Las Vegas (LV) - HD DVD continues to undercut the overall price structure of Blu-ray: Following the recent release of a $1000 1080p HD DVD player, Toshiba today announced a $600 device that is capable of taking advantage of the full 1080p resolution of HD DVD video content.
There is little doubt that high-definition will be become much more exciting in 2007 than it was in 2006. Running a fully equipped high-definition home theater will get significantly cheaper in 2007: While we would not call "full HD" quite mainstream yet, many of us will be able to get their hands on 1080p TVs and players.
Toshiba's new HD-A20 HD DVD player is the most affordable way yet to watch 1080p movies, besides Sony's (Blu-ray) player that comes with the Playstation 3. The new device, scheduled to be available sometime this Spring, complements the $1000 HD-XA2 as well as the $500 and entry-level HD-A2, which is limited to 720p and 1080i.
Both the HD-A20 and the high end HD-XA2 HD DVD player deliver HD resolution via HDMI. The difference between the HD-A20 and the HD-XA2 is support for Deep Color output through HDMI and a 297 MHz / 12 bit Video DAC with 4x oversampling for increased bandwidth, which is only available in the XA2.
The HD-A2, HD-A20, and HD-XA2 are backward compatible with CD and DVD playback.
