Digital Journal -- With the choice between HD-DVD and Blu-ray still looming over consumers' heads for the upcoming holiday season, many tech analysts have simply advised the public to buy neither. Like the Beta-VHS war of yesteryear, nobody wants to bring home an expensive high-def DVD player just to have it become obsolete if the competing format wins. In addition, with laggy start-ups, confusion about the technologies and an overall resistance to replacing a standard DVD player at home, some consumers are simply not interested in high-def DVDs. Before today, I would've placed myself in the same boat; high-def DVDs are too expensive and I'm simply not ready for the switch. But after today's one-on-one sneak preview of Toshiba's second-generation of HD-DVD technology with a few Toshiba reps in a Toronto hotel, I might at least consider it. When I first walk into the room to meet with David Vitale, Toshiba Product Manager, my eyes immediately jump to four massive LCD flat-panel TVs showing beautifully sharp and crisp images. On the left side of the room, a movie plays simultaneously on two 42-inch Toshiba Regza high-def TVs. One carries and HD-DVD signal while the other demonstrates a standard-def DVD being upconverted to 1080i. The difference is astounding, with the HD-DVD signal carrying a much sharper image with lush and vivid colour. It's a typical setup for any high-def event because it showcases the truly amazing clarity of HD, but it amazes me every time. Vitale is quick to point out that three million Canadians already own HDTVs, meaning the market for people interested in high-def players is more active than ever before. It's as if he knows what my first question will be: Why should consumers invest in HD-DVDs if they don't even own an HDTV? He says the lifespan of a traditional TV set is five to seven years, and anyone buying a new 26-inch-plus set these days will likely purchase an HDTV. Boasting an incredibly wide viewing angle, the 42-inch Toshiba 42LZ196 has a 1080p input capability and display resolution (the company also carries a 47-inch model). The high-gloss black cabinet finish makes it a nice showpiece for any room, and Vitale says it's the first TV on the market that has 100 per cent image display (other TVs only show 92 per cent of an image, meaning the top, bottom and sides of an image get cropped during playback). "There's absolutely no info loss," he says proudly. The TV also has an ethernet port so consumers can check email from the living room. Reading emails from a TV set is not exactly my idea of a cool sell feature, but the $2,999 (all figures in Canadian dollars) set is definitely a must-see for anyone in the market for an HDTV. When I'm finally able to pull my attention away from the TV sets, Vitale ushers me over to another set playing The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. I'm waiting for this moment, as I finally get to see the next-generation HD-DVD player. But sitting on the top of the TV is the company's first HD-DVD player. Confused as to why Toshiba is showing "old" technology, I keep quiet and give him a chance. He shows me a new feature which Universal Studios dubs "U-Control" (Warner calls a similar technology an "in-movie experience"). It includes picture-in-picture access to behind-the-scenes bonus materials such as director commentary or interviews with actors. In Tokyo Drift specifically, you can see storyboards during race scenes, and a fun feature that monitors how much damage has been done to a car as it crashes around corners. In a later chapter, you can even pull up a GPS map of all cars in the race to get a bird's eye view of each competitor. This fascinating feature has great potential, and I'm ecstatic to see studios finally starting to take advantage of the amount of space on an HD-DVD. "HD-DVDs are all about interactivity," Vitale repeats countless times throughout our meeting. Honestly, it's the first time I've heard Toshiba reallypush the heavily interactive experience, and it's a smart move. Vitale emphasizes this by showing me a special scene where the viewer can pause the movie and transition instantly into a video game-looking mechanic shop. There, you can change a car's paint colour, rims and decals and then jump back into the race scene. Almost instantly, the scene shows the car you designed, customizing the movie-watching experience like nothing I have ever seen. "This feature floored me when I first saw it," Vitale jokes with me. "It's completely unprecedented and it's available now," he adds. And now I understand why I'm being shown the first generation HD-DVD player. As a tech journalist who has publicly criticized both HD-DVD and Blu-ray, Toshiba was smart to re-display the first generation of HD-DVD technology because it highlights one very important point: Because the unit has an Ethernet port, firmware upgrades can be downloaded as soon as they are released (or Toshiba will ship a free CD with updates for those who aren't as tech savvy), meaning we have now entered a phase where technology does not necessarily become out-of-date or redundant within six months. Thanks to connectivity, technology can pretty much stay current with the times. Vitale says Toshiba has been very successful with its first generation HD-DVD players, and while he would not give numbers, Vitale says Toshiba sold every single HD-DVD player brought into Canada. But I'm here to see the second-generation of HD-DVD players, a product line every home-theatre enthusiast is keen to learn about. Sadly, Toshiba doesn't have any working units set up. Instead, a sleek, thin HD-A2 rests quietly in the corner. It looks impressive, but it all comes down to how well the unit works, and how much it's going to cost. Toshiba's new HD-A2 entry-level model, and the top of the line HD-XA2 model will be available later in November for about $599 and $1,199 respectively. I let out a sigh when I hear the price of the HD-XA2, but I'm happy to hear there is one model that isn'tastronomically priced. The chassis of both units is the same as the European models, and the HD-XA2 has HDMI 1.3 and support for Deep Colour technology (deep colour support takes the current 16 million colours in today's current picture and increases them to about 65 billion colours). The HD-XA2 is designed to output 1920 x 1080p, the highest HD signal currently available. My biggest frustration with the first generation of HD-DVD was load times (they take forever to boot up), so I asked Vitale if the second generation will be any better. "The boot-up time is faster, but it still isn't as fast as consumers are used to with standard DVDs," he says. "You have to remember that these units have an operating system, they are loading an image six times better than standard picture quality, they are reading features, looking, checking and rechecking while loading. Doing so much at start-up, it has to be treated more like a computer and less like a DVD player." Vitale also isn't worried about competition from hybrid players that could play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. "If someone does eventually produce a hybrid it has to be cost-effective, perform as well as a stand-alone HD-DVD or Blu-ray player, and it must be fast. That is very difficult to achieve, so I think that's why many companies have retracted their announcements." Finally, I'm shown Toshiba's first HD-DVD recorder (currently only available in Japan) that the company hopes to bring to North America next year sometime. Boasting a 1-Terabyte hard drive, the unit can simultaneously record two channels at once. Of course, it can also play HD-DVDs. But by targeting the very different market of Japan, Toshiba is waiting to see if a North American crowd will shell out for the $4,700 unit. It's expensive, but equally as impressive as the rest of the Toshiba product line-up. As I leave the showcase, I'm left with nothing but good thoughts about the company with enough guts to take on Sony and a long list of other big players in the Blu-ray camp. It's still not clear whether HD-DVD will emerge victorious, but with what I saw today, part of me wants to start rooting for the underdog.