What's Toshiba replacing the Toshiba HD XA2 with?

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.

At the moment, Toshiba swears that they won't make a Blu-ray player.

but who knows how long that will last

Leedistad: Yeah, I read that Wall Street Journal interview http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120450428955606405.html?mod=moj_todays_paper from the CEO of Toshiba yesterday stating they would continue to make upscaling DVD players and invest more in downloadable technology.

"WSJ: Will you try to play a role in the video-downloading market?

Mr. Nishida: That's what we're hoping. We've been developing technologies in this area already, but now that we don't have the HD DVD business, I want to put even more energy into that."