That's the one alright. Found one for $230 from Amazon.com new. HD DVD is coming back!!! If I gotta do it myself damnit! LOL!! Obviously i'm not serious about that. But I figure it's not a bad investment due to there being over 450 HD DVD titles available now. I have been collecting SD DVD's for about 12 years and only have 350 or so. So I think HD DVD will hold me till the UHD formats start hitting in about 4 or 5 years from now. With the upconversion (agreeably the best in the industry) I can enjoy new releases on SD DVD in 1080p. Not true 1080p mind you, but somewhere in the middle of SD and HD, which is not super-fantastic, but it's not bad by any stretch either. Here are some specs for those who like to look at them:

Video

HD Output 720p/1080i/1080p

Benefit: Leading-edge, efficient video compression standards makes it possible to experience the full potential of your HDTV.

1080p/24 Frames Per Second (24p) Support

Definition: 1080p/24p offers a smoother, more film-like viewing experience. The HD-A35 outputs images at 24 frames per second, the same frame rate used by directors when using film to create motion pictures. Watch your favorite movies in their native frame rate with compatible HDTVs.

Audio

Advanced Audio including Dolby® TrueHD, Dolby® Digital Plus and DTS® HD (core only), along with legacy formats including Dolby® Digital DTS®

Definition: Advanced Audio capability brings increased sonic realism to movie soundtracks.

Convenience

Web-Enabled Capability

Definition: Open a whole new world of entertainment experience that can include access to exciting studio-provided enhanced features.

Backwards Compatibility

Definition: With backwards compatibility you can enjoy your existing library of DVDs and CDs, and through the process of upconversion and output through HDMI, your movies are scaled to match the resolution of your HD display for near-HD picture quality.

CE-Link HDMI-CEC

Definition: CE Link offers the capability to communicate with and control another CE device in a completely new way. For example, using CE-Link with “One Touch Play,” consumers will be able to turn on a HDMI-CEC capable HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A35 player, and start playing a movie with a single touch of a button on the player’s remote.

Jackpacks

Ethernet Connection

Definition: Connect your HD DVD player to the internet to allow it to receive updates that will support future applications and services.

HDMI™ with Deep Color

Benefit: Deep Color™ provides smoother image transitions, improved contrast and detail, and displays up to a billion possible colors all in the comfort of your own home theater.

The very day (today) I was just telling the wife about how my Xbox 360 has been as solid as a rock compared to everyone else's I knew of and it dies. Well, it's not dead per say, but it freezes up after a few minutes of being on whether it's playing a game, watching a DVD/HD DVD, or just sitting in the Dashboard. My personal opinion is that one of the two fans died and the single fan can't dissipate the heat generated by the VPU quickly enough.

Another problem with this is that without my Xbox 360, I can't watch HD DVD's. I have The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Clerks II coming in this week too! I'm thinking now i'm gonna buy a stand-alone player. An HD-A35 I think I can get for under $150 from ebay or something. Those were the top of the line 3rd generation players from Toshiba before Sony cheated and bought out WB and Fox effectively killing HD DVD. That'll do better with sound anyway than the Xbox 360. The 360 HD DVD add on can only output audio in two formats, neither of them is Dolby TrueHD either. Nor does it support 7.1 surround sound.

I still have my Wii to fallback on though. Now is a good time to get some solid play-time in on Smash Bros. Brawl. And I need to finish up Mario Galaxy as well. I have been meaning to get back online with Mario Strikers also. No better time than the present, eh?

First stop to Fred Meyer and it was in my grasp! They actually had a bunch of copies just sitting in the glass case waiting to be bought up! I have been Brawling non-stop now for like 2 hours! It will continue into the night over at my friends house!

So I played Guitar Hero 3 today for the first time. It was pretty fun I have to say. I did the tutorials and then played my first few songs. My first song was 'Take It Easy' by Foghat. I did pretty good with a 92%. Then I played the Pat Benetar song "Hit Me With Your Best Shot". Don't laugh, it was that or a song from Poison. And I avoid 80's/90's hair metal like the plague. I did well again with a 96%. The last song I played was "School's Out For Summer" by Alice Cooper. I'm happy to say I got a fine score of 98%. These were all on easy mind you where you only have to use three of the five fret buttons. Some of the songs I see being played on Youtube I simply don't see how it can be done that fast. Especially on the highest difficulty where you have to use all five fret buttons. At :21 in the last video is when it really kicks into high gear. That's also from GH2, but the play is the same in GH3. I'm actually interested in the other game similar to Guitar Hero entitled Rockband. I guess you can have multiple instruments going at the same time such as a guitar and drums, two guitars and drums, and I guess you can even throw a singer in as well. Sounds interesting. Anyway, gotta go to bed.

I'm not even gonna type out anything on this. I'm gonna cut & paste the article from TG Daily:

Pricewatch: HD DVD in free fall, Blu-ray continues upward trend

Business and Law

By Wolfgang Gruener

Monday, March 03, 2008 13:24

Article Index

Analysis – Two weeks ago, Toshiba announced its withdrawal from the HD format war and that it would clear out its inventory by the end of this month. It’s time to have a closer how this decision has retail prices for both Blu-ray players and HD DVD units.

Loss of competition rarely means good news for the consumer and that certainly is true in the recently called format war battle. If you aren’t especially interested in the outgoing HD DVD players, which retailers are trying to get rid of by the end of this month, Blu-ray could remain very pricey for some time to come. Average retail prices of Blu-ray players showed little impact and the majority of devices on the market are und a slight upward price curve, TG Daily found.
According to pricegrabber.com, average HD DVD player hit new record lows today with reported prices of $102 for the 720p HD-A3 model and the $137 for the 1080p HD-A30 version. Supplies of the high-end HD-A35 are running out, which means that average prices are somewhat high at $272.

Source: Pricegrabber.com; high prices marked in red, low prices in green

Blu-ray players, on the other side, have been very stable since the beginning of the year, with the exception of the hybrid HD DVD/Blu-ray player LG BH200, which has dropped more than one third from $999 to currently $629 in U.S. retail.
If we are putting these numbers into charts, the price decrease becomes apparent. HD DVD saw its most significant drops on January 14, when Toshiba announced substantial price reductions and on February 19, when the company announced that it would cease production of the players. The dramatic price drop, players are currently selling for as low as $89.99, apparently allows retailers to clear their inventory – Amazon currently lists the HD-A35 as its second most popular DVD player product, the HD-A3 follows at #8 and the HD-A30 at #21. The most popular Blu-ray player on Amazon, Sharp’s BD-HP20U, is listed at #18.

Blu-ray trends

Blu-ray players showed no direct impact of the HD DVD shutdown, with prices remaining stable and trending lightly upward. Sharp’s BD-HP20U, Sony’s BDP-S300, Panasonic’s DMP-BD30K as well as Samsung’s BD-P1000, which is not listed in this chart, show increasing average retail prices. The only Blu-ray currently experiencing decreasing average retail prices Sony’s BD-P1400: It is currently the cheapest standalone Blu-ray on the U.S. market, according to pricegrabber.com.

Source: Pricegrabber.com

If we combine the HD DVD player and Blu-ray player graphs into the chart, it becomes apparent, how easily Blu-ray manufacturers apparently sailed through the first two months of this year, while HD DVD lost a seemingly dramatic battle. While HD DVD player prices were dropping, Blu-ray prices were trending upwards.

Source: Pricegrabber.com

There is little hope that Blu-ray player prices will be coming down substantially in the next six months. If you are planning to purchase a Blu-ray player soon, you should plan on spending at least $350 - $400 on such a playback device. There is no doubt that prices will come down over time, but industry sources currently indicate that those sub-$300 players won’t be available until Christmas.