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First HD-DVD Player Goes On Sale
An anonymous reader writes "If you live in Japan, you can get your hands on the first commercially available HD-DVD player as of today. Toshiba has launched the HD-XA1, and hopes for sales in the next year to exceed 600,000 units. The device is set to debut in the states in April. From the article: "The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan. In that market there will also be a cheaper player, the HD-A1, priced at $500. Toshiba said the price in Japan is based on its expectation that video enthusiasts will be first to adopt the technology, while in the United States, the prices are aimed more at average consumers who are more price conscious." Update: 03/31 18:45 GMT by Z : Quoted article updated, quote updated to match the article.
even for a techie early adopter, somehow the knowledge that there's a war brewing makes these things quite undesirable. i wonder if the people who actually buy it at this point know what's coming...?
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
From TFA: The HD-XA1 has no region coding for the HD-DVD content
I guess thats a slight incentive to buy this early, but not enough to justify the rest of the horribly crippling DRM features it will have.
The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan, which is less than the $800 price tag it will carry in North America.
$936 $800.
Smooth.
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And buy essentially the same thing for less than $500 US.
Remember, the first rule of marketing - early adopters of electronics pay $1000 to $2000, people who can wait for the bug-free version pay $500-$1000, and people who can wait until more than fifty percent adoption pay $300-$500, at the zero, one, and two year marks.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Ok we got an overpriced player... Does at least come with a HD-DVD demo or something to showcast? Any killer HD-DVD movie release available right now?
10 50.
10 is less than 50!
Toshiba expects to sell 600k to 700k of these units?! There isn't enough shelf-space worldwide to hold those devices at that size.
They mention in the article that there will be a lower-end version for sale in North America for around $500. I couldn't find any specs or reasons for the lower cost. Anyone else?
Man, the first people who buy these babies are either crazy, stupid, or just like to spend their highly expendable capital.
For the consumser's cool $1000 he (or she) gets:
This new unit is not for the faint of heart, but I know the consumers are out there to break ground for the rest of us. God Bless them and their expendable income.
"The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan, which is less than the $800 price tag it will carry in North America." Can someone explain that to me?
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I can't believe I'm the first one...
Well, it is for unusual values of 800.
You now too can be the envy of all your friends, and in 3 years you can pull your hair out because TVs will only come with HDMI X-TREME DRM that will be incompatible with your player. Congradulations! Big companies win!
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Hey I can't fault them for trying. If I could get people to beta test my product while paying me $1000 for the honor, I might go back to writing code!
Think Deeply.
Hell, everyone else was doing it.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
From the article, in hopes that it will make the "936 less than 800" issue clearer... somehow.
"The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan. In the North American market there will also be a cheaper player, the HD-A1, priced at $500. Toshiba said the price in Japan is based on its expectation that video enthusiasts will be first to adopt the technology, while in the United States, the prices are aimed more at average consumers who are more price conscious."
Great little buy... I'll just put in my nonexistant HD-DVD movie titles... I'm starting to really like this imagination game.
I beleive that in a previous /. article, MS was quoted as saying that an HD-DVD drive would be made available later as an add-on for the 360.
Wow, way to be behind the times. The Xbox360 plays standard DVDs only. An add on drive was announced a little while ago that would allow one to play HD-DVD's, but this will never, ever be used for games.
no HD in 360. will be an add on later down the road.
AFAIK, the 360 is including the HD-DVD drive as an add-on accessory when they feel the time is right. It shipped with a standard DVD drive. In other words, yes, it will have HD-DVD support... eventually.
...on both HD-DVD and Blu Ray. Holographic storage hits the market within a year with much greater density and throughput. Online movie distro music store style is likely to hit even before then.
So there's absolutely no point in investing a grand in a technology which will be obsoleted within a year. I'll throw a holo drive in a MythTV, get my movies online legit and tell the consumer electronics manufacturers to suck it.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Are you kidding me? This post is redundant? He posted at eactly the same time as the post above which is rated 5:Funny. I can see if it were a few minutes later after the 1,000th person posted their "haha, you can't figure out that $936 is MORE than $800" post.
I, as a real price conscious consumer, would never buy something like this for so much. The cons just greatly outweigh the pros at this point.
component-sized dvd player: $25-50
hd-dvd player: $800-936
They don't call it the "bleading edge" of technology for nothing.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
New HD-DVD player: $980
HD-DVD titles: priceless (there aren't any, yet)
Not being able to record: priceless
Owning a player for a soon-to-be dead format: priceless
My sentiments exactly, FWIW.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
To quote Luke Skywalker, "Look at the size of that thing."
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Toshiba said the price in Japan is based on its expectation that video enthusiasts will be first to adopt the technology, while in the United States, the prices are aimed more at average consumers who are more price conscious
Since when is $500 an afordable price for the 'average' consumer being that the 'average' consumer still doesn't own an HDTV (thus gets no benefit out of a HD-DVD player)?
Honestly I hope people reject HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and stick with Progressive scan DVD players for one reason, I'm sick of having to "upgrade" every couple of years so that a entertainment company can re-sell the exact same product in a different format. Maybe I'm the only one but (even though HD is nice) I don't see a big enough improvement in quality to from progressive scan DVD to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray to justify $30-$40 for a movie and $500-$1000 for a player.
It appears that the offending line has been changed in TFA
from the new TFA:
The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan. In the North American market there will also be a cheaper player, the HD-A1, priced at $500. Toshiba said the price in Japan is based on its expectation that video enthusiasts will be first to adopt the technology, while in the United States, the prices are aimed more at average consumers who are more price conscious.
This would have been funny, had you put the correct value ($936) instead of $926. I won't comment on "ti" either. Don't let an attempt at humor get in the way of proofreading.
Man, the first people who buy these babies are either crazy, stupid
And yet the people who blew $2500+ on the first run of apple MacBook Pro's werent crazy or stupid, weren't they? Funny how perception changes based on the product and the vendor...
Well, if the minimum they can sell an HD-DVD player is $500, and since HD-DVD is a simpler technology than Blu-Ray, that means the absolute MINIMUM price for the PS3 has to be around $800 (since, after all, you still need the console part, and not just the video player). More likely it will be closer to $1000.
I think we're finally seeing the beginning of the end for the PlayStation. With HD-DVD being available first, the PS3 having the ability to play a different format simply won't be a selling point. Especially since the thing is going to cost upwards of $1000.
Microsoft's position is starting to look a whole lot better than Sony's - assuming they can ever get the Japanese and Europeans to get past their anti-American product biases.
so I can, um, backup up my music?
USB is my life, but $980 for a player? my flash card cost me $79 total.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan, which is less than the $800 price tag it will carry in North America."
How is $800 MORE than $936?
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Didn't your operating systems teacher ever tell you that `less` is more than `more`?
There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don't.
Why bother omg its a CD player omg teh omg! Must buy must buy. Really, Im sure it can wait 3 or 4 months.
Oh wait... I don't have a DVD-A or SACD player.
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Specifications from the Toshiba Web Site: http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/hddvd//
C D-RW /7.5 IRE)
Video
-----
Disc Playback: HD-DVD/HD-DVD-R/DVD/DVD-R/DVD-RAM/DVD-RW/CD/CD-R/
HD Content via HDMI (Disc Native Resolution)
Video Up-conversion for SD DVD (720P/1080i)
11-but / 216 MHz Video DAC
Enhanced Black Level (DIRE
Letterbox and Pan & Scan Support
Audio
-----
Built-in Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, and TDS decoders
Dolby True HD Compatible (2 channel)
Four 32-bit Floating Point Processors
Multi-Channel 24-bit / 192 kHZ Audio DACs
HDMI Audio Support up to 5.1 LPCM
5.1 Channel Output
Dynamic Range Control
WMA and MP3 playback
Connections
-----------
USB
HDMI Output
Colorstream Component Video Outputs
S-Video Input
Composite Video (1)
Coaxial Digital Audio Output
Optical Digital Audio Output
RS-232
Ethernet 10/100
In 2 years, they'll probably be available for ~$100 at Walmart.
Oh, nevermind.
Must have "Oxygenated gold feather plated hand crafted by nymphs" cables. For analogue YES, for DIGITAL, LAUGH. Why do people insist on stupid cables for digital (SELF CORRECTING) signal cables?
Since Toshiba is the manufacturer of the player, has Toshiba manufactured any "HD Ready" televisions that would render HD-DVDs at a lower resolution due to DRM? If so, once the player reaches the U.S., wouldn't Toshiba be open to a class action lawsuit for false advertising? The argument would of course hinge on whether over-the-air satisfies the advertisement, or whether due to the advent of the VCR three decades ago that playback of prerecorded media is a reasonable consumer expectation.
The sooner the format tanks, the rarer it will be, and the sooner the early units will become valuable.
Buy it now and put it in your garage next to your jar of mint-condition Susan B. Anthony dollars, your Coleco Adam, and your Gemstar REB-1100 eBook.
Bound to be worth a fortune; your grandchildren will be so grateful.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
In ten days (that's less than a week!!)
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$800?!? Hahahahahaha!
I'm sure the average consumer is about as anxious as me to rush out and buy one of these DRM infected piles of shit for just shy of a grand!!
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
Geez, NO humor.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
That said, it sure ain't worth anything remotely like the price I'll need to pay to update my video equipment. There's the television itself, the *VD player and oh, by the way, how do I get my VHS VCR to work with the new HDTV? (I've got a lot of home movies on VHS which I personally couldn't care less about, but my wife'll kill me if I lose 'em!)
I'm not even going to mention my PC with the ATI All-in-wonder TV card in it. Well, since I just did, yes I will. How 'bout TiVO? All those M$ Multimedia PC's that're being sold even as I type?
This looks less and less like the VHS-Betamax or audiotape-CD situation, and more and more like the US effort to convert to metric - it seems like a big step forward and a good idea until you actually try to do it. Incidentally, I still drink beer in pints, drive in miles per hour (for some number of miles), I stand just under six feet tall and weigh (a small amount) more than two-hundred pounds (before I get flamed, I'm fully conversant with the metric system).
Blu-ray and DVD-HD both sound like fine propositions, until you realize how much collateral technology has to be upgraded/scrapped/replaced to get that (IMHO) somewhat superior picture reproduction. Me and my old NTSC? I find that if the material is interesting enough, I don't even notice that the video quality delivered to my home is considerably lower than NTSC (typically, expect 250-300 lines of resolution due to signal degradation, etc., VHS is even worse. Unless you're watching a monitor in a soundstage in Hollywood, you ain't gettin' everything). While there are technologies which can deliver all the resolution of whatever video standard is in place (think: digital), the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of viewers in the United States are watching analog signals (BTW, the local cable company digitizing their analog feeds to pump them to set-top digital receivers doesn't count).
My old 6100 Performa? Is that you? Mirage?
Finally I'll be able to keep a pizza on my DVD player and not worry about it falling off when I try to take a piece!
You forgot the three year mark: $34.77 at Walmart or your local drugstore.
...my square watermelon?
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whats the point in buying now when there is now hd media out for a good few months, price will prolly be down to half by the time the media is out.
Theaters have become irrelevent. Was anyone else summarily discgusted with the "see it on the bigscreen" propaganda at the Oscars? pathetic. BTW, I watched that pathetic display on 108 inches of Hi-Def, projected, 5.1 Surround Sweetness and it actually brought a tear to my eye.
Can you hear that? That's the sound of thousands of angry "Back in the good ole days of Slashdot, editors did their job!" /.'ers and math nerds furiously typing to bitch and complain about the error in the article.
I bought a Sony DVD player in 1997 for $1000.
But there is no way I would touch this new HD-DVD/Blu-ray hardware with a ten-foot cattle prod. Let's see.... Can't play HD on my Sony HDTV (no HDCP, oh well!), The Man just wants to further restrict my fair use, and the benefits of the format change are ZERO from a practical standpoint (form factor, no rewinding, etc that made change from VHS to DVD so obvious).
--- witty signature
The PS3 will be sold below cost.
Score +1 for DRM, FSF 0. Damn, this sucks. Boycott DRM and HD-DVD! http://writersblocklive.com/boycott/
To get the PS3 to a reasonable price, assuming it's $800 to make, they'll have to be taking a $500 loss on each console sold. Actually, more like $750 when you factor in things like shipping and storing and related expenses.
There's no way they can sell it at that large a loss, unless they're going to be bundling the systems with 20 games a piece.
Sony is flat-out screwed. If they sell them at enough of a lost to make them marketable, they'll almost certainly be sued for anti-trust violation (and, not being an American company, you can bet they'll be made to pay). Selling it at a loss won't save Sony - their only way out is to actually bring the costs down.
Is there any media for this at all? If not any actual films, I hope at least there's a demo disc or something to show off the 1080 lines of resolution.
1. I for one welcome our oversized high definition overlords
2. But does it run linux?
and, I suppose:
3. I would love to see a beowulf cluster of these
Why is everyone slacking off? We need our boring, overused tag lines!
LG kills blu-ray model and considers combo player
from TFA: "..could be available as early as the fall."
My hard-earned will probably land on one of these. Combo drives are quickly becoming inevitable, will be interesting to see how prominent they are in the first-gen series of players.
$800 > $936
Thinking about this the other day - I looked over my DVD collection and made a mental note of how many times I watched each of the movies I paid for. My logic was that I would have to watch most movies more than 4 times to really benefit from ownership (guessing I pay about $20 per DVD). In the end - my entire collection was a loss - most of my movies I haven't watched more than twice - not that I don't like them, I do - but there are so many other things to watch between the Tivo and DVD that it's not possible. Using this logic - $900 for an HDDVD player = I could watch 225 HDTV movies via PPV or On Demand before it even became a consideration - not to mention all of the content I would get on Showtime or HBO HD. I know ownershp has it's merits but I think I'm ready to kick the habit and leave the spot empty on my home theatre rack. Just my opinion.
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{grin}
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How hard could it be to create a player that has BluRay and HD-DVD support built into one? It would probably need two lasers and two decoders but seriously, how hard could that be? It seems like if every player had support for both, the issue of BluRay vs HD-DVD would be moot. It would be up to the studios to decide which format they use, but the consumer wouldn't even need to know the difference. With a universal player, you wouldn't even have to know which disk format you have and since the disks look the same (unlike BetaMax vs VHS) there will be no confusion.
Rechtschreibung macht frei.
That's good because those DVDAs spread you open like a Thanksgiving turky.
Fuck Blu-ray, and Fuck HD-DVD
Joseph?
According to various sites, eg. http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/neasia/003549 ,
Japanese players will not limit HD output over component cables. There is
supposedly also Japanese legislation banning this.
Anyone have any info about this?
Cha cha cha, Charmin!
The PS3's games are all going to use blu-ray discs. If the format tanks, does that mean my days of playing Metal Gear Solid will be over or will interactive media be entirely unaffected?
But I don't see how they would be open to a lawsuit.
The TV displays content input just fine.
The HD-DVD player just may refuse to output full res sometimes. It probably mentions this in the manual (oh god I hope it doesn't have a EULA!).
It's not a fault of the TV, I don't see the basis of the lawsuit.
Besides, at the time these TVs were sold, there was no such thing as an HD-DVD player. It all was OTA HD and W-VHS. So I'm not sure the user has any expectation that it will work perfectly with all future devices.
Not that I like this downrezzing crap, I just don't like exploratory lawsuits either.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"So this'll make my VHS tapes HDTV? How come they don't look or sound better?"