Amazon.com accidentally leaked a preview of Toshiba’s next-generation HD DVD players last week, but Toshiba officially announced the players today. Right on time for our site redesign, no doubt.

The new players will be the HD-A3, HD-A30 and HD-A35, and they supercede the current HD-A2, HD-A20 and XA-20 models (which were the successors to the A1, etc. — wanna place any bets on what next year’s models will be named?).

We’ll learn more about these players next month at the CEDIA show in Colorado, but the information that’s been shared in Toshiba’s press release is that the two higher models feature something called “CE-Link,” which is a way for your HD DVD player to communicate with other devices that it’s connected to (like your TV and home theater amplifier) via its HDMI cable. This will allow your HD DVD player to turn the other two devices on, for example, if they’re not already on — allowing for a one-touch playing of discs. It’s a two-way control, which means that the other devices can send commands to the player as well acknowledge receiving a command, ensuring that the device is in the proper state.

The top-of-the-line HD-A35 boasts a few more enhancements:

• Support for “Deep Color” via HDMI
• Up to 7.1 channel High Bit Rate audio via HDMI

These new players are slimmer than the ones they replace, and feature a high-gloss “piano black” finish.

Pricing on these models is $299, $399 and $499 — I’m sure you can figure out which price applies to which model. According to the press release, the A3 and A35 models will become available in October, and the A30 comes out in September. We’ll be glad to show you some pictures and tell you where they’re available.

I’m sure that all of us who’ve had to deal with the “remote shuffle” (having to find and use multiple remotes to get all of the devices selected properly on each corresponding device) will greatly appreciate CE-Link. Of course, you’ll need to have an HDTV and other devices that support CE-Link in order to make this all work out. Is that a big problem? For those of us who have already invested in HDTVs and systems, yes it is a problem, but we’re actually in the minority at about 30%. If you were forward-thinking enough and purchased an HDTV that already came equipped with HDMI-CEC (the generic name for CE-Link), then you’re in luck. The bigger population of people has yet to purchase an HDTV of any kind, and haven’t even had to commit to a high-definition DVD format, and they’ll definitely have some fun with this.

UPDATE: More information about HDMI-CEC enabled HDTVs coming soon in an upcoming post.

Head on over to the Toshiba site and grab yourself the latest HD DVD Player firmware for the second-generation players (A2, A20, XA2). The link goes to where you can get a ZIP file to burn to a CD. If your player is attached to the internet, then you can download the update directly from the player itself. You can also contact Toshiba at (800) 319-6684 and have them mail you a disc with the upgrade on it.

There’s no major explanation provided than the same “enhances internet connectivity,” and something about HDMI/DVI that was also described for the 2.0 release. All we can do is guess about specific improvements until Toshiba gets a little more specific about the update details. Just a few days ago, Warner released 300, which offers some of the most advanced interactive HD DVD features ever, including uploading and downloading your own fan-made version of the movie, and it’s possible that this update makes your 300, experience even smoother.

Forget the rebates! Toshiba just announced that the HD-A2 player is officially $299, and its more capable sibling, the HD-A20, is now $399. I’m sure that retailers will offer some modest discounts over these official prices, which means that time is no longer running out for you to get your HD DVD player by the end of June.

Toshiba made this announcement at a press event in New Jersey, where Microsoft joined in with a demonstration of the latest HD DVD interactivity features. Cited as examples of this interactivity were the upcoming release of 300, and Freedom, Volume 1. Jodi Sally, Vice President of Marketing for Toshiba’s Digital A/V Group said, “While others may talk about interactivity, HD DVD has proven time and time again that it offers true interactive features and capabilities for consumers which can make the enjoyment of movies a new experience every time they’re viewed.”

I mentioned Freedom earlier in the week as being the first TWIN format anime disc in North America. 300 offers an interactive mode where you can view the footage before the computer special effects were applied, and see side-by-side how it was shot in real-life. This is especially interesting for 300, since the movie used a very unique visual style. I’d imagine that it would be almost like watching A Scanner Darkly purely in live action instead of the animation effects. Don’t get me wrong, both of these look better with their effects, but these behind-the-scenes features are great ways to get more enjoyment out of your favorite discs.

You can read more about this news at Gizmodo, where they also have the official press release.

Version 2.0 of the firmware (up from 1.6) is now available for the Toshiba’s second generation HD DVD players, the HD-A20, HD-A2, HD-A2W, and HD-D2. You can get more information about this update at Toshiba’s site, and download it directly from Toshiba through your HD DVD’s direct internet connection.

If you’ve ever followed or studied the stock market, you’re probably aware that certain companies and products end up being good indicators about what’s coming a few months later in the economy for a particular industry. For example, an increase in orders for construction materials means that more homes or buildings are being built, which means that business conditions for people buying homes or buildings must be improving as well. Or let’s say a company makes a kind of machine that’s used in manufacturing electronics equipment. Higher sales of their machines means that their customers (consumer electronics manufacturers) are ramping up production of whatever products they make with these new machines. In either case (construction or electronics), it means that consumers will be getting those products a few months later, and a few months after that, we’ll hear that the industry had a good sales period.

In a similar way, you might have heard about the following products on the gadget websites in the last few days or weeks (or months):

• Toshiba Qosmio Laptop gets 0.5-inch HDDVD-RW Drive
• Acer announces HD DVD-equipped laptop with 20-inch screen
• HP Pavilion dv9000t HD DVD-equipped laptop gets good reviews (Editor’s choice at PC Magazine)
• Alpine and Toshiba demonstrate automotive HDDVD player

What’s important about these products? Especially that last one, which isn’t even coming out for over a year? (more…)

Technology has the annoying habit of never standing still for too long. Just as you’ve decided to embrace a new gizmo, it turns out that something even newer is right around the corner. It’s a major let-down to find out that the gadget you just bought is about to be leapfrogged by something better – and probably for a cheaper price! It stinks, but what can you do? That’s just the nature of technology. I think the only thing you can do is wish for a healthy dose of good luck and discretionary income.

Luckily, some of that good luck has already headed your way if you have an HDDVD player.

One of the nice things about HDDVD players is that ALL of them come with ethernet connections allowing them to connect to the internet. The most common reason to be connected is to download supplementary content for a movie you might be watching, but a more practical reason is for upgrading the player. You are probably accustomed to updating your browser, operating system and other software on your computer, and in the world of HDDVD, you can do the same for your player!

These downloads are called “firmware” updates. Firmware is the software running in your hardware (but I don’t think that’s why it’s called “firm”). To a certain extent, support for new features is only a firmware update away. As long as new features do not rely on specific hardware components, it’s very likely that firmware updates will allow even a year-old HDDVD player to continue to keep up in many ways with newer models.

Let me repeat an important part of that statement about future-proofing: it only applies as long as new features do not rely on specific hardware components. That’s not the kind of upgrade you can get from firmware alone. Remember, firmware is just the software that drives your hardware.

You might have heard that there have been issues with some discs not working on some players. (more…)