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"Toshiba's HD DVD press conference at CEDIA 2006 just ended and the first big news is out. It appears we will be getting the same players announced in Europe recently, named the HD-A2 and HD-XA2, this fall. They both feature the new slim design -- hopefully a sign of dedicated hardware as opposed to the stripped-down laptop that made up the HD-A1 -- and the XA2 will feature an HDMI 1.3 output with 1080p. The A2 will start shipping in October for a price of $499, while the HD-XA2 will debut in December with a price-tag of $999. No other specifics were available, but we would not be surprised if the HD-A2 matched its European cousin in losing the analog 5.1 output present on current HD-A1s. Also mentioned in the press release was their estimate of 25,000 HD DVD-equipped homes in the US, as well as upcoming movie releases like Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift, Batman Begins, and The Polar Express. Niveus has announced HD DVD-enabled Media Center PCs with 3TB of storage scheduled to ship in September.UPDATE: Pics of both players straight from CEDIA"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/2g-hd-dvd-players-announced-hd-a2-and-hd-xa2-499-and-999/>