What's Toshiba replacing the Toshiba HD XA2 with?

I see your point Cyto but if HD DVD was so good why did so many of the first ones not work? Yes, they were cheaper to build but that's because the technology was dated. As far as SACD support it would be nice but a separate laser would probably be needed. And would drive the cost up. HD DVD players didn't play SACDs either.

Rwwear: you don't give up? The first ones had issues just like the first bluray players (which were released months later) 1.5 years ago, the differences were that the first HD-DVD players were software based with a P4 2.5Ghz intel chip in them and 512meg of ram, so Toshiba could upgrade them over the web as different manufactures of HD-DVD disc implemented these newer features. They were not cheaper.. Toshiba lost $400+ for each player they sold so they could further the technology in the consumers hands.. instead of waiting to perfect the technology and create dedicated IC's for the player which is how the 2nd generation HD-DVD players were and the first gen Bluray players.. The difference was the first gen Bluray players can't be fixed... Profile 1.0.. Samsung is getting a class action suit about profile 1.1 disc's that won't play. The first gen bluray disc's used Mpeg2 compression and looked awful but the early Bluray players couldn't do the more advanaced compression so they actually need the whole 50gig blueray just to fit a movie because of the poor compression... Artifacts from Mpeg2 caused early movies and players to look barely better than SD DVD's. Look at the reviews.

My reference to SACD was another SONY technology that they killed by keeping such a tight reign on the licensing of the technology to 3rd party's to include in players and more importantly to master the SACD disc. Sony limited both once again... And once again if Sony hadn't developed the SACD different laser requirements instead of adopting DVD-A which held more and could do video also... then there wouldn't be a need for another laser... nice of you to make excuses for Sony.

My point is yes HD-DVD lost because Sony paid Warner 400-500 million dollars to go exclusive Bluray, and everyone else filed suit and dumped HD-DVD.....
Brilliant marketing on the part of Sony and Bluray.

Great so lets move on and see if Sony will invest in Bluray technology as Toshiba already did years ago.... Sony is playing catchup.........

Sony makes money on the licensing of SACD and Bluray and that's why they have fought so much! They could also control copy protection schemes to protect their movie inventory from being copied (That lasted a couple months..) On the other hand Toshiba has been making that licensing money from DVD because they founded that technology. Sony only released SACD because their patent on the CD technology ran out and therefore they couldn't collect licensing on each and every CD manufactured...

Meanwhile the Joe average consumer is confused on the sidelines waiting... some will adopt others will say DVD is good enough and cheaper..

Back to the original Posters question of what's Toshiba's follow up SD upscaling player??? I haven't seen anything on the rumor sites so who knows at this point..

Cytocycle,

I will cede you the point about which format was better and when. As I said before, I have no horse in the race. My main points were and still are:

1. Now that Sony has won, they will do some algebra on the price to volume balance for selling licenses for machines and many more disks to many more people, and figure out how to maximize their earnings. This I think will lead to costs of BD machines of equal performance and improved usability falling from where they are now.

2. Toshiba will be one of the manufacturers selling lower cost BD machines in the not to distant future because they are in the video equipment manufacturing business and retailers will want to sell BD players.

3. There is an incredible level of redundancy of high level digital converters from DVD players to processors to TVs, making it a somewhat complex task to test all possible combinations in search of audio and video Nirvana. In some cases it is very difficult to tell a difference, driving people like us to distraction buying and moving wires around. I can see why some manufacturers are starting to sell digital-out-only transports for video.

4. I really do think Onkyo is saying "Ouch!".

Cyto you seem to forget about Toshiba paying millions to Paramount to drop BluRay. Hell HD was even backed by Microsoft, that in itself is reason enough to drop it.

Sure Sony has made many mistakes. And I am not an apologist for them. Their quality control is abysmal and they have cheapened the ES line. I haven't purchased a Sony product in years and don't intend to anytime soon.

Sony lost around a 100.00 on every PS3 they sold. SACD hasn't done well for the simple reason it did not sell well and had to compete wiyh DVDA.

Maybe Toshiba can go back to selling military secrets to the Russians.

Rwwear: I know Toshiba Paid Paramount $120 million to go HD-DVD only.... my point was that Sony was more successful by buying both Fox and Warner alliance and that finished off HD-DVD.