Add Onkyo to HD-DVD camp...I wonder how much that cost Toshiba?
Actually, if Onkyo is going the same route that RCA did, it means that Toshiba is 100% making the Onkyo players in their factories, and that Onkyo is just letting Toshiba put their 'ONKYO' name on the finished product.
Yes, it likely costs Toshiba a bit to get this to happen, but it costs Onkyo basically ZERO to do this... if this is the case.
The specs of the new Onkyo player are almost identical to the XA2 except for added HD-MA support. A perfectly logical upgrade from the XA2. But, finding out this information will likely have to wait until after the Onkyo is released.
Seriously, if Toshiba can't get more CE support then they don't have a chance. $200 players are great as long as EVERYONE can make a profit from those $200 players. If you gotta subsidize your players to get the price to 200 bucks, then you better hold the patents on the technologies involved so you get some solid royalties on the movies sold... just as Toshiba does.
But, there is no chance Toshiba (HD DVD) can win if the format doesn't gain some added
true CE support. That would be companies that are designing, engineering, building, and testing players from the ground up themselves.
I promise you... Denon is not releasing a rebadged Samsung.
Sony, on the other hand, with their first player, had it pretty much built entirely by Pioneer. Sony's production time and efforts were going into a different Blu-ray player.
