Toshiba Strikes Back With Major HD DVD Promo

Chris Gerhard

Unless what you actually want is a great software selection and the best films being released. As long as you want a format war dragging the market down, with film rights' holders refusing to release the best titles, then this can go on for years and you should be delighted.

Chris

bruceames

With HD DVD players at $125 with 2 free in the box, the format war seems to be dragging the price down more than anything else. I think that if Toshiba successfully taps into the upscale market with the low end A3 (and later the A4 when it debuts Q3 this year), then the Trojan Horse adoption method from both sides (Blu-ray via the PS3) would be beneficial to HDM. Even if one format lost, the 'losing' consumer has enjoyed a taste of HDM he/she would never have enjoyed earlier if not for buying the player/game console initially for another reason.

If HD DVD were to bow out now, we have mostly 1.0 players on the market that even the BDA don't recommend buying, and the entry price is at least $300 and usually $400. At least with HD DVD, consumers can get in the door cheap and they kill two birds by buying the upscale player they wanted for their new HDTV at virtually no risk. With a Blu-ray player, even the 1.1 Panny or a PS3, the price is still too high to justify the risk. After all, maybe they won't see the improvement from upscaled DVD as being worth the player price.

Studio Support

Yes I will, because we all know Sony is an evil company trying to build an evil empire
Why do you take my posts out of context? Even though I believe in HDM, HD DVD is the only format I feel has any chances in taking over SD DVD completely. Why vote for Blu-Ray just to become a niche format forever and ever? I want Hi Def, and HD DVD seems to be the only way to get it on a world wide mass adoption basis.

I think bruceames sums it up quite nice.