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NEWS: Retailers slash prices of HD DVD players - discs could follow

Clare Newsome Tuesday, February 19, 2008 14:07

Following Toshiba's confirmation of the demise of HD DVD, retailers have begun to slash the cost of their remaining players, with pricing battles already breaking out online.

Play.com fired the first shot - reducing the price of the entry-level Toshiba HD-EP30 (originally £299; more recently £120) to £79.99. Amazon has since followed by offering the player for £77.99. It's also selling the HD-EP35 (originally £350) for £149.99.

A spokesman for Amazon said the retailer will continue to stock both HD DVD players and discs as long as they're available.

"We'll continue to offer the best selection we can," he said. "There are a lot of HD DVD players out there, so we'll stock the discs to the best of our abilities".

He added that further price cuts - to players and discs - were possible.

Comments

professorhat February 19, 2008 14:18

Damn, I'd be seriously tempted by one of these if:

a) I knew it was going to be substantially better at upscaling than my PS3 or;

b) I knew the DVD playback could be made to play multi-region DVDs

bot bot February 19, 2008 14:24

Now I wish I`d waited,I paid 279 for mine,this is practically giving them away.Reply to the last post,upscaling is best I`ve seen this side of 500 quid.

professorhat February 19, 2008 15:09

Yeah, but is it soo much better, it's worth spending another £80, when the PS3 does a very good job and I own this already? I'm not so sure and I wouldn't buy HD-DVDs I don't think so this wouldn't be worth it for this... Now if it was multi-region for DVDs... ah ha!!

PiperUK February 19, 2008 16:08

Brand new, quality hardware at a truly rock bottom price. Bargains like this do not come along very often.

Eddiewood February 19, 2008 17:03

@professorhat

I see your problem.

However, for £80 you get an up-scaler and the opportunity of watching soon to be cheapo HD movies that aren't on BD and may never be.

Depends if there is much on HD-DVD that you want really.

professorhat February 19, 2008 17:27

Fair points - I can't decide... would be nice to have Transformers / Bourne in HD but then, chances are they will come out on Blu-Ray eventually now. And I already have them on DVD so...

Think I'll leave it for now and see if prices drop further :-)

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About Clare Newsome

Clare Newsome has been a technology journalist for 17 years, the past 9 years as a consumer electronics specialist. As well as being editor-in-chief of What Hi-fi? Sound and Vision, whathifi.com and the Ultimate Guides series, Clare is a regular contributor to The Guardian and other national newspapers and magazines, and often comments on all aspects of home entertainment technology and trends on TV, radio and online.