Toshiba quits HD DVD business

[MacNews]

"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.

...

Nishida said last month's decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

"That had tremendous impact," he said. "If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win." "

Link

Well the day is finally upon us. Blu-Ray has won and now we can all flock to Hi-Def movies. Congrats Sony on a well-earned victory.

It's nice to see the 'superior' format win, for once. Hopefully now that the format war is settled consumers increase their uptake of BD players and make it viable.

I just got a HDTV in December, but I'm going to wait for Blu-Ray Player prices to drop. I think the increase in manufacturing will take awhile to hit the store shelves, and in the mean time the increase in demand will at least hold prices steady. Once all the manufacturing streams come online, in maybe 2 years, prices will drop and I will get one. $300-400 is too steep for me. Not to mention in two years time Rogers will be stocking a decent amount of BD DVDs (Hopefully).

[Lionheart]

Why do you believe Blu-Ray superior? Is it not possible that the industry will once again go with the inferior technology? Do you like Blu-Ray because the name is more familiar?

[David]

"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.

...

Nishida said last month's decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

"That had tremendous impact," he said. "If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win." "

Link

Well the day is finally upon us. Blu-Ray has won and now we can all flock to Hi-Def movies. Congrats Sony on a well-earned victory.

It's nice to see the 'superior' format win, for once. Hopefully now that the format war is settled consumers increase their uptake of BD players and make it viable.

I just got a HDTV in December, but I'm going to wait for Blu-Ray Player prices to drop. I think the increase in manufacturing will take awhile to hit the store shelves, and in the mean time the increase in demand will at least hold prices steady. Once all the manufacturing streams come online, in maybe 2 years, prices will drop and I will get one. $300-400 is too steep for me. Not to mention in two years time Rogers will be stocking a decent amount of BD DVDs (Hopefully).

Mac, did you know that you can play Blu-ray movies (and regular DVD movies for that matter) on a PS3? If you play games at all, it's economical to have it act as your set top High Def player. This multi-use breakthrough was huge for Sony in terms of gaining market share.

But by far the biggest turning point was when Warner announced it was going Blu-ray only (they were formally format neutral - manufacturing movies in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray). Two weeks ago Best Buy announced they were going to be phasing out HD-DVD and then Walmart announced Blu-ray only last week. That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

DH 8)

[MacNews]

Why do you believe Blu-Ray superior?

I believe BD is better because it is 50GB vs. HD which has 30GB. 30GB can store a 1080p movie fine today, but 50GB leaves you some room for the future.

Mac, did you know that you can play Blu-ray movies (and regular DVD movies for that matter) on a PS3? If you play games at all, it's economical to have it act as your set top High Def player.

I know it is tough to ignore the PS3, you get a great gaming console and a BD player. I play my games on the PC, and am in no rush to get a blu-ray player. I'd rather wait for the prices to drop between 150-200, and the technology will improve too. Progressive scan can now be found on $50 DVD players.

[Canuck_4_Life]

As soon as I can afford it, I'm gonna snap up an internal BD player for my computer.

[Dan Russell]

RIP HD DVD on Feb,19,2008.

I'll always remember the good ol' days.

[Soundy]

Both formats had their benefits, but ultimately I think Blu-Ray captured the consumer market more readily for the simple fact that it has a glitzier, more "high-tech-sounding" name. Your average consumer will never recognize or care about the technical differences (capacity, etc.), and will only somewhat be swayed by the availability of certain content (especially so early in the cycle, when they're mostly going to be looking for material they already have on DVD), but damn, the name "Blu-Ray" has a lot more panache than "HD-DVD"!

The stupid thing is, this whole "format war" was largely manufactured in the first place. There's simply no need for it - there are already players that support both formats, and dual-format burners are possible as well, if technically challenging. Frankly, there's no reason both couldn't have shared the marketplace.

BTW, one other advantage to using a PS3 as your Blu-Ray player: you can also load movies onto the internal hard drive over its WiFi or LAN connection, and playback several AVI, MPG and WMV formats. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies can be ripped to a WMV that will fit on a standard DVD, and playback from that in extremely high quality.

[MacNews]

Both formats had their benefits, but ultimately I think Blu-Ray captured the consumer market more readily for the simple fact that it has a glitzier, more "high-tech-sounding" name.

The stupid thing is, this whole "format war" was largely manufactured in the first place. There's simply no need for it - there are already players that support both formats, and dual-format burners are possible as well, if technically challenging. Frankly, there's no reason both couldn't have shared the marketplace.

I thought HD would win because its name IS High-Definition DVD. That's like Toyota trademarking the name Hybrid.

Betamax sounds more high-tech but it didn't win, IIRC I heard VHS won due to gaining the most studio support with adult videos slanting towards VHS. It's interesting to see the same thing happen again.

I think it was a necessary 'war' because you can't have two formats floating around, it will drive costs too high. Look at TEAM1040/MOJO...eventually something has to give. Releasing on two formats will retard adoption of the segment, IMO.

[Sir Purrcival]

Agreed, no one wants to support two formats for the same product. Stores wouldn't want it, the consumers don't like the ongoing "which is better" argument and it impedes the process of bring prices down because of a lack of mass consumerism.

So I hope they have made the right choice.

As for what happened between Beta and VHS. There was a clear superiority between the two but the problem was that Sony got greedy and tried to corner the market on devices that could make and play Beta. In essence, it cost more than a reasonable alternative that had many more players supporting it because Sony wouldn't let them in. It is a similar story that almost killed Apple. As it is, you don't see strictly Apple printers anymore, they were forced to adopt some more conventional communication standards and basically allow add ons that weren't manufactured soley by Apple.

Sony seems to have won this time around by partnering up. Maybe they did learn something from the past. Now it is Toshiba's time to ponder what might have been.

Shame really, HD is way cheaper at the moment. $99.00 vs $499.00

[sj-roc]

Both formats had their benefits, but ultimately I think Blu-Ray captured the consumer market more readily for the simple fact that it has a glitzier, more "high-tech-sounding" name.

The stupid thing is, this whole "format war" was largely manufactured in the first place. There's simply no need for it - there are already players that support both formats, and dual-format burners are possible as well, if technically challenging. Frankly, there's no reason both couldn't have shared the marketplace.

I thought HD would win because its name IS High-Definition DVD. That's like Toyota trademarking the name Hybrid.

Blu-Ray rolls off the tongue a little more easily; HD-DVD sounds like something you get tested for after a night at the Swedish Touch.

[MacNews]

Blu-Ray rolls off the tongue a little more easily; HD-DVD sounds like something you get tested for after a night at the Swedish Touch.

:lol: Nice one!

[Dan Russell]

Blu-Ray rolls off the tongue a little more easily; HD-DVD sounds like something you get tested for after a night at the Swedish Touch.

That's one test you want to come back negative.

[Lions4ever]

Interesting discussion. I agree with Soundy that the Blu-Ray is "glitzy" - or how about cutesy. HD DVD is far more sensible - it describes what the product is.

As far as the storage capacity issue was concerned, Toshiba was about to roll out a 51G disc anyway. The current crop of BR players, other than the PS3, are all obsolete. They do not support Profile 2.0. They lack networking capability, are not firmware upgradeable and also lack the interactivity of HD DVD. HD DVD hardware was better priced too. Sony was behind the curve and cynically rushed out a product they knew would be obsolete in no time but snce when did Sony care about the consumer?

The reason BR won out was because Sony was bound and determined not to lose this one. It bribed Warners with a $500M payoff and that swung the momentum to Sony.

[Canuck_4_Life]

Sony and "glitzy" nahhhhhh

Playstation
Wega
Bravia
Memory Stick Pro Duo
Cyber-Shot
Blu Ray