The battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray formats has officially started with the launch (in Japan) of the first HD DVD player from Toshiba.
Two models, the Toshiba HD-A1 and HD-XA1, are expected to hit the US in April 2006 with a price tag of US $499 and US $799, respectively.
The Toshiba HD-XA1 has USB and Ethernet 10/100 ports for connection to computer.
Sony’s Blu-ray players might be coming out 3 months later, in July 2006, with a higher price tag of about US $1000.
Both players use blue laser technology which, due to its shorter wavelength, is able to store more data in the same amount of space.
According to Toshiba, manufacturing multi-layer discs is much easier and so the cost for HD DVD would be lower than that for Blu-ray.
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