Toshiba picks up the pieces of its HD DVD plan

Faced with an embarrassing postponement, if not outright cancellation, of the HD DVD consortium's CES festivities, the champion of the format is going ahead with marketing plans for its "third-generation" consoles.

Toshiba logoThe timing for Toshiba couldn't have been worse, when one of its key technology partners in the creation of HD DVD -- Warner Bros. -- broke ranks to join the Blu-ray Disc Association last Friday. Faced with no other option, Toshiba played damage control as best it could on Sunday at CES. The president of its US consumer products division, Akiyo Ozaka, told reporters at a briefing this morning that while his company was "disappointed" by Warner's move, citing rising sales numbers since Black Friday, its format "is not dead."

"Clearly, the events of the last few days have led many of you to that conclusion," Toshiba's Jodi Sally told reporters Sunday. "We have been declared dead before. The reality is we ended 2007 with a majority of the year-to-date market share."

As a way of demonstrating HD DVD is at least somewhat alive, the company announced it's dropping the price of its high-end HD-XA2 to $799, which is about $200 less than its going street price. But at the same time, it's holding the line on prices of its third-generation consoles in the value and mainstream segments.

The HD-A30 and HD-A35 will stay at $399 and $499, respectively. Both consoles output 1080p resolution at 24 frames per second, and feature two-way HDMI connectivity with compatible HDTV displays.

What's clearly missing is an "HD-XA3," which had been rumored for a possible announcement well prior to CES. The third generation is said to benefit from firmware upgrades that, among other things, speed up the load times for newly inserted discs. It also features that upgraded HDMI connectivity, which for now even the firmware-upgraded HD-XA2 appears to lack.

While Toshiba may not have new HD DVD players to show this winter, it will have new HDMI-capable displays utilizing what it's calling its REGZA technology. Those new displays will be previewed on the CES floor starting Monday.

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