Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 22 January 2008 11:40
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Toshiba Australia’s huge 50% price drop on three HD DVD players with a
stack of free movies either signals the clear out stock at relatively
cheap prices, or a price-led effort to revive HD DVD’s fortunes – which
is it?
Uh-oh... when massive price drops start happening, it’s either because the cost of production has gone down and competition has gone up, forcing prices down, or because you’re trying to clear out old stock to get some of your money back.
As everyone knows, when Warner decided to back Blu-ray all the way, Blu-ray could now count 70% of major movie studios releasing movies in their format.
Since then, whispers over how soon Paramount and Universal would do the same and guarantee no major studio support for HD DVD have raced across the Internet, with most people coming to the conclusion that it’s only a ‘matter of time’.
So, faced with promoting a format that has seemingly lost, the best time to get rid of all the remaining stock at half price is right now – when there are still plenty of HD DVD titles available to give away as freebies, and plenty of HD DVD discs still in stores alongside their Blu-ray brethren.
Toshiba’s entry level player, the HD-E1, was selling for AUD $599, but now retails for only $299 – and comes with four free HD DVD movies. The mid-range HD-EP10 was $799, but is now $399 and comes with six free movies.
The top-of-the-line HD-XE1 with 1080p output and Dolby 5.1 surround sound has been slashed from $1299 down to only $599 with 11 free movies.
Naturally if you look at the retail cost of the ‘free’ movies and remove that from the cost of the HD DVD player, the hardware itself becomes even cheaper, making the HD DVD player the best value high-def player around, albeit with a much smaller selection of movies than is available on Blu-ray or plain ol’ DVD.
Still, Toshiba’s HD DVD players can play regular DVDs, and apparently all of the models will upscale those DVDs to look sharper on 40-inch and larger HDTVs – but only if you are connecting using an HDMI cable, so if you’re tempted by Toshiba’s deal, make sure that your HDTV has HDMI or you can’t use the upscaling feature with your regular DVD collection.
Depending on the model you buy, a regular DVD player that can upscale DVDs would likely be much cheaper than even the newly price-reduced HD DVD players, so only movie aficionados wanting to watch existing HD DVD titles would truly be tempted by Toshiba’s cut-price deal.
So, is the alternative any better? Please read onto page 2...
