now couldn't come at a better time," he said. "It was a gap Blu-ray was able to close down upon during holiday sales."

In the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray, HD DVD's primary advantage from the very beginning had been cheaper prices on players. But Blu-ray has responded, lowering its prices and offering popular promotions, like Wal-Mart's giveaway of 10 Blu-ray titles with the purchase of a Sony PlayStation 3 this past holiday. But preferences over one format or the other aside, price is and probably always will be the determining factor in sales.

"The larger challenge for both camps is twofold: getting the hardware into people's homes. Toshiba did very well selling $99 and $199 players (during the holidays), but that didn't necessarily translate into a big jump in movie (sales)," said Erickson. "Unless there are serious promotions going on...people aren't going out and buying in explosive numbers on the Blu-ray side either."

"Even if we promote a single format...people are still not going to pay three to four times as much for a player, they're not going to pay double the price for movies," Erickson said, "just because they're accustomed to much cheaper pricing on standard-def DVD."

[samkass]

"While Supplies Last"

In a couple years, you'll have just bought a very expensive DVD player that won't play the predominant Blu-Ray format. So I guess the prices are dropping as the value drops...

[guildin]

Didn't see this coming

not that it matters since all studios are pretty much making the jump to Blu Ray'
Jeremy P lesser studios are on HD now ~~~~

[PBMpharmacist]

It's too late!

This format war was over. I was dual-format but I sold my HD-A35 (top of the line) HD DVD player on Saturday b/c you could just see the writing on the wall after the Warner deal. I'm now Blu-ray only.

People, please just buy Blu-ray so war can be officially over and we can all be high def!

[krosavcheg]

why would you buy HD-DVD player ?

... while it has lost the format war already ?? Almost every movie will now come exclusively in Bluray. What's the use of buying the HD-DVD player... dont waste your money. Wait for HD-DVD to die and wait for Bluray 2.0 to come out which will be a better standard.

[djdj]

Blu-ray capacity

Blu-ray fans always tout its higher potential capacity over HD-DVD, but 49.65% of BR discs are released in the single layer capacity (25GB), whereas 87% of HD-DVDs are of the 30GB variety. Not that it really matters, though... if a movie is encoded using AVC or VC-1, even 15GB is plenty of capacity for extremely high quality HD video.

The features of HD-DVD make it a much more consumer friendly format than Blu-ray. Managed copy, region free, combo discs compatible with DVD players, just to name a few.

Just another example of a very uninformed public.

[punterjoe]

Worth the price

I paid more for my first DVD player than Toshiba's current HD-DVD models, not to mention that adjusting for the value of that dollar the new players are actually taking a much smaller bite out of my wallet. For this price, I'd buy one. As for obsolecense, everything eventually becomes obsolete. My SACD player is already orphaned, but it still works & sounds as good as ever. This won't prevent me from getting the next new thing - when it hits an optimal price point. But, it will give me something to play with while waiting for the next new thing to become a sensible purchase.

[txmadman]

Maybe the USSR will install HD-DVD in their subs...

Maybe this is anti-Soviet Karma finding its way back to Toshiba. Americans should not buy from Toshiba as a statement against that firm's sale of critical submarine technologies to the Soviet Union:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEED71E39F932A35756C0A961948260

[couchpotato99]

Toshiba HD-DVD price cut

Take THAT, Warners!

[SleeStaK911]

This time BetaMax won

BluRay has the capacity. Almost twice as much. The studios have already written the end to this tale...

[ljbanner]

toshiba cut prices

hd dvd should be re named rocky
it keeps getting knocked down but still gets up.
when you think what a great upscaling dvd you will get at this price hd dvd is just a bonus
even on standard with no upscale it beats my £299 sony dvd player hands down.

[kasjun]

high time for low prices

i think this is a very smart move on toshibas part if they can afford it. the players they have put on this new pricing are all 3rd generation players that at the very least can be used for their fine upscaling abilities if the format should fail. plus you can get 7 movies so the player is like FREE!!!! i see on amazon the hd-a3 has already jumped up to ten in the electronics catagory. this could get very interesting blu-ray lowers prices to match.

[webdev511]

Upconverts PLUS

plays HD-DVD movies and you get 7 freebies.

Regular SD upconverter just upconverts, comes with no free movies and does not play either HD format.

So $70-80 for an okay upconverter or around $100 (yes I fully expect the HD-A3 to drop to $100 at retail in the next 3 months.) for an upconverter that also plays HD-DVD with at worst $105 (7 movies times $15 each) worth of free HD-DVDs.

Oh and the combo discs work in the mini-van too.

[hunter_jc]

Lower the Disk prices

If they want to do something to push people to pick up the HD-
DVD, they should look at lowering the prices of the disks to around
15 dollars a disk. They should do that while Warner is still around.
Or they are really doomed.

[cross platform]

Business As Usual

At my local Best Buy I saw no difference this weekend. I had heard reports that they were going to cut shelf space and not restock. But do you know what I found? No difference! They had restocked from christmas and there was still an equal display of titles next to BluRay. Also people were buying them just like before. HD DVD may be in this for the long haul.

[Mergatroid Mania]

HD-A3 and HD-A30 not all that great anyway

I have an HD TV which I bought for the widescreen.
Since my regular DVDs upconverted look SOOOO GOOD on this TV, I'm in no hurry to buy a HD player.

I didn't buy an HD DVD or Blueray player because: I wanted to wait for prices to come down, I wasn't sure if the format I chose would disappear in a few years, there was no 1080p player available at the time, and the movies were WAY too expensive.

There are four good reasons (five counting how good the regular movies look upconverted). Now, cudos to Toshiba for trying to get the price down. I would prefer if Toshiba won the format war anyway because I grew tired of Sony's proprietary tricks years ago.

I'm sorry to say the two machines at the most attractive prices are (IMAO) not worth buying for me and perhaps anyone with a newer 1080p capable TV.

If your TV maxes at 1080i (which most do), then that HD-A3 for $150 is a great deal. Go buy one.

If you have a 1080p TV, read on.

The HD-A30 only uses 1080p 24 which is only 24 frames per second, as opposed to 60 FPS from better (more expensive) units.

Why would anyone buy a 24 fps unit? You know the flicker you get from interlace? That's a 30Hz flicker, and it's noticeable. Especially if you watch sports and see text superimposed over the screen.

Why would you go out and buy a HD DVD player who's framerate is even lower than interlace? What's the point of buying 1080p if it's not 60Hz?

For those people with 1080i TVs, this would be a good time to go buy a HD-A3.

For people who have a 1080p TV, wait a little longer for Toshiba to bring a 60Hz 1080p HD-DVD player to around $150-$200.

Even then, I'm not paying $30 or more for a new movie. When I see new HD movies for the SAME price as regular DVDs, and a 60Hz 2080p HD-DVD player for around $150, THEN I will buy.

Maybe if Toshiba didn't have so many different models, they could offer one or two good ones at that $150-$200 price point.

[close5828]

HD DVD will only die if...and only if...

...the prices on the HD-DVDs are the same price as BluRay discs. They need to be $5 or more lower!

[mchiu1971]

What about the porn industry?

I remember that the porn industry was backing HD-DVD mainly because Blu-Ray didn't want them. Will this play a major role in determining who wins?

Personally, my feeling is that similar to DVD-R and DVD+R, eventually, the chipset manufacturers will develop single dual-mode chips that play Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, which will drive down the prices of dual-mode players, to a level that is affordable, and everyone ends up winning except for the early adopters.

[JonP07]

Buy a good upconverter

Just buy a good up-converter until your ready to shell out money for a BluRay or HD-DVD player. The OPPO DV-980 or DV-981HD are the two best up-converters made. It makes SD-DVD look very close to HD-DVD that you probably wouldn't know the difference. The Toshiba HD-A35 also is another very good SD-DVD up-converter HD-DVD player if you want both in one unit.

[smcguire36]

Don't forget the cost of the TV

What everyone here seems to be forgetting is that to play an HD movie (whether it be HD-DVD or Blue-Ray) you need a TV that supports 1080p resolution to get the best quality image! For those of us that have a $2000+ HD TV from 2003 that is not an option. My Sony XBR HD TV from 2003 only supports up to 1080i and does not have an HDMI port on it so it wouldn't matter what HD format DVD player I buy, I still would get the same quality I have now. The players may be coming down in price but you'll still spend $1000+ on a good widescreen 1080p HDTV. I guess that is what I get for being on the leading edge in 2003.

[aristotle_dude]

Speaking of uninformed public

Do you really believe what you are spouting?

The lack of regions was the region why several New Line releases were delayed for HD DVD prior to the Warner announcement.

Managed copy is vapourware and would most likely be based on WMP DRM and require a windows PC.

Combo discs were notoriously glitchy and some people had to boil their discs to get them to playback on their HD DVD players. Not to mention that they were often priced 10-15 dollars higher than most Blu-ray titles.

It was recently revealed that some German released HD DVD titles were authored with the Image Constraint Token turned on which means that those titles will revert to 480p if played back on a non-HDMI display.

So much for "consumer friendly".