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In the aftermath of the Warner defection to Blu-ray, Toshiba has announced ridiculously cheap pricing on all of its HD DVD players.
Toshiba has gone mad!!! Everything must go!!!
With the two technologies being quite similar, the main distinctions left are price of ownership and media. With Blu-ray all-but-sewing-up its grip on the movie houses, pretty much all that Toshiba has left now is its ability to discount its players.
The new pricing is as follows:
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Toshiba HD-E1: $299 with one title in the box plus three titles via redemption.
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Toshiba HD-EP10: $399 with one title in the box plus five titles via redemption.
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Toshiba HD-XE1: $599 with one title in the box plus ten titles via redemption.
Of course, all three players will also upscale your DVDs, so even if HD DVD loses this war at least you’ll be able to watch your existing movie collection in HD. Toshiba also likes to make mention of the fact that all players are networkable by default, and so give greater access to interactive content than Profile 1.0 Blu-ray players.
Toshiba announced its first big price drop in November 2007, and as a result of the latest announcement, the XE1 is now the cheapest premium player on the market, having dropped in price by AU$1000 since launch.
In August, Toshiba looked like it could be close to securing a big stake in HD after Paramount moved to HD DVD only. Yet six months later the entire landscape has changed with Sony’s Blu-ray now claiming 70 percent of movie releases under its banner.
