HD-DVD - Blu Ray Format War has ended - Toshiba quits HD DVD business

[saurabh]

TOKYO - Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

"We concluded that a swift decision would be best," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company's Tokyo offices.

Read the full article here

 

[mojo_13]

I just heard this on the news this morning. So will all movies start to be made in Blu Ray and what about past movies that are in HD DVD will they be re-released? Just wondered if anyone knows how that works.

 

[holden_stroker]

heard that on tv just before, interesting..

 

[Audioholics]

I'll break this down in an article a little later, but essentially what you can look forward to is this:

• the eventual release of all HD DVD movies in Blu-ray
• the near-immediate cessation of HD DVD releases (anything that hasn't already began will likely be moved to Blu-ray)
• the same fading into obscurity for HD DVD that laserdisc and Betamax had... only faster

With that said, I don't believe consumer adoption will take off like a rocket in the way that some analysts are predicting. First off, the player prices are still too high (need to be around $199 for entry-level). Second, we're going to hear a lot more flack from the whole multi-profile issue until 2.0 (BD-Live) becomes available in all players.

Christmas 2008 will be a very big indicator. In my opinion, cable and satellite have until around October to get their act together if they want HD downloads to compete head-to-head. Let's see if they are as clueless as they seem to be, lol.

 

[Wayde Robson]

Do you really think they'll re-release HD DVDs in BD?

I wonder if there is enough profit in it considering it's such a small piece of the market compared to DVD.

I'd look for Warner to be first to anounce a Batman Begins on BD release date.

Until then, I'll look forward to HD DVD movie bargain bins and might even consider a bargain basement priced player capable of bitstreaming the advanced audio codecs to upgrade my Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on.

 

[aberkowitz]

Do you really think they'll re-release HD DVDs in BD?

I wonder if there is enough profit in it considering it's such a small piece of the market compared to DVD.

I'd look for Warner to be first to anounce a Batman Begins on BD release date.

Until then, I'll look forward to HD DVD movie bargain bins and might even consider a bargain basement priced player capable of bitstreaming the advanced audio codecs to upgrade my Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on.

Wayde,

I think they'll release certain HD DVDs in BD- the big sellers that make the most sense. If I had to guess a short-list it would include Batman Begins, the Bourne Trilogy, the Matrix trilogy, and Transformers. I can't really see many other titles get re-released in the short term unless there's a very strong demand. Most of the other top-selling HD DVD titles are already in dual format (e.g. Blade Runner, Planet Earth, Harry Potter, etc).

 

[Wayde Robson]

I'm looking around the web trying to get a feel for what people are thinking. I know it's early but...

The war is over... my spin is this... maybe that's the best time for HD DVD! I mean, alignment to 'victory' in a format war aside... I think there are a LOT of great movies out there that will soon populate bargain bins and players that will drop even further in price.

If you have the space in your HT system, why not?

Also... I wonder if company's like LG and Samsung who have put resources into combo-players will continue to update and improve via firmware.

Owners of Samsung's BD-UP5000 are keen to finally get a patch in May that enables bitstreaming (and maybe decoding) of the Hi-res codecs. If Samsung abandons its combo players in favor of re-focusing on BD players, there will be many unhappy customers.

 

[stratman]

[QUOTEOwners of Samsung's BD-UP5000 are keen to finally get a patch in May that enables bitstreaming (and maybe decoding) of the Hi-res codecs. If Samsung abandons its combo players in favor of re-focusing on BD players, there will be many unhappy customers.[/QUOTE]


That's why early adopters always get burned, it's an irrevocable law.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming!

Wow!

This calls for a celebration!

I can't wait to see what Michael Bay has to say.

I wan't to see what Paramount & Universal has to say.

The only bad news is that I may end up buying all those HD DVDs on BLU-RAY!

 

[patnshan]

If I were Sony....

I would work as fast as humanly possible to get the 2.0 spec released. Then, I would release players as cheap as possible towards what I see as a $200 magic price point. This will get people such as myself who dove into HD DVD because of quality for the price. I think to start, they need to get all the HD DVD supporters in their camp and can then work on J6P. Prices need to fall, or DVD will be king for 20 more years.

I am glad to see the war over, my winner didn't win but such is life. I will adapt.

Pat

 

[aberkowitz]

I would work as fast as humanly possible to get the 2.0 spec released. Then, I would release players as cheap as possible towards what I see as a $200 magic price point. This will get people such as myself who dove into HD DVD because of quality for the price. I think to start, they need to get all the HD DVD supporters in their camp and can then work on J6P. Prices need to fall, or DVD will be king for 20 more years.

I am glad to see the war over, my winner didn't win but such is life. I will adapt.

Pat

Prices will drop as economics dictate. As Toshiba proved it makes no sense for a company to drop prices if they're losing money. Toshiba's deals on the A2 and the A3 were an exception, not the rule, of how a company should introduce a new product. This was proven out by the fact that the company lost hundreds of millions of dollars producing a product that is now defunct.

 

[gus6464]

But I just got my 5 free HD DVDs last week! On a side note only one out the 5 movies had TrueHD which was Troy. At least it was the Director's Cut which makes the movie a lot longer and actually a lot better than the theatre cut. This should have been the version to come out on theatres. All the other movies had DD+.

 

[Dezoris]

The beauty of this is now the Blu-Ray camp does not have to do a thing.
Thats my biggest worry.

Now would be the time to step up marketing, drop player costs and get studios cranking out media but I don't see that happening.

 

[Biggiesized]

I'd love to see Oppo release a Blu-ray player now with the 2.0 spec and equivalent components used in the yet to be released DV-983H for DVD upconverting and DVD-A/SACD playback.

 

[stratman]

The beauty of this is now the Blu-Ray camp does not have to do a thing.
Thats my biggest worry.

Now would be the time to step up marketing, drop player costs and get studios cranking out media but I don't see that happening.

They have a lot to lose, if they don't get it together by Black Friday, they're going to be in massive trouble. Remember they're banking on Joe Six Pack to buy, not us, we're peanuts (by us I mean early adopters and CE fans) in the scope of things. In order to become profitable in this venture they'll need to go into mass production, cut prices drastically to entice the mass market, cheap software is needed, bug-free players that are working fine from the factory, the average consumer doesn't want to know about updates or downloads, they bought a unit they expect it to work properly out of the box, or you'll see massive returns. This move has cost Toshiba hundreds of millions, Sony and company have a larger amount to lose, I'd say close to a billion if not over.

 

[Biggiesized]

Sony has already lost over a billion in subsidizing the costs for the PS3 as a means of a [relatively] cheap Blu-ray player for the masses.

 

[stratman]

Sony has already lost over a billion in subsidizing the costs for the PS3 as a means of a [relatively] cheap Blu-ray player for the masses.

One of the things that will help Blu-ray, is second and third tier manufacturers jumping in now and start producing "throwaway" (cheap) players, this will make market penetration a bit easier, also they'll have to ramp up advertising, if they sit on their butts the public will do far worse to them than Toshiba ever did.

 

[majorloser]

XBOX 360 rumored to have a Blu-ray player by as early as May 2008

http://gizmodo.com/357541/microsoft-rumored-to-release-blu+ray-xbox-360-as-early-as-may-2008

Other XBOX vs. Sony news:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/digitaljoystick/archives/132216.asp

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/10029/Xbox-360-Bluray-Disc-Drive-an-Option/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/xbox-360-blu-ray-player-rumor-returns-right-on-cue/

 

[stratman]

XBOX 360 rumored to have a Blu-ray player by as early as May 2008

http://gizmodo.com/357541/microsoft-rumored-to-release-blu+ray-xbox-360-as-early-as-may-2008

Other XBOX vs. Sony news:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/digitaljoystick/archives/132216.asp

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/10029/Xbox-360-Bluray-Disc-Drive-an-Option/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/xbox-360-blu-ray-player-rumor-returns-right-on-cue/

It would be crazy for them not to, I think that once the hubbub is over MS will produce a BD X box, it makes good business sense.

 

[Audioholics]

I'll be very happy if all players are Profile 2.0 by Christmas and there is a model form somebody - anybody - for $199. They need to get everyone to Profile 2.0 however. This multi-profile stuff is going to cause MAJOR headaches.