Toshiba's HD-XA1 HD DVD player

And while we're on the topic of HD DVD vs. Blu-ray (yeah, we know that we're always on this topic, but whatevs), Toshiba officially took the wraps off the HD-XA1, a prototype of what will eventually be the first commercially available HD DVD player (they've actually been quietly showing this off for a few weeks now, guess the big formal intro didn't happen until today). Toshiba is a little hazy about when the HD-XA1 (or whatever they end up calling the production model) might go on sale — sometime before the end of the year in Japan is the best they'll do — but one thing we do know is that no matter when it drops this thing is going to be crazy expensive.