And that's the ONLY reason why i posted it.

I saw that there could be a new player that is being released in November from Toshiba to coincide with their launches in other territories.

It's a rumor.

Yeah that doesn't make sense to me either. When Intel releases a new chip that's faster, I never hear of people saying that you better snap up the old crappy chips asap. What's more is, people talk about bugs and stuff they hope are fixed in G2... so why run out and buy a G1 player which will likely be discounted in the future?

Fascinating analysis. Perhaps the G2 players will have the same build quality as the A1/XA1 do and have additional features. But the A1 is an excellent value for the money right now.

I'd be surprised if the G2 player didn't follow on immediately after the discontinuance of the A1. Why would Toshiba let the pipeline go empty now? But I don't know anything, I'm just guessing.

Just read this:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060830i.php

as to build quality of these first generation units- I believe they were concieved, designed and manufactured with a $999 price point in mind.
The $500 price point was a last minute, spur of the moment decision to 'shock and awe' early adopters who were either on the fence or inclined to support Bd exclusively.
The bang for the buck in regards to construction is extraordinary, and the modularity from the 'pc' design should mean that components in the future can be swapped out rather easily, I would assume, with another firmware update ensuring compatability (a drive that supports triple layer discs- a board to support 1080p pass thru?).

I bought mine in April, and still thinks it a hell of a deal- and have a very high regard for the quality of the format in general.
But I'm skeptical of announcments of limited availabilty and that being a big issue. I was just back at the stereo dealer whom I bought it from over the weekend looking at projectors and asked him how the Tosh's were selling. He said they sold out of their first two initial shipments within the first few days, and since then haven't sold many at all. I don't know how the ones at Best Buy are moving, but they always seem to have at least 2 on the shelves.

not that Blu-ray s doing any better, but I think that the early adopter contignet is quite small and has been satisfied early on. We'll see if many people find this a compelling Christmas gift I suppose, but it looks like a long slow slog.

No shit... that's why I said could.

You are probably correct. This is the best built machine Tosh has ever produced. It isn't likely they will come out with another one at this level.

But I was more referring to features and audio quality rather than build. I think features will go up in G2, no question. I can't bring myself to worry about price or build when no machine even delivers on promised features of the format.

A G2 player will probably add on-board decoding for DTS HD MA, but other than that and 1080p (which, as someone pointed out, is a non-issue, as people without 1080p don't need it, and people with 1080p TVs will have those TVs do the deinterlacing for them), I can't think of much that can be added for features that the HD-A1 doesn't already have.

And I am willing to bet the G2 players will not have the kind of audio components that the A1 has.

I suspect the salesman Digi is quoting is simply trying to sell more units. He's not always been that reliable with information in the past (I think Kong has been about to be released for 4 months now!). With some Walmarts clearing their stock perhaps there's an announcement coming for a new player.

To be fair, there IS a blue diode shortage going on right now.

Speaking of unreliable, what's this about Wal-Mart's clearing stock?

Robert has been, for the most part, very reliable. Just because he got something wrong about Kong doesn't mean he should be completely discredited. After all, he deals with CE and not titles. Re: hardware, he's been pretty spot-on.

The TIVO dealer has been consistently wrong, time and again. From Paramount announcements that never materialised, to HD DVD winning before BD even launched, all the way to inflated numbers of units sold (he claimed inside info for 60,000 a few days before a Tosh rep went on the record with 20,000). OTOH the evidence for some Walmart's clearing their stock is pretty evident, unless you think they're selling below cost for some other reason? The recipts for these cut-price purchases have apparently been posted on AVS.

Can WalMart return stock to the vendor? If not, one reason for clearing stock may be that it wasn't selling. I mean, when I think "HD", WM is not the first place I think of, if I think of it at all. Maybe the units were dragging at certain stores, so they just started clearancing the last couple [since they probably didn't get many in the first place] to move them out of the way. And this could possibly be a store-level decision, to move dead stock. I don't know if I'd take it as representative of how the players or the format are doing as a whole.
I know nothing about the other things this guy apparently said.

I'm not making any claim for Walmart beyond what you've (probably correctly) surmised. It's almost certainly a decision made on a store-by-store basis, and based on sales figures so far. There is always the possibility, however, that a new player is about to debut.

I love european models

I've personally decided to wait for HDDVD until drives are built into XBOX360s. Sure, that won't be until Xmas 07, but by then we should be on gen3/4 and HDDVD will become more mainstream. For now, I'm content to wait.

Do you mean you want to wait so that you can get one? or do you think it'll just be safer to buy a set-top-box by then?

xbox360 is not gonna be any "audiophile"'s player, because it doesn't have audio outs.

Maybe it can do LPCM over HDMI tho!

I have no opinion on HD DVD players since I don't have one and can be responsible enough not to praise or bash something I have no idea about. I've seen a display once, and agree with the members who said that's not an ideal setting. But that's not what I was getting at.

The 360 does have audio outs, where did you hear otherwise? I think you mean it doesn't have HDMI, which is true. But I would think that once a drive is built in, it will. I just want a next gen gaming and video system without having to buy both. But the reports of the current gen 360's upscaling ability have been quite complimentary.

I think he means HDMI or analog 5.1 outs