Toshiba Delays Its HD-DVD Player

In case you're a fan of HD movies and you also fancy Toshiba products, don't read this. It seems it's the perfect season for delays since almost every manufacturer of HD goods (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD included) has announced shortages on its drives and disks. Some of them have even postponed their products for an indefinite time. And Toshiba ultimately caught the illness.

Rumors say that the problem with the drives is the fact that most of them cannot pass QC due to one faulty chip manufactured by a third- party supplier. This problem is, however, completely unrelated to the HD-DVD format and to the chips that decode the movies.

For example, the HD-A2 player is already running late and will appear on the market on mid December. As for its higher priced brother, the HD-XA2 will probably ship in the last days of 2006. Europe versions of the drives will also come later than expected with the HD-E1 coming in December while HD-XE1 already being postponed to 2007. In case you're wondering if there's an alternative to playing HD content, you can always buy an XBOX 360 console and equip it with an optional $200 HD-DVD player. What's interesting about it is that it can be used as an external HD-DVD unit when connected to a PC. Not bad for $200.