As if on cue, NewEgg is offering the Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD player at the low, low price of of $179 (no tax, no shipping). Sure, HD DVD may, or may not be dead, but either way I suspect you’ll be able to pick up existing HD titles for a while and also enjoy the A20’s upscaling magic on your vanilla DVDs.

The HD-A20 also supports DVD-Rs, DVD-RWs, CDs, CD-Rs, and CD-RWs (no MP3 and WMA audio files) as well the newest audio formats: Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD, and Dolby TrueHD. For those of you that haven’t experienced HD DVD (or Blu-ray for that matter) you’re in for a treat. While much of the, ahem, “discussion” revolves around the awesome high def picture, I’ve found the sound on the hi-def discs to be equally impressive.

CNET reviewers like the box, more or less, giving it thumbs up for its ethernet jack (allowing firmware upgrades), good upscaling and faster load times than previous models. They weren’t so keen on the picture clarity in 1080p mode and the lack of multichannel analog outputs. Note that the A20 uses HDMI 1.2a, not the latest 1.3b. Feel free to read more about what that means here.

Say what you will (and i suspect you will) about HD DVD and it’s questionable future, for those of you curious about the format, or think it might pull a McCain, this is a good deal. Flame away.

Sale price: $179.99

Deal ends: unknown

Buy now: www.newegg.com