DVD Spin Doctor

Toshiba's HD-A2 a killer deal at Wal-Mart

I bought some Wal-Mart stock earlier this week, so of course the yellow-smiley retailer had to do something special to welcome its new HD video-obsessed investor.

Through the end of business today (Saturday), Wal-Mart stores are selling Toshiba's HD-A2 HD DVD player for $98.87. That's about $45 off the HD-A2's's going rate at Amazon. That price apparently just came down $50. Over at Circuit City, the offer is $130.

Get this: The player comes with the format's five-free-discs offer.

The small print says "minimum 10 players per store," so don't buy your HDMI cable before visiting the store.

This is an older machine, but it has all the toys such as new generation lossless audio -- everything except support for 1080p images. That is a complicated geeked-out issue and it really won't matter for a while, so the player price is a screaming blue-light special.

Even if you don't want to invest in HD discs, this is still a great deal. The HD-A2 upconverts standard DVDs to 720p or 1080i picture resolution. The OPPO players pioneered this technology and it's for real. My Blu-ray player, the Samsung BD-P1200, supercharges every DVD it plays. I almost never use my perfecly fine regular DVD players.

If you miss out on the Toshiba loss leader, just keep watching the circulars. Black Friday should be a very interesting day in the electronics world.

Meanwhile, Kmart was busy Friday denying reports that it was going HD DVD-only. And the Internet chatter that Warner is out of the Blu-ray trade group en route to HD DVD-only seems like bullshit, but who knows.

My advice on HD remains to look at how the studios are aligned in the format war -- got kids? Disney is all Blu-ray -- and see if that makes the choice obvious. If not, go for the best player in your price range and don't worry about it.

Update: Home Media magazine reports that the "secret" HD DVD promo didn't leave most of the people who responded with happy faces.

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Study: High-def TV owners clueless

Here's a real brain scrambler: Most owners of high-definition TV sets really aren't all that interested in upgrading to HD DVD or Blu-ray. The decade-old DVD format works just fine for them.

The NPD Group, which crunches numbers on just about every product on the planet, polled 5,500 owners of HDTVs. (Most higher-priced TVs come HD-ready these days.) Half of the TV owners (52%) were aware of high-definition players and content, but only 11% intended to buy an HD player in the next six months.

Get this: 73% of HDTV owners said they didn't see the need to replace their standard-definition players. Other HDTV owners were waiting for player prices to fall. (To what, $99? Check out this Toshiba).

HD DVD had more brand recognition, despite the mighty ad campaigns conducted for Blu-ray. About 29% of the consumers had some knowledge of HD DVD; only 20% were up on Blu-ray. (The self-descriptive HD DVD name probably gave an assist to that format.)

Early adopters don't seem to be championing the formats -- only 1 in 5 consumers reported hearing about HD players from friends and family. One reason could be the serial problems with players that wouldn't load some high-profile titles. (The fix usually comes in the form of downloaded "firmware updates" from manufacturers, a pain on most machines.)

Then there's the relative shortage of HD movies and TV shows.

"We're seeing some frustration ... among people who've made the plunge, because they currently cannot get enough content to meet their needs," said NPD analyst Russ Crupnick. "These early adopters aren't choosing to evangelize high-definition players to others, in large part because they are unhappy with the available selection."

Player owners told pollsters they'd like to buy nearly two-thirds (63%) of upcoming new releases in high definition -- and only 37% in the existing standard DVD format.

Read the NPD summary of the report.

For the record, I have been happy with my Samsung BD-P1200 Blu-ray player.

HD DVD deal doesn't add up

The news that Paramount and "Shrek" house DreamWorks Animation are going HD DVD-only can only mean several more years of format foolishness. Reports circulated Monday that the HD DVD camp paid the studios about $150 million to make this stunner of a deal happen. (Paramount had no comment on the reports.)

The studio chieftains, Paramount's Brad Gray and DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, both cited the affordability of the HD DVD format. True for now, but not for long. Entry-level player prices are headed straight down in both formats. If you can commit to paying $25-$35 or so a pop for titles, the price difference between lower-priced players can't be all that important. The Blu-ray "300" disc is cheaper than the HD DVD.

Katzenberg said the decision served "a key segment of our audience -- families." Hard to buy that one. If anything, families would be best served by making titles available in the same format that kiddie powerhouse Disney uses.

Update (8/23): I've spiked the rest of this post, which basically said Blu-ray players had frequent problems playing discs and required firmware updates to make these titles work. That is true, but I implied that HD DVD players did not. Unfortunately, I relied too much on personal experience and on a couple of Blu-ray-bashing articles, and not enough on research. HD DVD has similar issues, although I have not experienced a single one in the nine months I've been an owner. With Blu-ray, I've had several disc compatibility issues in a short time. Your mileage probably will vary. I regret the errors. Thanks to the High-Def Digest forum for pointing out the problems in the post.

Related story: Fox skeds 29 Blu-ray exclusives for '07.

Xbox price cuts no apparent help for HD

Microsoft just cut the price of its outboard HD DVD drive for Xbox 360 to $179, a $20 savings. The news comes days after reports that some form of $50 reduction is due Aug. 8 for 360 consoles.

In addition, buyers of the HD DVD drive get five free HD DVDs via the high-def format's promotion (which mimicks the five-freebie deal from the Blu-ray camp).

Thinking this through, it seems the cuts won't change the fast-moving economics of high def.

The PS3 machine (which plays Blu-rays via its internal drive) more or less matches the price of that format's regular standalone players, making still it an attractive option short-term if you have any use for games. Many of PS3's initial sales were due to Blu-ray.

An Xbox Pro ($399) and HD DVD drive ($179) could in theory be combined solely to deliver HD DVD. But the regular consumer HD DVD machines are cheaper than Blu-ray machines, selling at Amazon for as low as $240. Paying north of $500 to get high def this way would be nuts, especially considering the flimsy-crappy construction of the Xbox HD DVD player.

The scenario gets worse if you move to the The Xbox 360 Elite (pictured, $479), which favors movie downloaders with its HDMI output and 120GB hard drive but still needs the add-on unit for HD DVD. (The Elite pipes in high-def films at a good price point via Xbox Live's Marketplace, however. I want one.)

Seems to me that the Xbox outboard HD DVD drive no longer makes sense for gamers, either.

Try a $70 price cut, guys.

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Blu-ray gets boost from PS3 price cut

A lot of activity on the Blu-ray front in the past few days. Here's the latest:

1. Sony announces PS3 price drop
Sony confirmed today that it is dropping the price of its current PlayStation 3 to $499. This brings the Blu-ray compatible game system into the same price range as the format's standalone players. The hardware giant also is rolling out an 80-gigabyte PS3 ($599) that will be of interest primarily to gamers. Xbox just started selling its bigger hard-drive model for $499. For the HD DVD format, this is further bad news as consumers now have two attractive choices for lowest price players. Still, HD DVD players remain several hundred dollars below the friendliest Blu-ray player price. As you can see in the press release, Sony thinks the big news is the new gaming console. PSP3 would have been a stunning failure without the purchases made for the Blu-ray players, most analysts agree.

2. EC taking look at Blu-ray deals with studios
Team HD DVD scored a win in Europe as antitrust watchdogs agreed to dig further into the Blu-ray group's agreements with the major Hollywood studios. Disney, in particular, has been a major cheerleader for the format with releases such as "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." The Wall Street Journal broke the story.

3. Five-pack of pics with Blu-ray player purchase
HD DVD players enjoyed a sales boost with the free-movie promotion earlier this year. Now, the Blu-ray group is running a similar promo for purchases of players, including the new Sonys and the PS3. The deal for five discs runs through Halloween. The movies are no great shakes -- I'd be hard-pressed to find five worth playing -- but your mileage may vary. Access the coupon via bluraysavings.com

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Blu-ray special: $499 player from Sony

Sony's figured out that $599 really is a lot more than $299, saying today that the price of its new Blu-ray player will be $499, not the previously announced $599.

Toshiba's now selling standalone HD DVD players for $299 (HD-A2 HD-DVD Player), so you're still getting a $200 discount for buying the superior (but lagging) high-def format.

The $499 list on the new Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray player is $100 less than the PlayStation 3 game console, on which most people seem to be watching movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." Movie watchers gripe about fan noise from the PS3 units, so the new Sony unit appears to be the way to go, if you want Blu-ray.

I have long disliked Toshiba as a brand -- based on godawful experiences with their satellite PC laptops and their Nixonian customer service -- so I bought the Xbox 360's add-on HD DVD player. It's just OK -- a cheap machine in all respects -- but once the movie starts, you're transported by A/V magic, as with any of these players.

My best guess is the idiotic format war will drag on for another two years. Don't count on universal players for more than a Band-Aid.

Recommendation: Weigh the quality of product and low price (nod to HD DVD) vs. availability of titles and likely format winner (Blu-Ray, which has Sony and Disney as exclusives). Factor in your game console situation. And your tendency to upgrade players and titles.

For my personal use, this adds up to HD DVD, since I care a lot about A/V, the kids are too old for most Disney discs and I have an Xbox 360. For many others, playing it safe equals buying Blu-ray. So today's news could be very good indeed.

In any case, if you have the high-def monitor (TV) and a few bucks, you can't go too far wrong. High def is the immediate future and DVDs are the past. Waiting is the only big mistake.

Update 8/21/07: "Buy a Blu-ray, become a beta tester" on the DVD blog.

Read more about the Blu-ray price cut
Read "The Matrix" an HD DVD stunner

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Apple TV gets a thumbs-up

New York Times tech guy David Pogue reviews the Apple TV, which connects computers and TVs via your home network. He follows up with some outtakes on his blog.

"So what is Apple TV? Basically, it’s an iPod for your TV. That is, it copies the iTunes library (music, podcasts, TV shows, movies) from one Mac or Windows PC on your wired or wireless home network to its 40-gigabyte hard drive and keeps the copy updated. ... It works elegantly and effortlessly. But there are lots of unanswered questions that make onlookers wonder if Apple has bigger plans for the humble Apple TV."

Read the review
Read the blog

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray DVD players

High definition DVD player review: Here's a detailed and thoughtful article by dvdactive.com's Benjamin Willcock about getting HD-DVD via the Xbox360 add-on. He makes a strong case in favor of HD-DVD over Blu-Ray.

A couple of caveats: Willcock doesn't have the gear to display 1080i images, which is sort of the point. And I would disagree about the Xbox 360 HD player appearing to be high-quality AV gear. Our first, at Christmas, was warped, with parts loose inside and an evil mechanical sound when trying to play it. We got another player that works fine, but it still feels like a cheap product. Until you start watching! Best HD disc I've seen to date is "Miami Vice" the movie. Read more HD content.

The Ultimate Matrix Collection