What the hell?!

[bhampton]

You will see lots of this. Currently you get 9 movies with purchase of Toshiba HD DVD player at Best Buy. The hardware and software will be given away at a alarming rate.

Because,.. by the first of the year, you won't be able to sucker anyone into buying into HD DVD and they don't want to have to pay to recycle the stuff.

You can't throw the unsold HD DVD players in the dumpster out back even if that's where they belong.

A HD DVD player will rejoice as the prices of players dives to $199 and lower, claiming this will result in mass adoption but in fact the prices fall because the value of the hardware is falling too. If they could sell these for higher prices,.. they would.

-Brian

[Branden]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Currently you get 9 movies with purchase of Toshiba HD DVD player at Best Buy.

9 free movies! i guess they gotta artificially maintain their attach-rate somehow.

[joeorc]

Originally Posted by bhampton

You will see lots of this. Currently you get 9 movies with purchase of Toshiba HD DVD player at Best Buy. The hardware and software will be given away at a alarming rate.

Because,.. by the first of the year, you won't be able to sucker anyone into buying into HD DVD and they don't want to have to pay to recycle the stuff.

You can't throw the unsold HD DVD players in the dumpster out back even if that's where they belong.

A HD DVD player will rejoice as the prices of players dives to $199 and lower, claiming this will result in mass adoption but in fact the prices fall because the value of the hardware is falling too. If they could sell these for higher prices,.. they would.

-Brian

hammer meet nail....your Opinion I 100% agree with hack the units and turn them in to embedded PC's will prob. be the only thing that can save these units from the TECH RENEW RECYCLE by the people that OWN them...

example:

HD-DVD Troubles: 2006.

The hardware required to play HD video and WinCE-based HDi posed a big problem for Toshiba’s HD-DVD players that overshadowed the somewhat simpler disc player mechanism they use compared to Blu-ray. Toshiba's first HD-DVD player, the HD-A1, wasn't released until early 2006, two years later than promised.


In order to run Microsoft's WinCE-based HDi menus and render HD video, it incorporated a PC: a Pentium 4 processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 256 MB Flash drive, and 32 MB of additional Flash RAM. A parts breakdown revealed that the components alone cost around $674, even without manufacturing costs, bundled accessories, packaging, and other expenses.


Toshiba sold the $500 players at a large loss to encourage uptake of HD-DVD prior to the release of the first Blu-ray players, which debuted around $1000 a few weeks later. Once again, Microsoft’s answer to a technology problem is to turn it into a PC running Windows, just as:


1.

•the Xbox is a repackaged PC running Windows for games.
2.

•The WinCE-based Handheld PC, Palm PC, and Pocket PC are all small PCs running a smaller Windows.
3.

•WebTV, Ultimate TV and Windows XP Media Center were all PCs running Windows as a DVR.
4.

•Windows Home Server is a PC running as a file server base station.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Tec...D-DVD_War.html

i love that WEB site...