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Toshiba Details Third-Gen HD DVD Players

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

August 6, 2007, 12:00 PM

Toshiba confirmed that it will soon be launching its third-generation HD DVD players, with enhancements across the board. All three models are available for under $500, which could help spur adoption of the fledgling format.

As reported by BetaNews on Friday, the new lineup features the HD-A3, HD-A30, and HD-A35. Prices are $299, $399, and $499 USD, respectively. The HD-A30 will be available next month, while the HD-A3 and HD-A35 are not due until October.

The two higher-end players are capable of supporting 1080p/24, while the lower-end player supports 1080i. Additionally, the new models support "CE-Link," which allows enabled devices to be controlled together to perform various functions.

Support for Deep Color via HDMI has been added to the top-of-the-line player, as well as support for 5.1 channel analog output and High Bit Rate Audio. All players feature a much slimmer design, about half as tall as Toshiba's first-generation HD DVD boxes.

"With a majority market share in unit sales of next generation DVD players, consumers are speaking loud and clear, and they are adopting HD DVD as their HD movie format of choice," said Jodi Sally, Vice President of Marketing for Toshiba's Digital A/V Group.

Toshiba HD-A35

"Because of the proven manufacturing efficiencies of the HD DVD format, Toshiba can bring this level of innovation in technology to a new generation of players with cutting-edge functionality at affordable prices."

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray continue to fight it out for customers. While Blu-ray does have a considerable lead in devices that can play its discs thanks to the PS3, HD DVD has moved into a majority share in standalone players in recent months. HD DVD's movie attach rate is also much higher than that of Blu-rays.

Both the HD DVD Promotion Group and analysts say this has a lot to do with the format's capability to produce cheaper players much quicker than its competitor.

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By Hollywood__

edited Aug 7, 2007 - 12:32 AM

Hey Dave,

Care to explain this.

By Ray Dorset posted Aug 6, 2007 - 4:51 PM

By fernz33 posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:01 PM

By fernz33 posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:03 PM

By Ray Dorset posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:17 PM

By pitdingo posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:46 PM

By pitdingo posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:47 PM

By pitdingo posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:47 PM

By Ray Dorset posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:49 PM

By Ray Dorset posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:50 PM

By Ray Dorset posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:52 PM

By pitdingo posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:55 PM

By Ray Dorset posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:57 PM

By MinuteMaid posted Aug 6, 2007 - 6:14 PM

By MinuteMaid edited Aug 6, 2007 - 6:17 PM

By MinuteMaid edited Aug 6, 2007 - 6:21 PM

By MinuteMaid posted Aug 6, 2007 - 6:47 PM

All this in only an hour and fifty six minutes today.

You basically log in under one name, post your garbage on a bunch of stories, then log out and immediately log in under a new one, then continue your garbage.

This is just today.

Like I said, you suck a bag of sh!t.

Score: 0

By fernz33

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 2:52 PM

WOW. You were probably so proud of yourself as you were typing that comment. Seriously you have nothing better to do?

By the way, I found your myspace photo... you are one ugly dude.
http://img135.imageshack...5/9797/nerd46422fm3.jpg

Score: 0

By pitdingo

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 7:59 AM

wow, someone needs attention.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

edited Aug 7, 2007 - 2:11 PM

Hey Dave(s),

I see you base electronics on looks rather than performance. You fall into the percentage of the population that are mindless sheep and has no clue about anything technical.

You are and will always be nothing but a half witted troll. If you notice, not person (except all of your usernames) ever disagrees with me.

It must suck to know you will always work for someone else from 9-5 every day (including weekends apparently) for a living until you are 65 or whatever the retirement age on that side of the pond is, at which point, you will have to survive on whatever you have managed to save up in your meager, unimportant existence.

This is why I am thankful every day that I'm nothing like you or your kind. People like you make my day better because it makes me realize that I'm not a mindless drone who's opinion is given to them. You are like an ant or a worker bee, but less important because no one listens to your nonsense.

Your posts are comical because it is so apparent you are a frustrated and confused individual with an unnatural obsession of the Sony Corporation, who doesnt even pay you to be a shill.

I can't say I feel sorry for you because you chose to be the way you are.

I see you got up at 6:26AM to run to your computer to see what Hollwood__ had to say about you. Low and behold, all of your supporters are early risers too.

LMAO at your pathetic life.

Score: 0

By DaveBG

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 6:26 AM

You take your time to gather all that information?

I must say that you missed some entrys.
Now go and search for the remaining nicks that i use and fight them all down.

When you are done reply back.

What a retard

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 1:40 PM

You stupid fvck, that's the best you can come up with?

Score: 0

By SlapShot

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 7:50 AM

dave called somebody a retard, LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Score: 0

By pitdingo

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 10:18 PM

cheapo looking player. still too expensive, epecially for something that ugly.

RCA comes to mind.

Score: 0

By SGD

edited Aug 7, 2007 - 4:30 PM

Some of the best home theatre componants are not that good looking so the reviews must all be wrong if you would review them. I would rather have crappy looking amp then one that looks pretty but works like junk. Macintosh is far from attractive but remains one of the best. My new Denon receiver is not pretty but it is the best that you can get for the money.

Score: 0

By Latz !

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 10:37 PM

lmao, you say it's still too expensive, yet it's cheaper than the standalone Blu-Ray players. So what does that make them? For a top of the line HD DVD player that is actually a great price. A lot better looking too, compared to those 80's style behemoths from Samsung and Sony. Of course I do realize that you were attempting to troll. Better get some practice though because you are really bad at it. Hint, try being more subtle in the future.

Score: 0

By pitdingo

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 7:59 AM

Who cares about Blu-Ray? Those are too expensive too. In your opinion this vomit pile of a device looks good. To me, this thing looks like a kick back to the 90's RCA style. Very cheapo and ugly.

So you can post your opinion, but no one else can post theirs if it disagrees with yours? Grow up.

Score: 0

By Latz !

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 8:03 AM

That's a little better, keep working on it.

Score: 0

By Alex Stevens

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 6:28 PM

Now that is a great looking system, I have been holding off getting an HD player but this one is tempting.

Score: 0

By Ray Dorset

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 4:51 PM

Considering there was little difference betwen G1 and G2 HDDVD, I think this is Toshiba just launching new models to fool people into thinking they are making progress.

Score: 0

By Latz !

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 5:18 PM

The specs are clearly outlined in the article (the one you probably didn't even read). Do you have anything intelligent to add or are you just going to be our troll for this evening?
If it's the latter I'll just take my leave now, your posts are really getting old and pathetic.

Score: 0

By Ray Dorset

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:57 PM

If by next gen, you mean features the PS3 has had for 8 months, HDMI 1.3, Deep Color 1080p/24 and the like, it's all very yawn, and last year.

Score: 0

By Latz !

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 6:03 PM

Did you even read my post, because your reply has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said. I certainly didn't use the words next gen as you seem to imply I did, nor did I say anything about the PS3. You're kind of retarded, aren't you?

Score: 0

By Alex Stevens

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 6:25 PM

Yeah, it's a typical troll tactic. Desperately try to change the subject whenever someone calls them out on their stupidity. Coming up with completely irrelevant arguments or putting words in the other person's mouth to try to make it look like they are "winning" the argument. Despite the fact that they are making no sense at all.

The recommended course of action is to ignore him because he'll just keep coming back again and again with something even more idiotic. Let him look like a fool if he wants too, but it's a waste of time to argue with a fanboy shill like Ray Dorkset.

Score: 0

By SGD

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 8:28 PM

He doesn't need any help to look like a fool.

Score: 0

By deminicus

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 2:39 PM

i start thinking about an hd player when they go down to 200$ for a higher end model

Score: 0

By morriscox

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 10:33 PM

By that time, there'll be something new and the cycle will start all over again.

Score: 0

By Hocuspokus

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 2:21 PM

Nice slick looking player
(it certainly beats that bloated ancient 'top-loader' VHS player look the Blu-ray crowd seem to be going with.....although they try to hide it with a 2-tone colour scheme).

Wonder what this'll do for HD A2 prices ($150 soon?).
Bet they have that RRP of $299 turned into a street/Amazon price of $200 before X-mas.

I'm looking for 5.1 analogue outputs, DVD-Audio, SACD and Divx/Xvid in these gen 3 players, hopefully around what I paid for my old DVD player (£120/$240); then I can sell my old DVD player and just replace it with a player that does everything I used to have and excellent HD DVD quality on top.

Score: 0

By Latz !

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 2:02 PM

Very nice looking player, and great prices.

Score: 0

By lonechicken

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 1:49 PM

Looks nice. Maybe we're moving away from the 70s/mid 2000s silver look again. My AV racks have suffered too long from the many non-matching shades of silver that manufacturers tried to pass off as "classy" looking a couple of years back...blah blah.

Anyway, anyone worried at all about the "...much slimmer design"? My two "thick" late 1990s DVD players were physically better built than the slimmer DVD players (from the same companies) these last couple of years.

Score: 0

By MinuteMaid

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 1:27 PM

I wonder if it takes over 3 minutes to start up the last ones.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 4:45 PM

Ahhhh there's Dave, but today it's MinuteMaid, what a surprise. Show us some of those tired a** links you are famous for. Or are you still trying to convince people that "MinutMaid" is a new user that happens to be a demented Sony fanboy who miraculously showed up last week to support your crusade and always posts within minutes of DaveBG, Steve or Benjamin .... always in agreement about how much HD-DVD sucks and how BD is going to win the format war with 1/8 of the attach rate and hundreds of dollars lost on every PS3.

To answer your question, they've now improved it to almost 5 minutes now.

Dave, just to shut you up.

I've uploaded a picture of my projector and screen just to drive you crazy with jealousy.

http://img127.imageshack...127/8011/theaterrl6.jpg

And it's still nicer than than pathetic setup at your apartment.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHH!!!!!!

By the way. I've taken sh!ts more important than you.

Score: 0

By fernz33

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 2:59 PM

Is this a joke or are you just drunk? Did mommy and daddy take you to a wedding this weekend and you snapped a photo of the (old non-HD) projector, or are you having a tea party for your Barbies?

"p.s. I'm retarded"
No need to share... we all know what a big window-licker you are.

Score: 0

By MinuteMaid

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 2:44 PM

I got a great movie of me doing your mum and your sister. It would look great on that screen.

I also note, you seem to have alot of tables. You surely can't have that many friends. Is this the HD DVD owners club annual dinner and dance? I reckon it's the last year, so make the most of it.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 4:49 PM

Hey look, 2 replies just minutes apart (and no denial) from the same jackass, but under two different usernames, as usual.

Hi Dave! Your system still sucks.

Score: 0

By fernz33

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:01 PM

Hey look, it's Holden Caulfield (and no denial). Let this Dave thing go man. I think you have us confused for the voices in your head.

I can't believe you edited your post to remove what I quoted! And no defense to the bashing of... "your"... "system". You are a joke window-licker.

Score: 0

By terminalx

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 4:32 PM

BOTH FORMATS have maybe 1% of the market neither format is going anywhere yet.

Since blu-ray has yet to show the picture quality is any different then hd-dvd what is the incentive to get blu-ray?

HD-DVD is at least doing dual disks which contain a dvd on one side and hd on the other whats blu-ray doing?

/Seriously I wanna know
//This "war" is farking retarded.
///Its going to be a couple years before any of this matters

Score: 0

By terminalx

posted Aug 7, 2007 - 12:10 AM

Not one blu-ray supporter can tell me why its better or what blu-ray is doing now that hd-dvd is doing dual format, I mean with ALL that space what are they using it for?

Score: 0

By siryak

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:52 PM

Word

Score: 0

By TomeOne

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 1:49 PM

Classy.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 4:52 PM

Which one is classy? The one about Dave doing my mum and sister or the one where I said I've taken sh!ts more important than him?

That man is a human colostomy bag.

Score: 0

By fernz33

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 5:03 PM

Anybody doing you "mum" is not classy.

Score: 0

By MinuteMaid

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 6:14 PM

Man, I was really drunk that night, and you know, any port in a storm.

Still his sister has some nice tricks...

Score: 0

By siryak

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 10:28 PM

ROFL! I hope to god that you are WASTED every time you post. I would hate to think someone could make that big of an idiot out of themselves sober.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 1:07 PM

Wow, that thing is beautiful. Better looking than those gigantic stand alone BD players.

(Waits for Dave to sneak off to a computer with internet access during work so he can go crazy)

Look at that, the HD-DVD attach rate is "much higher" just like my brilliant Euclidean algorythms previously stated.

It seems to me that BD is the failure with all those players out there and such sh!tty movie sales compared to the "few early adopters" that seem to be hoarding hundreds of thousands of HD-DVD movies just to boost sales. At least according to Dave / Steve / Benjamin / fernz33 / MinuteMaid or which ever username he decides to use this week.

Does anyone know who's sytem this is?

http://img409.imageshack...09/1838/image038bf9.jpg

Some insane, obsessed fanboy posted this but now claims he doesnt own a PS3. I'm very confused.

BD is circling the drain. 4 million PS3's and they can barely keep ahead (in movie sales) of a quarter miliion HD-DVD players.

Let's not forget that the PS3 loses hundreds of dollars for Sony with every sale. However, it is a great gaming system with a lot of potential, too bad it got thrown into the failing world of BD.

...... the rant filled with exclamation points and the word "fud" and probably a couple "loosers" will be thrown in there will ensue very soon from our redident circus freak / troll / drone / lemming / sheep / shill.

p.s. Ill be here until the rapture belittling that moron every single chance I get. Why? Because I can.

Score: 0

By Rolphus

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 12:43 PM

You might want to note that CE-link is an implementation of HDMI-CEC, which is a standard adopted by a reasonable number of companies to allow control of consumer electronics devices through HDMI - the HD-DVD could set the TV to the right HDMI input, switch it to movie mode, etc, all without the user being forced to do it manually. I haven't experimented with it (seeing as my Samsung M87 TV supports it but nothing else I own does), but it does seem like a reasonably promising way of getting cross-brand products to talk to each other.

Also, on the HD-DVD thing... I got my XBox 360 HD-DVD drive on Friday, and insanely good picture quality aside (I was expecting it to be essentially perfect, and it is on the titles I've tested so far), the interactivity features rock. Menus are much less intrusive, and can be called up from anywhere. Picture-in-picture is cool, and I can see people coming up with really creative ways to use it.

The only downside I've had so far is that the software HD-DVD player on the 360 doesn't seem to be 100% stable. I've had a couple of odd crashes when mashing through different combinations of button presses to see how hard I can push the system.

Score: 0

By hiyoag

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 12:36 PM

"HD DVD's movie attach rate is also much higher than that of Blu-rays."

Sorry to be slow, but what is an "attach rate?"

Score: 0

By Rolphus

edited Aug 6, 2007 - 12:46 PM

I believe "attach rate" is the name given to the ratio of purchased movies/games/music to the devices themselves... so an attach rate of 7:1 for HD DVD would mean that, on average, people who buy HD DVD players have bought 7 HD DVD movies.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 4:57 PM

Sort of, it actually means that HD-DVD owners buy 7 times as many movies as BD / PS3 owners.

That is why the numbers are so close in movie sales despite there being 17 times as many PS3's as there are HD-DVD players in peoples homes.

That alone is a sure sign of failure for Blu-Ray. Dismal movie sales and losses on every player sold and staggering losses for every PS3 sold.

Score: 0

By Latz !

edited Aug 7, 2007 - 6:28 AM

This is why the PS3 isn't counted, and the attach rates show it. People buy the PS3 to play games, they may buy a movie or two but primarily it's a gaming system. The fact that it can play movies doesn't mean people use it to do so. A standalone player on the other hand (or the 360 addon) are guaranteed to be used for movies since that is all they do.

Score: 0

By hiyoag

posted Aug 6, 2007 - 12:57 PM

That makes sense. Thanks

Score: 0

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