According to Business Section of Los Angeles Times today (Jan 16), Toshiba will cut the prices for its line of " HD DVD Players" as much as %40 to %50m in order to edge "Blu-Ray" revival in the market. Look like this war is getting heated and consumers finally are befitting from computation.

TCAS, that news about cutting the prices is already taking place.

Toshiba now sets the price $149 (for A3) up to $399 MSRP for their flagship player. Online and instore changed their price tag and I've seen at my local Bestby an A3 for $149.99. I believe soon we will see street price of $99 on sale.

Zevia, The $149.99 price tag for A3 is not a big deal really this price has been available for long time as a regular price at leapt at Fry's Electronic.

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/541...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG

So we should expect much better price cut as you pointed out at min $99 for the A3 and also good sale price for A30 and other models.

This is the news you referred to from LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...ck=1&cset=true

Anyway, the story is, Toshiba and HD DVD camp is fighting back by cutting the prices. Eventually average consumers will jump on this deal. Interesting to see what happen if the Blu-ray camp respond with lowering blu-ray players price. I think it will just make more confusion for consumers and retailers as well.

Yeah an pure price-war on the players to be the winner for BR vs HD race is going to suck. I was hoping a combination of features/price/movie availability should be the winning factor in the long run.

Yes and no. It might make things confusing for the customers and the retailers at first but once they get a bit cheaper, people will be more likely to invest in a format that won't matter if it ends up losing. Furthermore if you think all of the BOGO sales you have been enjoying would still be in place after a definite winner was declared then think again. You would be hard pressed to find any title for less than about $25 at that point (at least new anyways). That and as you pointed out it might encourage the greedy folks in the Blu-Ray camp to lower their prices. Incidentally the article has a typo though, the flagship A35's list price is actually $299 now and not $399. Amazon has it for $270 right now.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Regardless of which format you're dealing with, you are NOT just competing against each other. You are competing against DVD, the established format. So if they don't offer those sales and lower prices, then the inventory will sit on the shelf as mainstream uses these new players as upscaling DVD players rather than HD players. Too many people like to narrow the scope of the pricing war to just between the HD formats when in reality, BOTH sides are up against a MUCH tougher opponent. Why would the average consumer buy a movie for 25+ USD when they can just buy the DVD for less and upscale it? Most people already think DVD looks good enough anyway. You upscale it for them and the majority are going to think it's HD already. There would be no perceived benefit to buying Blu-ray or HD DVD's at that point. Those who believe the price drops are over just because we may get down to one HD format are kidding themselves, IMO. There's nothing else they can compete on. Prices MUST be lower or HD adoption will *NEVER* happen and both formats will ultimately lose.

I currently have a BD player which is 1.0. My question is, will there be firmware upgrade where i will be able to get 1.1 such as pip?

I would greatly appreciate if any one could assist me

Thanking you in advance

Fernando

VERY unlikely, no. Sorry. 1.0 BD players don't have the hardware to support 1.1. It's not a firmware upgrade unless you have a PS3.

True, I was talking strictly between the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats. Honestly there is no way that either of them will beat out regular DVD, especially with decent up-conversion players being widespread. Truth be told only about 40% of the titles on either format really have any noticeable difference over up-converted DVD. So the high def players will really only be a supplement to the standard DVDs.

Only for a few, eg. some from Sony. We will see if that rumour is true or not.
On the other side, the lack of power of these older ones is the reason for some studios prducing titles with 2 versions: 1 is normal and the second has a pre-produced "PIP" hardcoded..............

Thus far the PS3 is the only one we know for sure that is upgradable to the V1.1 spec.

I'm not sure I agree with the 40% statistic on that one. In my experience, on a GOOD HDTV, you can notice it very easily. HOWEVER, Average Joe Consumer is not going to buy a GOOD HDTV, he's going to buy an AFFORDABLE HDTV. So, in that case, yes, it becomes harder to tout the benefits of true HD vs upscaling. This is why I say prices on content have to come in line closer to what we have for DVD. As long as HD remains a niche market, we're going to get socked with higher prices. If it is to hit mainstream, prices have to drop to get people interested in it. I'm not talking player prices as I feel that's mostly irrelevant long term, I'm talking about content.

I don't know, my HTPC seems to handle 1.1 pretty well. LOL! (I know, I'm just being a smart *** )

With the latest firmware, PS3 is already upgraded to Profile 1.1. And it is actually ready for Profile 2.0 discs since PS3 has wireless connectivity (and a LAN port if I can add).

I haven't try with Resident Evil Extinction, War and 3:10 to Yuma (all Profile 1.1) yet but reports say that PiP works.

Yup, the PS3 is supposed to be upgradable to V2.0 as well. I just wonder what is going to happen to those who purchased the V1.0 standalones.

Looking at War and 3:10 to Yuma in the store the other day and I noticed they support 7.1 sound also. Just had a quick look so don't quote me.

There has been very quite week on the war front of HD & BR so far. Look like HD standing firmed despite WB jumped to BR camp.

According to the www.cdrlabs.com site:


Ken Graffeo: Universal Has No Plans To Drop HD DVD
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:47 PM CST Posted By: Ian

Contrary to post-CES rumors, Universal Studios has no plans to drop HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray. In a recent interview with BetaNews, Ken Graffeo of Universal has stated that the company is not making any changes to its strategy at this time.
First of all, I want to say that none of those rumors were substantiated. Nobody ever talked to us. I know nobody talked to Paramount because Brenda, their PR person, sent out a statement immediately. This is business as usual for us and there are no plans to make any changes. We just made an announcement of our new HD DVD titles yesterday, with American Gangster. We also have a lot of other things planned. It's business as usual.

Business implies sales. When those sales come to a creeping halt because no one's buying HD DVD anymore, I think things WILL change. Yea, no intention to do so now, but, if they aren't making money, they will change.