Coming Soon: Sub-$1000 HD DVD Notebooks - Awesome!!!

Super XP · 10-16-2007, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Coming Soon: Sub-$1000 HD DVD Notebooks
Toshiba tells its HD DVD strategy, from technology advances to price drops.
Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 8:00 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES -- Even though two formats are duking it out for dominance, Toshiba sees HD DVD adoption following a trajectory similar to other optical disc formats before it.

"We see history repeating itself," Carl Pinto, vice president of product development and product management at Toshiba, told an audience during a presentation at the DVD Forum conference here this week.

Just as DVD gained momentum first as a combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, HD DVD will see its early momentum from HD DVD-ROM/DVD SuperMulti writer drives. Even though a slim writer was announced in January at CES and has shipped in Japan, Pinto says he doesn't expect HD DVD burners to gain steam until 2009 or 2010.

Price Drops
Since HD DVD was first installed on a Toshiba Qosmio earlier this year, prices have fallen precipitously on notebooks equipped with an HD DVD drive. That early notebook debuted at $3000; today's prices hover at around $1500.

By the end of the year, in time for Christmas, said Pinto, "you'll be able to buy notebook computers at retail stores for under $1000."

The price drops can be attributed to the normal technology march known as Moore's Law. In the past year, the progression of the underlying technology required for a DVD drive has been impressive. For example, a notebook that cost $3000 at the start of the year required about $400 in components (excluding the cost of the HD DVD drive--a detail Toshiba is not surprisingly mum about) to handle HD DVD decoding, including the CPU and a graphics processor on a dedicated graphics card. By this fall, the mix of components necessary shifted to a CPU with integrated graphics processor and a hardware decoder, all for under $200. When winter 2008 rolls around, Toshiba expects to be able cut that price about in half again.

"Our goal for the third quarter of 2008 is to bring that cost down to under $100," Pinto said. "We believe that using improvements in CPUs and graphics subsystems, we can reduce the cost of playing back HD DVD."

Toshiba plans to make HD DVD an option on most all of its notebook PCs over the course of the coming year. The company estimates more than 5 million HD DVD drives will ship on notebook PCs in the coming year as the technology becomes more accessible and the price becomes more affordable.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...1/article.html
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/format-wa...ler-309417.php

heyman421 · 10-16-2007, 07:39 AM

i'm sorry, but what's the deal with the dancing bananas?

there were dancing bananas at the OSU game on saturday, too.

Anyone know the background, here?

Codes20 · 10-16-2007, 08:28 AM

We have two for sale at Best Buy for $1000 right now. I still don't like Toshiba notebooks though.

Super XP · 10-16-2007, 09:07 PM

I got my HD DVD 17" Toshiba notebook and its Awesome!

MikeRox · 10-17-2007, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heyman421

i'm sorry, but what's the deal with the dancing bananas?

there were dancing bananas at the OSU game on saturday, too.

Anyone know the background, here?

Theres dancing broccolis on other forums and on my MSN account as well

Ooooh, if they get a sub £700 laptop with HD DVD over here I'd be seriously tempted to pick it up. Will probably wait for the laptops with combi Blu Ray/HD DVD players in them to drop though.

Super XP · 10-17-2007, 05:45 AM

I got a $1,800 17" HD DVD Toshiba laptop for a nice $1,200. Only about 2 months old, and its in Mint Condition.

10-16-2007, 09:07 PM	#4
Super XP Star Trek: The Movie! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Toronto, ON. Canada Posts: 5,776	I got my HD DVD 17" Toshiba notebook and its Awesome! __________________ Toshiba Regza 46" HDTV (46RF350U) LCD 1080p/24p Toshiba HD-A35 / HD-A3 / XD-E500 LG GGC-H20L Super Multi / PC Drive Onkyo TX-SR605 7.1 TrueHD/DTS HD MA Precision Acoustics™ 8Ch. Hi Def Loudspeaker Series DVD's = 200 = 130 = 10

10-17-2007, 05:45 AM	#6
Super XP Star Trek: The Movie! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Toronto, ON. Canada Posts: 5,776	I got a $1,800 17" HD DVD Toshiba laptop for a nice $1,200. Only about 2 months old, and its in Mint Condition. __________________ Toshiba Regza 46" HDTV (46RF350U) LCD 1080p/24p Toshiba HD-A35 / HD-A3 / XD-E500 LG GGC-H20L Super Multi / PC Drive Onkyo TX-SR605 7.1 TrueHD/DTS HD MA Precision Acoustics™ 8Ch. Hi Def Loudspeaker Series DVD's = 200 = 130 = 10

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10-16-2007, 07:39 AM	#2
heyman421 Blu-ray is Betamax 2.0 Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 494	i'm sorry, but what's the deal with the dancing bananas? there were dancing bananas at the OSU game on saturday, too. Anyone know the background, here?

10-16-2007, 08:28 AM	#3
Codes20 In need of speakers Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: CA Age: 24 Posts: 1,347	We have two for sale at Best Buy for $1000 right now. I still don't like Toshiba notebooks though.