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According to Toshiba and the HD DVD Promotion Group, there are no upgrade plans
to make this player 24fps capable. That official statement includes the near future
player A20 (below), which was specified also as 1080p outputs without any frame
rate indication, but is meant to be only 60fps.
To be more specific, Toshiba’s response about the A20 was “the specs on that player
are not yet complete (as of CES Jan 07 time frame) and we cannot comment about
such a feature at this time, nor it can be anticipated ‘if and how’ that feature would
be upgradeable”.
Some unofficial sources in forums have commented that such features “would” be
added to the HD-AX2, but I discourage recommending purchasing decisions of
expensive equipment on promises that are not officially backed by the manufacturer.
Considering the current situation of the format war, and considering that this level of
media quality is appealing to large screen home theaters with projectors with 24fps
capabilities, not having such feature is a disadvantage for the format (while Blu-ray
has had it since day one).
It would have been in the best interest of the HD DVD format that the second
generation players of Toshiba would have been positioned more strategically with
competitive quality features like this, especially after Toshiba obviously recognized
the competitive edge of having 1080p outputs, which the first generation of players
lacked.
New Toshiba Players
HD-A20 $600, TTM Spring 07, HDMI for 720p, 1080i, 1080p. 1080p only as
60fps, refer to analysis
above, Dolby TrueHD
5.1, Dolby Digital Plus,
DTS HD core only,
HDMI, component,
Optical audio, Ethernet
port, CD playback,
Mar 07
Toshiba introduced the HD-EP10 HD DVD player for the market in Europe.
Features 1080p, DTS-
HD, Dolby True-HD,
Dolby Digital, Dolby
Digital Plus, HDMI
output, can read HD
DVD, DVD, DVD-R/RW,
and CDs.
Mar 07
Toshiba announced a reduction of price on their HD DVD players effective April 1,
2007, the prices will go down by $100 for the HD-A2 (to $399), $100 for the HD-A20
(to $499), and by $200 for the top-of-the-line HD-XA2 (to $799).
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