Now that HD-DVD players have finally shipped, it didn’t take long (about 20-minutes) for the die-hard "videophile" set to dissect the devices to see what makes them tick. We’re not talking your everyday early adopter here, but cutting-edge engineering types who willingly shell out $560 for a brand new CE device. Rather than gleefully plugging it in for a first look at the stunning HD images, they instead take screwdriver in hand, and with a "damn the warranty, full speed ahead" attitude, tear into the box exploring the secrets of the new product category HD player.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
of Projection Monthly &
Microdisplay Report

What could possibly drive one to such behavior? It was the rumor (which was confirmed) that Toshiba put a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4 CPU and a GB of PC2700 DDR RAM in their new $500 HD DVD player (HD-1A). This is the equivalent of an early 2003 vintage Compaq Presario (C470CA) or HP Pavilion (754N) that sold at the time with 512M of RAM for $1650 and $2175, respectively.

That’s right, the apex in next-generation consumer electronic devices, the HD-DVD player, is little more than a 3-year old PC (with a cool new DVD drive) in sheep’s clothing — confirming and perhaps validating the complete convergence of CE and IT devices.

Want more proof? Our blogger/CE surgeon, Lorin Thwaits, (catch his blog on http://geekswithblogs.net/lorint/archive/2006/04/21/75795.aspx) pulled the HD DVD drive from the box, complete with standard 40-pin IDE connector, and plugged it directly into his XP based PC. The drive was identified as "NEC HDDVD HR1100A." While the XP OS couldn’t access the disk structure, the bloggers speculate that the next generation windows OS (Vista) would. Further evidence of the PC heritage comes from a Disk on Chip USB controller found on a daughter card on the motherboard. The card has a USB 2.0 flash disk connector that interfaces directly with a PC with remnants of FAT32 entries and even a reference to the RED HAT version of Linux.

Don’t get me wrong; the fact that the HD-1A boasts a PC lineage is not a bad thing. Remember this box can be purchased for a cool $500 and the technology is first rate. Some analysts believe that Toshiba is losing money on the low priced HD-1A device and the tear down confirms a lot of high-priced silicon — not to mention the extensive R&D, marketing and sales support activity that’s gone into this box.

Our take: Toshiba is betting on first-to-market status, early mind share and rapid penetration in the CE space. But, in addition, it’s angling to place HD DVD drives into next generation laptop and desktop drives, as well as an X-Box game console accessory. The company knows how to make money selling laptops and CE devices from HDTVs to DVD players and market dominance would go a long way toward Toshiba making that goal. But there is rival technology on the horizon, and for now, we’ll have to wait and see if the videophile / blogger’s tear down of the $1000+ Blu-ray players elicit equal enthusiasm and acumen. ~SS