Toshiba to draw first blood in Europe with HD DVD

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 05 September 2006 05:22

Your IT - Home IT

After beating Blu-ray to the market in the US and Japan by months, Toshiba looks determined to make it accessible to European consumers in November ahead of the release of Sony's PlayStation 3, which will also be released in November. However, Samsung looks set to beat the pair to the starting line in Europe, when it launches its Blu-ray player on the Continent in October.

The bad news for residents of Europe is that players of both high definition video formats are likely to be even more expensive than they currently are in the US.

For some consumers, their best bet will be to take advantage of the heavily subsidised prices of games consoles in November, with full featured Blu-ray players available with PS3 consoles for US$599 and Xbox 360 consoles plus an add-on HD DVD player likely to be available for around the same price.

However, it may be difficult for consumers everywhere to get their hands on games console high definition video solution during 2006 because of demand exceeding supply, especially in the case of PS3, where production ramp has been slow.

While the competing high definition formats jockey for position in Europe, disc-maker TDK is doing its best to widen the storage gap between the two formats. TDK, which is a Blu-ray supporter, has already produced rewritable 50GB Blu-ray discs and now has reportedly produced 200GB prototype disc.