Worth Reading?
+3 [5 votes]
Do you know how many CE manufacturers that are really supported HD-DVD and what they have in common? The RCA, Xbox 360, Venturer and Onkyo are all rebadged or manufactured by Toshiba, not counting the Korean Giants with combo player like LG and Samsung. The RCA went back to legacy DVD, Venture didn’t sell well and the word on the street is Onkyo is pulling out as well.
The information is vague to say the least, but Onkyo has decided against bringing their first and possibly last HD-DVD player, DV-HD805 to the UK. Although no further words on US’s front if they are discontinuing the product, it’s signaling the already weakening Format at Europe even further. If you are counting, there isn’t any new HD-DVD hardware announced at CES 2008 this year. Toshiba is deep in a hole trying to keep the crumbling Format alive, both software and hardware wise.
The company did disclose a new HD source will be revealed later this year but cannot confirm it will be a Blu-ray, HD-DVD or combo player. Frankly, with the growing rate of Blu-ray popularity these days, i’ll bet my two cents on Combo or Blu-Ray.
[via homecinemachoice]
Perhaps if Onkyo had done a little more than just change the face-plate, rebadge & send the price sky-high they might have had a chance of competing with the Toshiba HD XA2/HD XE1.
Right now why would anyone bother buying one?
The high end products still its place in the market regardless of the price, but they can’t live under the shadow of cheaper or yesterday’s OEM unit. Onkyo got catch in between the price war, i don’t have solid information to back it up, but i do believe they can’t sell crap this unit and i doubt they are going back to taste the wounded Format.