TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp is planning to give up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp, a company source said on Saturday.
As much as I tried to warn clients, some of them would not take it to heart and although I wouldn't sell them an HD DVD player, they went out and bought one somewhere else. Congratulations on your new four-track/BETA/SelectaVision, et al. That means the expansion of the HD library is effectively going to be cut-off as the other scuttlebutt in the industry is that Universal (the sole studio hold-out) is going to begin releasing their movie library in only Blu-Ray sometime in the future. Toshiba has taken two big hits in the last few years with the lawsuit over SED, the new flat screen CRT technology, leaving it up to Canon for development and marketing.
You don't suppose some high-up marketing heads at Toshiba are now looking for work?
Hmmmm... This was posted 30 minutes ago (according to Google).
"Toshiba denies HD DVD speculation
By Julian Ryall
Feb 19, 2008
TOKYO -- Toshiba Corp. on Monday denied that any final decision had been made on the future of its HD DVD format.
"There have been many reports in the media over the weekend, but Toshiba has not made a decision on the future of the HD DVD and we are currently assessing the market and reviewing future strategy," company spokeswoman Junko Furuta said."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i759fab371cec78730e23360ed09c2ca4
Yeah, right. They would have hated to see it leak out, now wouldn't they? That would effectively kill HD DVD sales in players and discs. Talk about baiting people into continuing to waste their money. RCA basically had the same thing happen with SelectaVision. BETA, Four-track and some other media certainly had a longer life, but at just about two years, it's the writing-on-the-wall for HD DVD.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. retailer, said it will sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware and no longer carry HD DVD offerings.
Netflix Inc. said it will cease carrying rentals in HD DVD. Several major U.S. retailers have made similar decisions, including Target Corp. and Blockbuster Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment has decided to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format, becoming the latest studio to reject HD DVD.
Warner Bros., owned by Time Warner Inc., had been the only remaining Hollywood studio releasing high-definition DVDs in both formats.
LG, the company who released a player that was both HD DVD and Blu-Ray has experienced very poor sales figures. Watch for those players to be sold off at well below cost. Maybe now a good buy for anyone who has built a collection of HD DVD's and wants to switch.
Which means by hook-or-by-crook Toshiba and Universal could try and hang on to some market until the players get dumped which is also a strategy RCA indulged in when SelectaVision was hitting the wall because of the LaserDisc. Notice how HD DVD player prices are being slashed to the bone? Hmmmm. I wonder why?
Lightwizard wrote:Yeah, right. They would have hated to see it leak out, now wouldn't they?
lol True enough! :wink:
I don't expect HD-DVD to be around much longer. The tide has, without a doubt, shifted against them and I don't see them over-coming the onslaught.
Ya beat me to it, Brand X.
From PC Magazine:
Game Over: Format War Ends as Toshiba Drops HD DVD
At a board meeting today in Tokyo, Toshiba decided it would abandon the HD DVD format. A rival blue-laser optical disc technology to Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD was locked in a struggle with Blu-ray to become the next-generation heir to the booming $24 million DVD business (see our timeline of the format war). The format war stretched back to the year 2002, when backers of both formats unveiled their plans for blue-laser-based optical discs.
Toshiba's chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida, addressed assembled media in Tokyo after the board meeting during which the company pulled the plug on its HD DVD support. At the press conference, Nishida noted that the decision to pull out of the HD DVD market was a difficult one, "but when we thought about the trouble we would cause to consumers and our partners, we decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence."
Existing HD DVD players will continue to have support, says Toshiba, although for how long was unclear. (Even more unclear: How long Universal Studios might keep up its support of those nifty interactive features) introduced last year.
Toshiba did not announce any plans to produce its own Blu-ray drives, although it's impossible to imagine that the consumer electronics company will completely abandon the market for movie disc players.
Some historical trivia: HD DVD was initially introduced in 2002 as the Advanced Optical Disc (AOD) format. Toshiba and NEC together proposed this technology to succeed DVD by way of the DVD Forum, an industry forum for governing the standards of the current red-laser DVD technology. For years, that the DVD Forum approved the technology was presented as a strength of the HD DVD format over Blu-ray. (And, in the end, as I expected, it was Toshiba's withdrawal from the market--and not any announcement from the DVD Forum or the HD DVd Promotion Group--that marked the end of the HD DVD format itself. That underscores just how Toshiba was single-handedly propping up the the HD DVD format; without Toshiba's support, the format cannot, and has no reason to, exist.)
By contrast, the companies behind Blu-ray opted from the get-go to bypass the DVD Forum. Instead, Blu-ray's backers formed their own governing body to oversee the developmenet and implementation of the standard--much like the DVD+RW Alliance had done with its non-DVD-Forum backed DVD+R/RW format before it. Blu-ray was initially developed by Sony and Pioneer, but the technology has been championed from the outset by large consortium of consumer electronics companies.
The thing about Blu-ray has been its clear support within the industry from the start. At the International Consumer Electronics Show in 2006, Blu-ray Disc Association head Andy Parsons noted, "The legions of engineers who have been working on this is just astounding. I've never seen anything like it. Companies that usually duke it out--competitors--are working together."
Parsons, himself based at Pioneer, went on to say, "It's been fun to watch it all come together." At the time of these comments, Blu-ray's technical spec had just been finalized.
Now, with Toshiba's announcement, Blu-ray's path is complete. And I can add that this has been one wild ride to observe.
End of article
Toshiba and Universal's marketing philosophy was to preempt Blu-Ray with price advantage, rather than SONY's time-old marketing of introducing a superior product at a high price and then dropping the price as the sales warranted. The major superiority is that the Blu-Ray disc with its increased capacity can store full 16 bit hi-def films and full PCM digital sound in up to 9 channels. There's a much larger gap in the quality of the technology between the two competing DVD formats that there was between VHS and BETA. If one did find the LG dual-format player at a low price, there's going to be a huge price cut on the HD DVD discs coming up.
The consumer consideration here is that unless you have a 46" big screen or one of the largest 72" screens, you won't really appreciate the visual advantage of movies produced in Hi-Def 720p or even 1080p. The only films on DVD that were actually filmed in either analog or digital hi-def are IMAX films and the last two Star Wars episodes, well, and "Collateral" and a couple of other Indies. There are directors who are now filming in both analog and digital. I would think the digital cameras that would be used now will be 1080p which has about twice as many pixels and is a progressive scan.
Panasonic has produced the best 42" 1080p Plasma on the market (at about $1400. at Amazon a best buy--I can't even match that!) If one is viewing this size screen in a smaller room, it will look very much improved with scarcely a pixel in sight.
Lightwizard wrote:
Panasonic has produced the best 42" 1080p Plasma on the market (at about $1400. at Amazon a best buy--I can't even match that!) If one is viewing this size screen in a smaller room, it will look very much improved with scarcely a pixel in sight.
The TH42PZ700U? I got that a couple months back (cheaper than $1400, but I work at an electronics store) and I love it. The EZSync works great with my Onkyo receiver as an added benefit.
LW, do you know if the bluray in the PS3 is of a lower quality than a bluray player by itself?
That's the correct Panasonic model number. The wholesale price is less than Amazon, but not by much if you figure the savings of no sales tax and free freight. If I invested in one, though, I'd purchase it through the company I work with as they would do the calibration for free.
I haven't looked to see if the PS3's Blu-Ray players is capable of up to 7.1 Dolby sound (that's with the side and rear surround speaker outputs). However, I'm not sure the library available in full PCM Blu-Ray discs with 7.1 Dolby is worth the extra money (especially since for discrete channels, one has to invest in a 7.1 or 9.1 surround receiver and two extra speakers). I have an older Yamaha THX surround receiver and I installed the DSP front speakers and the rear surround but I believe on this model that the rear is simulated, making it 9.1 Dolby but not discrete. As far as picture quality, I'm not sure you'd see any difference as I believe the bit rate is identical and it's capable of 1080p. There might be some features on solo players the PS3 doesn't have.
