Welcome back Fred. I have resisted the BluRay-HD-DVD market long enough. Black Friday, I will take the plunge at Sears at 5am as the Toshiba A3 is 169.00 and it includes two movies.
Grey Poupon? Just Eat the French's
Fast forward to this year when the Toshiba A2 started off selling for $500 and is now available, in limited quantities, for – ahem - $99 at Walmart, "this" Friday only (10 per store, tough nuts if they run out). That's what capitalism is all about my friend. One guy sells a hot dog for a dollar, the other guy drops his price to $.95, then the first guy lowers his price to $.90 and then – oh wait, there is no other guy. Toshiba is pretty much the only hot dog salesman on the block!
So why the rapid price cuts? This week in L.A., the BlurayFlooziesFest kept harping on the newly announced Panasonic DMP-BD30 player which streets November 12th for a new, super low price of $499! They're getting seriously excited because the price dropped $50! Meanwhile, Toshiba has what, to a casual observer, could look like "Going out of Business" signs pasted to their storefront. Come on Toshiba, don't let 'em see you sweat.
As much as I love HD DVD, and as much as I appreciate the fact that every HD DVD player to date (okay, every Toshiba player to date) can accept firmware updates with just a few clicks of the remote (and a high speed connection), it's painful to know that I might never see Ratatouille in high def unless I get a Blu-ray player. And yes, Tom, I'm being a little facetious.
All the hype aside, there really is more room on a BD disc and being an audiophile first and a videophile second, I can get behind the better sound of lossless PCM tracks. So a BD player is definitely in my future, but exactly when is open to discussion.
At first, I was planning on making the jump to Blu-ray when MGS4 (Metal Gears Solid 4) came out just after Christmas. If you don't know what that is, it's a game, not a movie, but never mind, it's been delayed to Q2 2008. So now I need another reason. Maybe Ratchet and Clank starring – ah okay, just funnin' ya! It's a PS3 game too. So I guess you know what kind of a Blu-ray player I'm going to get. And I guess you know what kind of software is driving me to Blu-ray. Besides, Sony's announced the PS3's will get firmware updates to profile 1.1 and I'm guessing 2.0 as well in the future. Nice having a hard drive and an Ethernet port.
So what about the sub $100 HD DVD players? Well, look at it this way. You're a Blu-ray snob fan and your wife puts an HD DVD player she picked up at Walmart under the tree along with some paperwork that nets you five free HD movies. You struggle with the decision whether to tell her that any moron knows that Blu-ray has space for 20 extra gigabytes and that for an extra $400 she could have gotten something truly meaningful and worthy of you – or you just graciously accept the gift and thank her, whipping out your laptop and ordering a boat load of movies with the $400 she just saved.
We'll see what the Holidays bring, but if the rocket scientists of retail can figure out how to put a $200 HD DVD player (hey, quantities of the $100 ones were limited!) next to a couple of 2-for-1 HD DVD discs, Toshiba, Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks are going to sell a heck of a lot of hot dogs.
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Comments
Submitted by Wheres TheRemote on November 2, 2007 - 9:15am.
I've been on the fence so long, I have open sores. The cheapest hd player in the Great White North, is the A3 at $349. If I could get them at $99, I would buy one for each TV in the house. I lean towwards the BluRay, but Fred, you are bang on: take the $400 and buy myself some ointment and bandages and enjoy the movies.
Submitted by Cajun_Mike on November 2, 2007 - 9:55am.
By the way, that 16-dollar A-3 at Sears on Black Friday comes with "300" and "The Bourne Identity" in the box and it appears that the Toshiba coupon for 5 free HD-DVD movies by mail with proof of purchase is still valid. So that's 169 bucks for the player and 7 movies. SOUNDS LIKE A FREE PLAYER TO ME.
Submitted by Aussie Cynic on November 2, 2007 - 3:19pm.
The whole format war is a non event in Australia and it looks like only the USA has any real battles going on. Blu Ray has already won in most regions of the world and it now looks like Toshiba is raising the white flag in the home of the brave by having a fire sale on items that they could not sell. I appreciate that all of the major studio's are in America and that their egos are in this thing as well, but really, the two formats are in reality the bargain basement cheap end of town against a quality mid range product. Life is too short not to eat Heinz Baked Beans, so lets get this whole thing over with and let Blu Ray march forward.
Submitted by Aussie Cynic on November 3, 2007 - 5:13pm.
Justin, depending on whose figures you believe in Europe there is a case for both formats. If you take the HD-DVD Group's figures, then HD-DVD is in front. If you take the independent disc sales figures, then Blu Ray leads. As to what you say regarding importing HD-DVD from Europe via Amazon, I agree but here in Oz we get the Mission Impossible series on Blu Ray, had Spiderman 3 a month ago and also have the supposedly HD-DVD only Face Off on Blu Ray.
Submitted by Fred on November 4, 2007 - 8:45am.
CajunMike, I just saw the A2 on Amazon for $139, which is pretty good. WherestheRemote - yes $99 per room for an HD DVD player sounds good, but now you have to go out and get a high def TV in all those rooms too :) Hey, Down Under! Thanks for visiting our site! We have MI on HD DVD. In actuality, if they can get Blu-ray players into Walmart (or Wallaby-Mar t)for $99 too, I don't think anybody would care what color the disc box was - they could just buy two players. Of course, a $99 combo player, now THERE's the ticket :)
Submitted by Fred on November 4, 2007 - 9:11am.
Okay, I wrote this blog Nov ember 1st, and I had not seen this commercial which, looks like, came out the same day (or at least, was reported Nov 1 as well on Hidefdigest's site). Check it out - Am I clairvoyant or what? http://youtube.com/watch?v=WG_lJmxCenI If that doesn't work, just go to youtube and type "Walmart Toshiba" in your search
Submitted by David Vaughn on November 6, 2007 - 8:15pm.
Fred, I thought they would move 70K, but selling 90K + some unreported sales (of the A3), and I would say it was a good weekend for the Red folks. That puts their installed players (counting the add-on for the XBOX) somewhere in the neighborhood of 550,000 players vs. about 200,000 Blu-ray players (not counting the PS3 which is somewhere around 2.5 million). But how many of those PS3's are being utilized for Blu-ray Disc playback? That's the $64,000 question. David
Submitted by Cajun_Mike on November 8, 2007 - 7:31pm.
HAHAHA. Who are these nutjobs? You would think these people are fans of rival European soccer clubs or Red Sox and Yankee fans. http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/07/format-war-gets-more-warlike/
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