Scorp - $499 is less than regular DVD players cost when they were first introduced, and that was only a few years ago. Most people were expecting these things to be upwards of $1,000 for some time. (I don't know where anyone got that, but that's what most of the media has been saying for a while now.)
That said, you do sort of get what you pay for. The XA1 will only output 1080i max. Pioneer also introduced a Blu-Ray player today that'll do 1080p. Its MSRP is $1,800. I don't think even the higher-end Toshiba will do 1080p.
I'm more interested in bare HDDVD or BD drives for PC. My PC will output 1080p just fine on its own; if a standalone player only costs $499, I can't imagine a bare PC drive will cost more than a couple hundred bucks.
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Scorp - $499 is less than regular DVD players cost when they were first introduced, and that was only a few years ago. Most people were expecting these things to be upwards of $1,000 for some time. (I don't know where anyone got that, but that's what most of the media has been saying for a while now.)
That said, you do sort of get what you pay for. The XA1 will only output 1080i max. Pioneer also introduced a Blu-Ray player today that'll do 1080p. Its MSRP is $1,800. I don't think even the higher-end Toshiba will do 1080p.
I'm more interested in bare HDDVD or BD drives for PC. My PC will output 1080p just fine on its own; if a standalone player only costs $499, I can't imagine a bare PC drive will cost more than a couple hundred bucks.