Dan Warne22 January 2008, 4:26 AM
Sony is in the final stretch of killing HD-DVD, offering free Blu-ray playing PlayStation 3s with certain TVs, while Toshiba slashed the price of HD-DVD players today by 50%.
Massive price drops have marked the beginning of the end for HD-DVD, with Toshiba slashing prices by 50% today.
But Sony, maker of the competing Blu-ray format, is making a concerted effort to ensure the swift death of HD-DVD by offering free Blu-ray-playing PlayStation 3s with certain models of Bravia TV.
Toshiba's HD-DVD pricing is now as follows:
- HD-E1: was $599, now $299 with four free movies
- HD-EP10: was $799, now $399 with six free movies
- HD-XE1: was $1299, now $599 with 11 free movies.
Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the XE1's 11 free movies are worth about $400 alone, so you could theoretically snag a top-of-the-line HD-DVD player for about $200 under Toshiba's new pricing.
Toshiba's HD-DVD players will also upscale your standard DVDs to "near high-definition"quality when you play them back via an HDMI connection, which is a bonus for people who already have HDTVs.
 Sony PS3: ease of software upgradeability makes it the best BluRay player at present |
Unfortunately, with most movie studios having announced they will produce movies exclusively for Blu-ray in the future, it seems unlikely that Toshiba's price cuts will win many customers.
One exception, perhaps is people who happen to need a new DVD player anyway and figure they may as well replace it with a cheap HD-DVD player and enjoy a few free movies, even if they can't buy many high-def movies in the future.
Currently, the only studios that are still committed to producing HD-DVD movies are Universal and Paramount, but the largest producer of home videos, Warner, switched its allegiance to Blu-ray on the eve of the international tech tradeshow, CES Las Vegas. The other studios lined up behind Blu-ray are a formidable barrier for the HD-DVD camp to overcome, including Sony, Fox, MGM, Disney and Lions Gate.
Sony is obviously keen to keep the momentum going to the finish line, offering free PlayStation 3s with Bravia XBR, X and W TVs.
However, even Blu-ray is not yet a clear choice for consumers, as initially produced players may not be able to access special features of Blu-ray movies yet to be released.
Early Blu-ray players were only capable of playing the Blu-ray 1.0 specification, however, the newer 1.1 profile requires secondary audio and video hardware decoders as well as 256MB of storage in the player for content. The future 2.0 profile needs an additional set of hardware decoders (bringing the total up to two video and two audio decoders) for picture-in-picture functionality, along with 1GB of storage for content.
The PS3 is widely regarded as the best Blu-ray player available because of the ease of upgrading its firmware to cope with new Blu-ray movie features, but consumers may still hold off on buying other home theatre Blu-ray players until they are fully Blu-ray 2.0 compliant.