HD DVD players become DVD upscalers in format war fallout

In an attempt to clear their shelves of dead HD DVD weight, retailers are taking the obvious step of slashing prices. Others, like play.com are renaming the players. Thanks to the magic of Google cache, we see that Toshiba's "HD-EP30 HD DVD Player" (as it was known on February 15th) is now listed as the "HD-EP30 HDMI Upscaling Player with HD DVD High Definition Playback." Caveat emptor, as they say.

Update: Looks like Circuit City's jumped on the bandwagon as well -- the HD-A3 is now listed as an "Upconversion DVD/HD-DVD Player."

[Via TechRadar, thanks David]

Read - Old listing (via Google Cache)
Read - Current listing
Read - Circuit City HD-A3 listing (old listing)

[Matthew @ Feb 21st 2008 8:07AM]

booooo.. why would someone buy one now

[Benga @ Feb 21st 2008 8:10AM]

Um... No lie here, it does upscale DVDs (rolls eyes)

[ClaMs @ Feb 21st 2008 8:14AM]

From the image, it looks like 3 people did buy it, and left reviews.

Wonder how many players are still left on shelves.

[coolbee8 @ Feb 21st 2008 12:40PM]

But will it blend?

[Shane @ Feb 21st 2008 2:22PM]

The Toshiba players do a fine job of upscaling DVDs. Why wouldn't you pick one up at a bargain price?

As for Blu-Ray, I'll buy one when it hits $99 for a standalone player or when I can afford to buy a PS3.

[NHAnimator @ Feb 21st 2008 8:14AM]

How (quickly) the mighty have fallen.

[Arno @ Feb 21st 2008 8:27AM]

18 - 1

Haha!

[Jim @ Feb 21st 2008 10:16AM]

Pwned!

[Prey521 @ Feb 21st 2008 11:41AM]

HAHAHAHAHA! Good one Arno! Patriots SUCK!!!!

[teej @ Feb 21st 2008 11:41AM]

ahhh i'm a pats fan, but that was mighty goood.

[jdelmo13 @ Feb 21st 2008 3:58PM]

that's the funniest thing I've seen all week!!

[Sean Flanagan @ Feb 21st 2008 5:06PM]

That comment is all the more appropriate with your avatar.

[Jamesf @ Feb 21st 2008 8:16AM]

meh, get an Oppo. better picture and much faster.

that would have to be the slowest upscaler ever. sigh. I'm sad HD DVD lost, I genuinely believed that the better format would win, but it did not. Blu Ray is awesome, to be sure, and I love my PS3, but HD DVD was better for the consumer and better for smaller studios.

oh well. trudge on.

[Seanross @ Feb 21st 2008 9:52AM]

".... I genuinely believed that the better format would win, but it did not.."

I seem to remember BETAmax being the "better" format and look how that went, the general public does not know what the better format is, the know what ads and salesmen tell them

[muddyh2o @ Feb 21st 2008 10:35AM]

that just means that in future we should expect the inferior technology to win.

call is muddyh2o's law: when two, revolutionary technologies compete in the open market, the inferior one will always win in the end.

consumers (educated and uneducated alike) get screwed again.

[alexmueller @ Feb 21st 2008 11:58AM]

I don't see how HD-DVD was better, Blu-Ray is in 1080p HD-DVD is not, Blu-Ray has more storage space than HD-DVD, big plus for PC storage, the only thing HD-DVD had that was better was interactive features which Blu-Ray now has, granted it's late to the dance but at least they brought it. Cost isn't really a factor, as the cost would fall eventually no matter who won.

[Jeebus @ Feb 21st 2008 12:37PM]

@Seanross

You're an idiot.

[John Johnson @ Feb 21st 2008 8:25AM]

I think Engadget runs a story on HD-DVD losing roughly five times a day.

They're going to expand the blog family to include Engadget, Engadget Mobile, Engadget HD, and Engadget We-Told-You-So

[Brodie @ Feb 21st 2008 9:04AM]

It beats another unnamed gizmo blog that whines 20 times a day that Blu-ray is the winner and why they think that HD-DVD and themselves are superior... What a bunch of sore losers over there...

[Chebwa @ Feb 21st 2008 9:19AM]

And iEngadget.

[ScooterDe @ Feb 21st 2008 9:58AM]

and crapgadget.com

[Reid @ Feb 21st 2008 10:01AM]

John,

Well played, sir. I actually laughed out loud.

If you can get an upscaling DVD player + HD-DVD for, say, under $100, it wouldn't be all bad, since many upscaling players with HDMI are $60ish.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 21st 2008 8:26AM]

creative. technically true. and a good price, not good enough to consider a dvd upscaller that supports a dead format over, say, a low end ps3.

[steve @ Feb 21st 2008 8:36AM]

It costs 3 times less than a PS3

[Abuzar @ Feb 21st 2008 9:32AM]

I know that is not being sold in America, but around here you can get a brand new PS3 for about 330.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 21st 2008 9:49AM]

@steve:
my point is, $150 for this, $400 for a ps3, or $150 + whatever down the road when you want to start buying blu-ray movies, cause hd-dvd is no more.

[TrentD @ Feb 21st 2008 8:47AM]

This isn't surprising. Towards the end, Toshiba's advertising was shifting towards an "Add HD to your DVD" theme, including pushing the player as a regular upscaling player "with HD capability".

[shawnmos @ Feb 21st 2008 8:48AM]

Yeah, and what's your point? They work as upscallers so as long as they are within the price range of an upscalling DVD player they should have no problems clearing out their stock.

[computer.dude.28 @ Feb 21st 2008 9:08AM]

You might wanna consider changing your profile picture pretty soon..

[Alexander @ Feb 21st 2008 8:53AM]

Wait... People are still buying physical media?

HA! SUCKERS!

[TrentD @ Feb 21st 2008 9:13AM]

If you're satisfied with overcompressed 720p with standard DD 5.1 sound, chosen from a severely limited catalog of titles, then go ahead and enjoy your VuDu or AppleTV. Optical media is where the quality is.

[ScooterDe @ Feb 21st 2008 10:00AM]

TrentD, try bitTorrent. That's where the action is.

[Alexander @ Feb 21st 2008 10:18AM]

Hmm... Lets think here.

Watching an optical-media movie:

1. Select the title from hundreds of movies on your movie rack.
2. Put it into the optical-media player.
3. Select Input2 on TV. Power on Decoder for surround sound system.
4. Power on optical-media player.
5. Wait through previews you cannot fast forward through.
6. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no scratches on the disc.

Watching a movie off of my LinuxMCE machine:

1. Turn on TV.
2. Navigate to movie folder, and select title from the thousands on all computers on the network.
3. Press play. Enjoy the movie.

LinuxMCE turns on my decoder, dims the lights, and sets the sound for 'theater' mode and the movie never skips. Ever. All I have to do is hit play.

[TrentD @ Feb 21st 2008 10:22AM]

ScooterDe,

I don't steal the property of others, so I don't get my movies from BitTorrent. I realize there are legit uses for Torrents, but illicit movie sharing is not one I'm interested in partaking in.

[Prey521 @ Feb 21st 2008 11:43AM]

It's apparent that the only sucker here is you and the rest of the morons that think that HD Downloads will overtake physical media anytime soon.

[lazypoet @ Apr 30th 2008 11:22AM]

@Alexander:

Watching an optical-media movie:

0. Buy/Rent Movie
1. Select the title from hundreds of movies on your movie rack.
2. Put it into the optical-media player.
3. Select Input2 on TV. Power on Decoder for surround sound system.
4. Power on optical-media player.
5. Wait through previews you cannot fast forward through.
6. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no scratches on the disc.

Watching a movie off of my LinuxMCE machine:

0. Select, Queue, Download, Download, Download, and Verify Movie
1. Turn on TV.
2. Turn on Computer.
3. Wait for OS to load.
4. Wait for Media Program to load.
5. Check that you have the proper Codec.
6. Validate your DRM License
7. Press Play
8. Wait for movie to buffer.
9. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no corruption in the file.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

:-D Fixed!

[lazypoet @ Apr 30th 2008 11:22AM]

@Alexander:

Watching an optical-media movie:

0. Buy/Rent Movie
1. Select the title from hundreds of movies on your movie rack.
2. Put it into the optical-media player.
3. Select Input2 on TV. Power on Decoder for surround sound system.
4. Power on optical-media player.
5. Wait through previews you cannot fast forward through.
6. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no scratches on the disc.

Watching a movie off of my LinuxMCE machine:

0. Select, Queue, Download, Download, Download, and Verify Movie
1. Turn on TV.
2. Turn on Computer.
3. Wait for OS to load.
4. Wait for Media Program to load.
5. Check that you have the proper Codec.
6. Validate your DRM License
7. Press Play
8. Wait for movie to buffer.
9. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no corruption in the file.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

:-D Fixed!

[Alexander @ Feb 21st 2008 1:36PM]

Just to note: All of my media has been ripped from various media I own. DVD, HDDVD, and Blu-Ray. It's just in one physical location (my hard drives) rather than in the optical-media that I keep in my basement storage.

I also don't need three players, or hundreds of remotes.

[schiano @ Feb 21st 2008 8:10PM]

@alexander,
but instead, you wait roughly 45mins to rip each disk to the harddrive?

[Matt @ Feb 21st 2008 5:21PM]

Woah, nice backtrack there. Two seconds ago you were laughing at people that bought physical media. Now you are saying all your digital media is ripped from the physical media you bought. Nice work.

[mattclarkie @ Feb 21st 2008 8:54AM]

I was on play yesterday and noticed that. They still work out more expensive than an upscaler, but if you don't want real HD for some reason they are a reasonable price.

[TrentD @ Feb 21st 2008 9:14AM]

Except they CAN deliver real HD...

[mattclarkie @ Feb 21st 2008 9:22AM]

Can we put a block on any person posting...

"Physical media is old, Digital Distribution is the future"


Also I only have DD 5.1, is there really much difference between that and TrueHD 7.1?

Most 5.1 soundtracks are so crap that they rarely use anything but the left and right speakers, often not even using the centre speaker for dialogue. You get the occassional films, usually Sony that know how to use 5.1 and they sound brilliant, but the rest especially Universal make a complete Hash of it.

I often wonder why I spent so much of my Theatre rig if the films aren't made to use it properly.

And before you say it, Yes my rig is set-up properly.

[ScooterDe @ Feb 21st 2008 10:02AM]

No. Physical distribution IS old. Sorry. And digital distribution is here.

[DarCowAlways @ Feb 21st 2008 5:13PM]

I'm still goin' strong with the good old red and white stereo speakers over here :D

Who needs hundred-dollar 7.1 HD speaker systems when you've got your trusty red and white cables? ;)

[Iyaz @ Feb 21st 2008 9:40AM]

Wait a minute, that was someone else's idea. I wonder if they used electrical tape to black out the "HD" part of the "HD-DVD" logo too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH51u_-Kabw

[inigo07 @ Feb 21st 2008 10:01AM]

If I turned Adblock off on Firefox, all I'd see would be Blu-ray ads.

[John @ Feb 21st 2008 10:06AM]

It's completely true... even if there's no longer a compelling reason to want the ability to play HD-DVDs, plenty of people are still just buying plain ol DVDs, and wouldn't mind an upscaling player.

[bonedog73 @ Feb 21st 2008 10:36AM]

Why not buy one of these if they work as upscalers, as long as they're similarly priced as regular upscaling players?

Heck in a month you'll be able to get these for $50 bucks. Hell of a lot better than $400-$800 for BlueRay. You people must have a lot more money that me.

[jason w @ Feb 21st 2008 10:55AM]

I have bought a 2nd HDDVD player since the news of the drop has come. Come on you can get the 360 add on for $50 to 60 bucks and a new Toshiba player with 7 movies for $70.00. Your just a f_c_ing idiot if you need a new player or have many hddvds already and dont buy one at these prices. I still have my PS3 for BR and my HDA1 but one day that will die. Why not have both at these prices its less than the price of a game on the new systems.