HD DVD Players Hit 100,000 Sales

Granted, it had a head-start, but HD DVD has beaten Blu-ray to an important sales milestone: the sale of 100,000 stand-alone players.

The announcement was made by the North American HD DVD Promotions Group, the public relations branch of the HD DVD Forum. The 100,000 sales does not factor in the sales of PC HD DVD drives, nor sales of the HD DVD add-on for the XBox 360.

And, of course, this 100,000 milestone does not factor in the huge number of PS3 Blu-ray players that have been sold by Sony, since the PS3 isn't considered a "stand-alone" player.

To date, Sony has sold over 1 million PS3 units in the United States alone, and another 800,000 in Europe (and they just launched there in late March). Take that, HD DVD.

Toshiba Releases New 1080p Player

Toshiba's latest HD DVD player is a real bargain, assuming you can afford the $499.99 asking price.

The new HD-A20, which is now shipping to retailers, boasts full 1080p output capability, the first HD DVD player capable of this (all current HD DVD players can only output at 1080i). The player also contains 1.3 HDMI, as well as most of the features of other Toshiba players, such as an Ethernet port.

Toshiba is also currently offering five free HD DVDs (from a selection of 15) as part of a mail-in offer for those purchasing new players.

FOX Abandoning Blu-ray?

With the exception of the upcoming release of Night At The Museum, all upcoming FOX Blu-ray titles have been removed from their release schedule.

But HD DVD fans hoping that this marks an abandonment by FOX of the format or, better yet, an indication that FOX may be moving over to the HD DVD side of things, need to take a deep breath. It's not going to happen.

The real truth behind FOX's move is a concern over DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the copyright protection currently being applied to Blu-ray releases. The current method, AACS (Advanced Access Content System), has already had its code cracked by a number of online hackers, and FOX is reportedly holding out for additional copyright encryption protection to be put in place.

That new protection will be coming soon, in the form of BD+, which doesn't replace AACS, but works as an additional form of protection for Blu-ray discs - a program that evaluates the security enviroment of the player the disc is being played on and authorizes play of the disc each time it is used. BD+ technology also allows the studio to update encryption on future releases...meaning that if a certain code gets "cracked" by hackers, the studios can update with new encrypted codes on their future Blu-ray titles.

Once BD+ is finalized and begins to be added as an additional form of copyright protection on Blu-ray releases, expect FOX to return full-steam into the Blu-ray game.

The Next Battle: Price Wars

The next phase of the format war is upon us, and it's good news for consumers, as both HD DVD and Blu-ray companies are slashing prices on their players.

Samsung recently announced that they would be dropping the retail price of their BP-1000 Blu-ray player to $470, almost a 50% decrease from the original retail price. Toshiba, the main company in the HD DVD camp, shot back by announcing they were slashing the price on their HD-A2 player to $399, which is $100 less than the original asking price.

While still far from "cheap" - this just shows consumers how important a "war" between formats can be. It's doubtful that either format would think about lowering prices this early in the game if they were not in competition with the other.