Toshiba may drop HD DVD within a few weeks

[yettitheman]

I'll tell you what I find really sad; I was at Best Buy today and they still dedicate almost exactly the same amount of space to HD-DVD as they do for BluRay! It's a bit sad though, since HD-DVD came to market essentially complete and ready-for-prime-time while BluRay is still not there yet.

Yeah... I blame all those Disney ads for Blu-Ray and "superior picture quality" that brainwashed everyone.
Mmm... first DVD-A vs. SACD, then the hell-hole, er hassle with HDMI versions and now this. What next? Toslink speaker cables????

 

[dobyblue]

I'll tell you what I find really sad; I was at Best Buy today and they still dedicate almost exactly the same amount of space to HD-DVD as they do for BluRay! BB's higher ups have already announced that they'll push only BluRay going forward. Yet no firesales on HD, no surge in the amount of available BRD products.

You were expecting them to change all several hundred stores within one business week?

I have an HD-DVD player but no BRD machine. Eventually I'll get one, and since I only have four or five HD-DVD discs it's not really any big loss to me. It's a bit sad though, since HD-DVD came to market essentially complete and ready-for-prime-time while BluRay is still not there yet.

HD DVD is not ready for prime time. The bandwidth will not allow for a prime-time environment without either dropping all advanced audio codecs or dropping resolution to 720p.

 

[dobyblue]

Yeah... I blame all those Disney ads for Blu-Ray and "superior picture quality" that brainwashed everyone.

Disney Blu-ray discs, from any review site, have the highest overall pq ratings.

 

[yettitheman]

Disney Blu-ray discs, from any review site, have the highest overall pq ratings.

I would agree with that statement. Considering that Disney has enough dough to master their films the way they want to, they should have the best PQ of any format really.

 

[dobyblue]

I would agree with that statement. Considering that Disney has enough dough to master their films the way they want to, they should have the best PQ of any format really.

All their Blu-ray Discs using AVC/MPEG-4 are authored by Panasonic, as are the MPEG-4 releases from Fox.

Yes, Panasonic do amazing work. I tip my hat to them and look forward to the DMP-BD50.

 

[dobyblue]

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/main/20080219AT1D180DU18022008.html

Toshiba have a press conference scheduled for 5pm Tokyo time on Tuesday.

That's 12am PST or 3am EST.

It's of course expected that they will be announcing their withdrawal of all HD DVD support, authoring, PC and players, effective immediately.

I would imagine a Blu-ray player announcement will follow within a few months. I don't think they'll wait until Christmas to get a player to market.

 

[yettitheman]

All their Blu-ray Discs using AVC/MPEG-4 are authored by Panasonic, as are the MPEG-4 releases from Fox.

Yes, Panasonic do amazing work. I tip my hat to them and look forward to the DMP-BD50.

If all movies for BD were done like that, it would be cool.

 

[stratman]

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/main/20080219AT1D180DU18022008.html

Toshiba have a press conference scheduled for 5pm Tokyo time on Tuesday.

That's 12am PST or 3am EST.

It's of course expected that they will be announcing their withdrawal of all HD DVD support, authoring, PC and players, effective immediately.

I would imagine a Blu-ray player announcement will follow within a few months. I don't think they'll wait until Christmas to get a player to market.

I'd love to stay up and watch it, there's a channel that does all Japanese news, if I knew for sure they will be reporting I would, but to stay up and be a wreck tomorrow, nah.

 

[dobyblue]

If all movies for BD were done like that, it would be cool.

Word is that Universal have visited the Panasonic authoring center a few times over the last several months, thanks largely in part to the Panasonic Hollywood Labs (where the authoring of DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Discs are done) being located on the Universal Studios' lots.

I would love to see Jurassic Park on Blu-ray with dts-ma (Spielberg will ensure this is the main audio track) and a boisterous AVC/MPEG-4 encode.

 

[Seth=L]

I would love to see Jurassic Park on Blu-ray with dts-ma (Spielberg will ensure this is the main audio track) and a boisterous AVC/MPEG-4 encode.

I hope so, the DVD version of Jurassic Park is a far cry from the LaserDisc (the DVD Jurassic Park audio sucks).

 

[dobyblue]

Did you think the dts version DVD sucked or just the DD version?

When I got mine it was the dts version and said dts on the back cover with the 5.1 diagram. When I popped it in and went to the audio options, there was just "English" or "French" - no Dolby English and/or dts-English options.

Anyway, I thought it totally sucked. When I did some research and called Universal they told me to send in my disc in a plastic sleeve and they'd send out a replacement disc with the correct authoring. Finally I had the dts version. I don't recall it sucking, but maybe that's because I found it a huge improvement over the original copy I had. The LFE in particular was much more like how I remember the theatre being.

Anyway, I'm sure a BD version will blow any other version out of the water for PQ and SQ. Hopefully Spielberg is game.

 

[Seth=L]

Did you think the dts version DVD sucked or just the DD version?

When I got mine it was the dts version and said dts on the back cover with the 5.1 diagram. When I popped it in and went to the audio options, there was just "English" or "French" - no Dolby English and/or dts-English options.

Anyway, I thought it totally sucked. When I did some research and called Universal they told me to send in my disc in a plastic sleeve and they'd send out a replacement disc with the correct authoring. Finally I had the dts version. I don't recall it sucking, but maybe that's because I found it a huge improvement over the original copy I had. The LFE in particular was much more like how I remember the theatre being.

Anyway, I'm sure a BD version will blow any other version out of the water for PQ and SQ. Hopefully Spielberg is game.

I tried to get my grubby hands on the DTS version, but never did. I would think it would be better since it was mastered with DTS. The Dolby Digital and DTS tracks on the LD versions are excellent from my recollection.