THE FRONT LINE: JULY 1, 2007
Toshiba’s 2007 Line Show
Toshiba chose the Tribeca Cinemas Gallery in lower Manhattan to show off their new line of Regza LCD HDTVs, assisted by Sopranos’ star Michael Imperioli.
Figure 1. The Tribeca Galleries Cinema was an appropriate venue
to decorate with a variety of Regza LCD HDTVs.
Although a slew of Regza sets dominated the gallery, most of the press conference focused on HD DVD and its battle with Blu-ray for the hearts and minds of “next generation DVD” consumers.
According to Jodi Sally, Toshiba’s VP of marketing for the Digital AV division, HD DVD has 70% of the blue laser market now. Some of that may be attributable to aggressive price discounting on the company’s three players, with the 1080i HD-A2 now fixed at $299 MSRP, the 1080p HD-A20 dropped to $399, and the top-line HD-XA2 tagged at $799.
Guess what? $299 turned out to be the “magic number” in a study of would-be purchasers of new DVD players, who as a group aren’t really following the blue laser battles. And many of those who already own progressive-scan red laser players don’t see what all the fuss is about, anyway.
Toshiba also started bundling players with purchases of Regza HDTVs earlier this year. Buy a new Regza LCD HDTV and you’ll get the HD-A2 for $199, a strategy that seems to be paying off big time (and one not currently being matched by their Blu-ray competitors). There’s also a “five free movies” promotion with the purchase of each player. According to Sally, HD DVD also has the highest movie attach rate, currently 4:1 over Blu-ray.
Sally was followed by Kevin Collins, who was identified as an HD DVD “evangelist.” Anyone who sat through his demo in the HD DVD semi trailer at last year’s Cedia Expo knows exactly what that title means, and Kevin lived up to his reputation with demos of advanced Internet-enabled features for Toshiba HD DVD players.
These included downloads of additional movie-relate content from studio servers, “keys” to unlock “secret” content on HD DVD discs, and ways to share favorite scenes and clips with others over the Web. Collins even downloaded French subtitles for a Japanese-language anime movie using this same connection.
Figure 2. Toshiba’s press conference was dominated by news and
discussions about the HD DVD format.
All of this interactivity led me to wonder: Just who is going to sit with the remote and continuously fiddle with these Web-based goodies while an HD movie is playing? Watching movies (and TV) is, for most people I know, a passive experience, not interactive.
The fact that Collins comes out of the Microsoft camp may explain his enthusiasm for all these bells and whistles. For some of us old geezers in attendance, we just chuckled — a high-quality movie presentation with plenty of image resolution and high-quality surround sound is really all we need. (As an aside, my HD DVD copy of Miami Vice, which has the U-Control interactive menus feature, won’t even play at all in my HD-A2!)
Let’s not forget the Regza LCD HDTVs, which looked very good — particularly since they weren’t sharing the stage with any rear-projection HDTVs, products that will soon disappear from the Toshiba line for an obvious reason: Toshiba now offers LCD screen sizes as large as 57 inches,
There are four skews in the line, which totals 13 HDTVs in all. The Regza HD sets come in four sizes (26-inch, 32-inch, 37-inch, and 42-inch) and range in price from $799 to $1,399. Stepping up, the Regza LCDVD series feature built-in DVD players in a 26-inch model (26LV67U, $899) and a 32-inch offering (32LV67U, $1,099). Both lines come with 14-bit digital video processing and a dynamic backlight.
The Regza1080p Full HD sets add a wide color gamut CCFL backlight and HDMI remote control (CE-Link). The 42HL167 sells for $1,799, while the 47HL167 is tagged at $2,499 and the 52HL167 fetches $3,499.
At the top of the heap, you’ll find the Cinema Series Regza HDTVs, featuring the 42LX177 ($2,299), 46LX177 ($2,999), 52LX177 ($3,999), and 57LX177 (no price yet). These sets add 120 Hz refresh for reducing motion blur with an advanced motion prediction algorithm.
Figure 3. Toshiba’s 57LX177 made some nice pictures, but hasn’t arrived at store shelves yet.
Incidentally, this is the first time I’ve seen a company offer both a 46-inch and a 47-inch product in the same line. Given that Toshiba OEMs their LCD glass (and possibly much of the TV, too), that’s a sure sign that more than one LCD fabber is being sourced.
As for Mr. Imperioli, the well-known actor/writer/producer made a brief appearance to tout the superiority of the HD DVD format. He also has a prominent role in the on-going print and TV advertising campaigns for the HD DVD format (you got a problem with that?) Perhaps it was appropriate that members of the press received as parting gifts 12 episodes of The Sopranos’ sixth season — on HD DVD…
