Toshiba HD DVD player ships in Japan

Top of the range HD-XA1 goes on sale for around $935

Toshiba may be delaying the debut of its HD DVD player in the US, but it went ahead today with its Japanese launch. The company said it was bundling the machine (for a limited time) - the first commercially available HD DVD player - with a pair of HD DVD discs.

The HD-XA1 is the top-end model of the two Toshiba unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January. The unit can upscale DVDs to 720p or 1080i - the maximum HD resolution the player supports. It has HDMI output - component and S-video too - and support for Linear PCM 5.1 audio with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD.

Toshiba said the machine will also play DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM discs, along with regular audio CDs and CD-R/RWs containing WMA and MP3 files.

Units purchased before 27 April will come bundled with copies of Resident Evil and Japanese movie Moonlight Jellyfish.

Toshiba described the HD-XA1's price as "open", so Japanese retailers can charge what they like for it, but consumers should expect to pay around ¥110,000 ($936/£538/€775), we're told. ®