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HD DVD now more than 750,000 strong

by on28 November 2007

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Blu-ray still lags behind in standalone player sales


HD DVD reached another milestone today as they have sold over 750,000 standalone and Xbox 360 external HD DVD players, while the Blu-ray camp continues to lag behind with standalone player numbers believed to be between 400,000 – 500,000 total units sold. However, if you count the over 2 million Playstation 3 gaming consoles as Blu-ray players, the Blue-ray camp still has quite a lead, but HD DVD is narrowing the gap. Many industry observers feel that that counting Playstation 3 units as Blu-ray players is misleading, as many PS3 owners are not playing Blu-ray movies on their PS3 units and use them strictly for gaming.

Toshiba also announced the release of new firmware for its third generation HD DVD players. The new 1.3 firmware is available for the HD-A30, HD-A3, HD-D3, and the HD-A35. The new firmware is said to improve network connectivity for the download of Web-enabled content from some titles, improvements to video and audio with some titles, and most importantly, it resolves some issues with HDMI/DVI compatibility experienced by some users.

While some in the industry continue to toll the bell for the death of HD DVD, it is clear that the HD DVD group led by Toshiba is making some progress. As things stand at the moment, reports of increased sales and rental of HD DVD titles have been reported and the HD DVD players with their lower price continue to be a hot item this holiday season. The war continues, and it isn’t over by a long shot.

Last modified on 28 November 2007
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