Toshiba's $200 HD-DVD Players Spread to Circuit City

zekrahminator · Oct 31, 2007

The Toshiba HD-A2, the only HD DVD player to be offered for less than $200USD, is not going to be a Wal-Mart exclusive. Circuit City is already stocking HD-A2s, and Best Buy will likely soon follow suit.

Toshiba HD-A2 is an entry-level HD DVD player capable of HD DVD, DVD and CD playback as well as hardware decoding of H.264 (MPEG4 AVC), VC-1 and MPEG2 (standard DVD) streams. Additionally, the player features Sharc DSP to process audio in Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (2 channel), DTS and DTS-HD formats. The player can output video in 720p (1280x720) and 1080i (1920x1080) resolutions using HDMI or component interconnection and multi-channel audio using HDMI or S/PDIF connectors.

The players will likely make their way to stores just in time for the holiday season. There are rumors of a $299 package, which includes 5 HD-DVD movies.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

jocksteeluk · Oct 31, 2007

it will be interesting to see how the blu-ray lobby tries to counter this knowing the sony marketing people id expect them to create another marketing campaign rather than trying to compete via pricing.

Ravenas · Oct 31, 2007

jocksteeluk said:
it will be interesting to see how the blu-ray lobby tries to counter this knowing the sony marketing people id expect them to create another marketing campaign rather than trying to compete via pricing.

I don't think Sony is worried, I think Toshiba is more worried about the market, that's why they are doing this.

EastCoasthandle · Oct 31, 2007

Ravenas said:
I don't think Sony is worried, I think Toshiba is more worried about the market, that's why they are doing this.

Nah, HD has always been cheaper. Now that they reduced cost to manufacture the consumer also wins. As we get closer to the holiday season (black friday) we will see a lot of discounted prices. If you believe that HD is worried what will BR do when they finally release their Profile 1.1 players at the same price? Who's going to rebuy a BR player just to get an update profile :wtf:

.

kwchang007 · Oct 31, 2007

Huh, bad new for blu ray. Bet they're going to be coming out with a lower priced player to.

Ravenas · Oct 31, 2007

EastCoasthandle said:
Nah, HD has always been cheaper. Now that they reduced cost to manufacture the consumer also wins. As we get closer to the holiday season (black friday) we will see a lot of discounted prices. If you believe that HD is worried what will BR do when they finally release their Profile 1.1 players at the same price? Who's going to rebuy a BR player just to get an update profile .

They aren't identical, BluRay is a slightly better product with a slightly bigger price tag.

Also, it's not like a 200$ HD-DVD player hasn't been around, that price tag has been on the xbox verison for a LONG time. Not only that, they did the same deal for 5 HD movies if you bought the xbox hd-dvd player. This is just a move by Toshiba because they are worried about the market.

BluRay outsells HD-DVD in ratio.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=26397&highlight=bluray

It's a known fact BluRay is selling more, Toshiba is just trying to get their market share back up.

EastCoasthandle · Oct 31, 2007

Ravenas said:
They aren't identical, BluRay is a slightly better product with a slightly bigger price tag.

Also, it's not like a 200$ HD-DVD player hasn't been around, that price tag has been on the xbox verison for a LONG time. Not only that, they did the same deal for 5 HD movies if you bought the xbox hd-dvd player. This is just a move by Toshiba because they are worried about the market.

BluRay outsells HD-DVD in ratio.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=26397&highlight=bluray

It's a known fact BluRay is selling more, Toshiba is just trying to get their market share back up.

I think you are mis informed. Have you seen BR's spiderman lately?
Look at these comparison between DVD and BR
Here
and
Here
Now since this is movie is by SONY I find it hard to believe that BR is a slightly better product at a higher price. I have to ask, if you paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for a BR player and got those results like that how can you call it slightly better then HD?

Ravenas · Oct 31, 2007

EastCoasthandle said:
I think you are mis informed. Have you seen BR's spiderman lately?
Look at these comparison between DVD and BR
Here
and
Here
Now since this is movie is by SONY I find it hard to believe that BR is a slightly better product at a higher price. I have to ask, if you paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for a BR player and got those results like that how can you call it slightly better then HD?

Go work at a major electronics retailer and take some quizzes on the DVD formats. It's a known fact that BluRay is better. There is a slight difference on the top TVs, it just depends on if your willing to pay extra money for a slight difference. If I were you, I wouldn't go trusting those links either.

:toast:

EastCoasthandle · Oct 31, 2007

Ravenas said:
Go work at a major electronics retailer and take some quizzes on the DVD formats. It's a known fact that BluRay is better. There is a slight difference on the top TVs, it just depends on if your willing to pay extra money for a slight difference. If I were you, I wouldn't go trusting those links either.

It is what it is, BR isn't better and that's just one example why

Ravenas · Oct 31, 2007

EastCoasthandle said:
It is what it is, BR isn't better and that's just one example why

Either way, you took the topic in a different direction from what we were originally discussing.

Have fun arguing for the sake of arguing. :toast:

JoJoe · Oct 31, 2007

I think you are mis informed. Have you seen BR's spiderman lately?
Look at these comparison between DVD and BR
Here
and
Here
Now since this is movie is by SONY I find it hard to believe that BR is a slightly better product at a higher price. I have to ask, if you paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for a BR player and got those results like that how can you call it slightly better then HD?

Im so confused.

The BR screenshot looks way better in both examples IMO.

Wile E · Oct 31, 2007

EastCoasthandle said:
I think you are mis informed. Have you seen BR's spiderman lately?
Look at these comparison between DVD and BR
Here
and
Here
Now since this is movie is by SONY I find it hard to believe that BR is a slightly better product at a higher price. I have to ask, if you paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for a BR player and got those results like that how can you call it slightly better then HD?

You have movies that are just as bad in HD-DVD format as well. Those screens aren't showing a shortcoming of BR technology, they're showing a studio's laziness to do a proper encode. I'm willing to bet SM1 is still encoded in MPEG2 on the BR disk. I've seen this in both formats with older movies. I own both formats, and when you actually have movies that are encoded well, both formats look the same.

Sasqui · Oct 31, 2007

On Paper, Blu ray has higher capacity, higher data transfer and other features. The picture quality won't be any different.

The problem with BR is that SONY owns it (remeber rootkits?). HD is better IMO because it's got a large consortium pushing for it... and it would avoid a SONY Monopoly. SONY stands to make a ton of money on licensing if they get this one.

Go HD!

Ravenas · Oct 31, 2007

Sasqui said:
On Paper, Blu ray has higher capacity, higher data transfer and other features. The picture quality won't be any different.

The problem with BR is that SONY owns it (remeber rootkits?). HD is better IMO because it's got a large consortium pushing for it... and it would avoid a SONY Monopoly. SONY stands to make a ton of money on licensing if they get this one.

Go HD!

Lol you act like Sony is the evil of the 2, when in reality they are both equally evil. By supporting either company you are supporting a large scale "monopoly". What really matters is which is the better product, and the answer to that is BluRay.

effmaster · Oct 31, 2007

Ravenas said:
Go work at a major electronics retailer and take some quizzes on the DVD formats. It's a known fact that BluRay is better. There is a slight difference on the top TVs, it just depends on if your willing to pay extra money for a slight difference. If I were you, I wouldn't go trusting those links either.

What kind of software program did he use on his desktop to take those pictures with?

Please don't let it be that $1000+ Movie studio Express thing for Macs

But seriously does anyone see the irony here for Blu-Ray? Circuit City is heavily supporting HD-DVD while Paramount, Intel, HBO, Microsoft, Toshiba, Warner Brothers (WB), and HP only support HD-DVD (except in the case with HP they are now selling the option for a combination disc drive that plays both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, while still offering the HD-DVD only disc drives and still not offering the stand-alone Blu-Ray disc drives.)

DaMulta · Oct 31, 2007

Sasqui said:
On Paper, Blu ray has higher capacity, higher data transfer and other features. The picture quality won't be any different.

The problem with BR is that SONY owns it (remeber rootkits?). HD is better IMO because it's got a large consortium pushing for it... and it would avoid a SONY Monopoly. SONY stands to make a ton of money on licensing if they get this one.

Go HD!

Who cares just add another disc....They can fit a whole HD movie on a HD-DVD and it's cheaper.

WarEagleAU · Oct 31, 2007

I dont see why both formats cant exist?

niko084 · Nov 1, 2007

Nice to see, now if the prices on HD PC drives would come down a bit, I don't want to buy a lame xbox360 hd drive and mess wiring that up.

effmaster · Nov 1, 2007

niko084 said:
Nice to see, now if the prices on HD PC drives would come down a bit, I don't want to buy a lame xbox360 hd drive and mess wiring that up.

Doesnt the 360 HD-DVD add on only need the USB 2.0 cable to work? I dont see why it would need an external power cord since some external disc drives run solely off of USB cables.

niko084 · Nov 1, 2007

effmaster said:
Doesnt the 360 HD-DVD add on only need the USB 2.0 cable to work? I dont see why it would need an external power cord since some external disc drives run solely off of USB cables.

I read about it once, and the whole operation was not exactly that simple, it was like open the box, and it actually connects ide I think and you need a driver or something...

I don't remember...

Ravenas · Nov 1, 2007

niko084 said:
I read about it once, and the whole operation was not exactly that simple, it was like open the box, and it actually connects ide I think and you need a driver or something...

I don't remember...

Yeah, but the HD data is probably taking all of the USB's bandwidth.

Wile E · Nov 1, 2007

niko084 said:
I read about it once, and the whole operation was not exactly that simple, it was like open the box, and it actually connects ide I think and you need a driver or something...

I don't remember...

Nope, it has an external power brick, and you can use it with the USB cable. Works flawlessly in PowerDVD 7.1+

niko084 · Nov 1, 2007

Wile E said:
Nope, it has an external power brick, and you can use it with the USB cable. Works flawlessly in PowerDVD 7.1+

Good to know, I can borrow my friends now and rip my hd movies

Processor	AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane @ 2.8GHz (224x12.5, 1.425V)
Motherboard	Gigabyte sumthin-or-another, it's got an nForce 430
Cooling	Dual 120mm case fans front/rear, Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, Zalman VF-900 on GPU
Memory	2GB G.Skill DDR2 800
Video Card(s)	Sapphire X850XT @ 580/600
Storage	WD 160 GB SATA hard drive.
Display(s)	Hanns G 19" widescreen, 5ms response time, 1440x900
Case	Thermaltake Soprano (black with side window).
Audio Device(s)	Soundblaster Live! 24 bit (paired with X-530 speakers).
Power Supply	ThermalTake 430W TR2
Software	XP Home SP2, can't wait for Vista SP1.

Processor	custom dupont risk chip cpu prototype
Motherboard	custom ibm x5 solid state carbon mainboard
Cooling	industrial technologies prototype dupont custom heat transfer unit
Memory	6x 2gig prototype ecc hnc ddr4
Video Card(s)	prototype low energy version nvidia 9 series unnumberd card
Storage	1tb solid state hdd
Display(s)	44 inch samsung plasma screen tv/monitor
Case	custom ibm mobile home server case
Audio Device(s)	custom Yamaha sound processing processor in spm format
Power Supply	1200watt deli cord custom made dupont type psu
Software	sun unix/windows type v

System Name	AM5
Processor	AMD Ryzen R9 7950X
Motherboard	Asrock X670E Taichi
Cooling	EK AIO Basic 360
Memory	Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5600 64 Gb - XMP1 Profile
Video Card(s)	AMD Reference 7900 XTX 24 Gb
Storage	Crucial Gen 5 1 TB, Samsung Gen 4 980 1 TB / Samsung 8TB SSD
Display(s)	Samsung 34" 240hz 4K
Case	Fractal Define R7
Power Supply	Seasonic PRIME PX-1300, 1300W 80+ Platinum, Full Modular

System Name	MY PC
Processor	E8400 @ 3.80Ghz > Q9650 3.60Ghz
Motherboard	Maximus Formula
Cooling	D5, 7/16" ID Tubing, Maze4 with Fuzion CPU WB
Memory	XMS 8500C5D @ 1066MHz
Video Card(s)	HD 2900 XT 858/900 to 4870 to 5870 (Keep Vreg area clean)
Storage	2
Display(s)	24"
Case	P180
Audio Device(s)	X-fi Plantinum
Power Supply	Silencer 750
Software	XP Pro SP3 to Windows 7
Benchmark Scores	This varies from one driver to another.

Processor	C2D T7200@2 ghz vcore: .9875
Motherboard	generic laptop board
Cooling	fan control and antec notebook cooler
Memory	2 GBs@ 533 mhz ddr2
Video Card(s)	x1400 mobile, overclocked: 526mhz core/ 882mhz ddr
Storage	120 GB@ 5400 rpm fujitsu
Display(s)	15.4" 1440x900
Audio Device(s)	integrated
Software	vista 32 bit home premium

Toshiba's $200 HD-DVD Players Spread to Circuit City

zekrahminator

McLovin

jocksteeluk

New Member

Ravenas

EastCoasthandle

New Member

kwchang007

New Member

Ravenas

EastCoasthandle

New Member

Ravenas

EastCoasthandle

New Member

Ravenas

JoJoe

New Member

Wile E

Power User

Sasqui

Ravenas

effmaster

New Member

DaMulta

My stars went supernova

WarEagleAU

Bird of Prey

niko084

effmaster

New Member

niko084

Ravenas

Wile E

Power User

niko084

System Name	J64
Processor	AMD Athlon 7750BE @ 3.2Ghz
Motherboard	ASRock AOd790GX/128M
Cooling	Arctic Cooling Freezer 64
Memory	4Gb Wintec DDR2-800 (4x1Gb)
Video Card(s)	ATi Radeon HD 4830
Storage	2 X 320GB Seagate in RAID 0
Display(s)	19" LG Flatron
Case	Antec 900
Audio Device(s)	HT Omega Claro
Power Supply	600w Seasonic M12
Software	Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit

System Name	The ClusterF**k
Processor	980X @ 4Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 BIOS F12
Cooling	MCR-320, DDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), Koolance CPU-360
Memory	3x2GB Mushkin Redlines 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24 1T
Video Card(s)	Evga GTX 580
Storage	Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, 2xSeagate 320GB RAID0; 2xSeagate 3TB; 2xSamsung 2TB; Samsung 1.5TB
Display(s)	HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Technofront Bench Station
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte into Onkyo SR606 and Polk TSi200's + RM6750
Power Supply	ENERMAX Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W
Software	Win7 Ultimate N x64, OSX 10.8.4

System Name	Senile
Processor	I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard	MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling	Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory	16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s)	GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage	Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s)	34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (34401440) FREE_SYNC*
Case	Rosewill
Audio Device(s)	Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply	Corsair HX750
Mouse	Logitech G5
Keyboard	Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software	Win 10

Processor	Core Duo T2250 1.73 GHZ
Memory	2 GB DDR2
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA GEForce Go 7600 256 MB
Storage	120 GB
Display(s)	17 inch notebook
Case	metallic grey
Audio Device(s)	Creative xmod (though that doesnt really count as a sound card lol)
Power Supply	power plug and battery
Software	Lots of it

System Name	Work in progress
Processor	AMD 955---4Ghz
Motherboard	MSi GD70
Cooling	OcZ Phase/water
Memory	Crucial2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR3 PC3-16000
Video Card(s)	CrossfireX 2 X HD 4890 1GB OCed to 1000Mhz
Storage	SSD 64GB
Display(s)	Envision 24'' 1920x1200
Case	Using the desk ATM
Audio Device(s)	Sucky onboard for now :(
Power Supply	1000W TruePower Quattro

System Name	Pandemic 2020
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 "Gen 2" 2600X
Motherboard	AsRock X470 Killer Promontory
Cooling	CoolerMaster 240 RGB Master Cooler (Newegg Eggxpert)
Memory	32 GB Geil EVO Portenza DDR4 3200 MHz
Video Card(s)	ASUS Radeon RX 580 DirectX 12 DUAL-RX580-O8G 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video C
Storage	WD 250 M.2, Corsair P500 M.2, OCZ Trion 500, WD Black 1TB, Assorted others.
Display(s)	ASUS MG24UQ Gaming Monitor - 23.6" 4K UHD (3840x2160) , IPS, Adaptive Sync, DisplayWidget
Case	Fractal Define R6 C
Audio Device(s)	Realtek 5.1 Onboard
Power Supply	Corsair RMX 850 Platinum PSU (Newegg Eggxpert)
Mouse	Razer Death Adder
Keyboard	Corsair K95 Mechanical & Corsair K65 Wired, Wireless, Bluetooth)
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

System Name	Back to Blue
Processor	i9 14900k
Motherboard	Asrock Z790 Nova
Cooling	Corsair H150i Elite
Memory	64GB Corsair Dominator DDR5-6400 @ 6600
Video Card(s)	EVGA RTX 3090 Ultra FTW3
Storage	4TB WD 850x NVME, 4TB WD Black, 10TB Seagate Barracuda Pro
Display(s)	1x Samsung Odyssey G7 Neo and 1x Dell u2518d
Case	Lian Li o11 DXL w/custom vented front panel
Audio Device(s)	Focusrite Saffire PRO 14 -> DBX DriveRack PA+ -> Mackie MR8 and MR10 / Senn PX38X -> SB AE-5 Plus
Power Supply	Corsair RM1000i
Mouse	Logitech G502x
Keyboard	Corsair K95 Platinum
Software	Windows 11 x64 Pro
Benchmark Scores	31k multicore Cinebench - CPU limited 125w