Toshiba America Consumer Products has just announced its latest HD-DVD players and the Toshiba HD-A1 is one of the two. It will be the first HD-DVD player to hit USA and is made according to the guidelines of the DVD Forum, an international renowned organization for latest DVD techonology. It can connect to HDTV sets via a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI(TM)) and output copy-protected HD content in HD DVD disc content of either 720p or 1080i.

The HD-A1 promises cutting edge technology and high resolution images. It support video formats like DVD-Video, DVD-R & DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM and audio formats like CD, audio CD-R & CD-RW, and MP3 and WMA CD-R & CD-RW. It includes loss and lossless formats from Dolby Labs and DTS -- including Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD and has a built-in multi-channel decoders for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (2 channel), DTS and DTS-H.Like the HD-XA1 it is also backwards compatible and you can enjoy your standard DVD collection to the hilt.

The Toshiba HD-A1 also has a great design and the HD-A1 disc drive has an astounding 36.55 Mbps transfer rate. By comparison, standard DVD has an average transfer rate of less than 10 Mbps, and HDTV has a rate of 24 Mbps. Other features include Preprogrammed remote control with TV functions, centralized remote operation, Parental lock mode, Other connections - 1 set of A/V outputs (composite, S-video, component video); and Stereo and 5.1-channel audio out. It will also be seen in March and would be priced at around at $499.99
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