What's Toshiba replacing the Toshiba HD XA2 with?

I am waiting for the Denon 3800 to show up in the US to determine whether a top quality Blu-ray machine is worth purchasing (I am particularly concerned with how it handles/upscales regular DVDs). The bad news is that the price appears to be dauntingly high for now.

The history of all consumer electronics products is that with time they get better and the price drops. The computer I bought 10 years ago cost 10 times more than the one I bought last yeat and doesn't hold a candle to it. Blu-ray will be no different, Sony bashers notwithstanding. As for downloads, assuming bandwidth catches up and makes download times reasonable, it is unlikely that the high-res sound formats available on Blu-ray will accompany the downloads. This will be particularly bothersome when it comes to concerts. A-goner's should be concerned about that.

Cytocycle,

I had no dog in this hunt, but you are sounding a sour note. Prices will fall when all companies, including Toshiba, come to market with their own BluRay players and the format becomes a commodity just like SD DVD players are now, e.g. a model is available at every corner drug store for 50 bucks. If Sony won the right to drive the schedule for this to happen, then give them their props. The reason why two channel audio is somewhat immune to this silliness is because, in the big picture really, the stakes are so low.

Some companies will execute lower cost versions better than others (my bets are on OPPO), and high end rigs that actually work and do everything but brush your teeth will hit the market even sooner. In any case I can see all the HT buffs agonizing over whether we should use the digital converters in our BluRay player, or in our Processors. "I think the BD's HQV Reon-VX has slightly better reds, but the 7.1 sound stage and attack is a little more dynamic using the processor's DTS-HD® Master Audio compared with the BD's THX™ Ultra2™, don't you?" Wish everyone luck threading that needle.

PS - I went to Onkyo's website yesterday and noted they are touting a $899 HD DVD player as the bees knees. Ouch!

Knownothing: Sour Note? I bought a HD-DVD with all the future Sony Bluray features 1.5 years ago for the cost of the cheapest bluray player currently..... Progress is suppose to make things get better and cheaper... Sony did neither.... Now the consumer is going to have to pay and I'll have to wait another year to buy a HD bluray player that has these features... My HD-DVD player is a great SD upscaling DVD player so I have no regrets about buying my player or movies. I enjoy it with my extra large SD DVD library.

Sorry that I like the fact that you could buy dual layer HD-DVD's that could be played in a factory car DVD system or my old laptop with a DVD drive... when do you think a bluray factory car system is going to come out to watch Disney's latest movie for the kids??? No they want you to buy the movie twice!!

Bluray and HD-DVD video quality is a toss up depending on the implementation and the mastering.. So the consumer wins with either..

$500 players don't benefit the consumer industry for early adoption...I hope Oppo kicks out a Bluray player and doesn't get killed by Sony's licensing costs..

As far as video processors I think HT buffs are more so agonizing over which receiver can pull off the HD soundtracks over HDMI 1.3a without having pops, clicks, and incompatibilities with video display devices... The whole HDMI HDCP copy protection scheme has really left a bitter taste in the mouth of the consumer... look at all the DVI input TV's that can't accept Bluray or HD-DVD because the HDCP isn't compatible... NOT COOL!

Like I said in other threads I'll just buy a Playstation 3 for bluray and at least I can upgrade it to the latest standards versus all the doorstop bluray players that have been sold for the last 2 years that can't be upgraded to the upcoming 2.0 spec, much less the recent 1.1 spec. It won't be the best of video or audio but it will be good enough to play rented bluray movies while I look for who is going to win the online movie playing..

Make fun of the Onkyo at $899 when you can buy a top sony BDP-S2000ES bluray for $1299... That top sony es unit will not be upgradable to the new bluray 2.0 spec because it doesn't have a ethernet jack for network connectivity as required by their own spec...

02-27-08: Unsound
Sony has recently announced the next generation of Blue Ray players, and all of the above issues seemed to have been resolved, with the curious exception of SACD support.

As someone who's worked in the computer industry since 1980, I have seen time and again ad nauseum that there is a big difference between announcing and delivering.

Companies like IBM and Sony "announce" to freeze the customer base from drifting to another solution. For them, an announcement is like a Tom Brady pump fake.

Case in point: Look how Sony's announcement of their dodgy 2-layer 50GB technology kept customers from embracing Toshiba's 30GB dual-layer disc for the elegant solution it was.