Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: 2008 Timeline
If you haven’t been following this death watch for Toshiba’s ailing HD DVD format, the following is a quick summary of what has transpired in 2008 leading up to Blu-ray’s (inevitable?) success…
If you haven’t been following this death watch for Toshiba’s ailing HD DVD format, the following is a quick summary of what has transpired in 2008 leading up to Blu-ray’s (inevitable?) success…
January 5: Warner Bros. announces exclusive Blu-ray support
January 28: Gartner announces "HD DVD’s price cuts only prolong agony"
January 29: Woolworths, a leading U.K. retailer, announced it would offer exclusive in-store support for Blu-ray beginning in March
January 30: Sonic announced that it will focus its R&D resources on Blu-ray and will conclude sales of its HD DVD authoring product line
January 30: National Geographic announced it will no longer release titles in the HD DVD format
February 11: Netflix announces that, citing a clear signal from the industry, it will only carry Blu-ray Discs and will phase out HD-DVD
February 11: Best Buy announces it will recommend Blu-Ray as the format choice for consumers
February 15: Wal-Mart announces that by June 2008, Wal-Mart and Sam’s Clubs stores will carry Blu-ray only
February 16: Reports surface out of Japan, from an unnamed source at Toshiba, that the company is about to concede defeat.
February 19: Toshiba announces it will discontinue the HD DVD format.
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What say you? Have you bought into HD DVD?
Filed Under: Home Entertainment
It's a nice time line for those new to the "war".
That's what I created on Friday without knowing about Walmart decision.
Make Blu-Ray Standard But Keep HD-DVD
http://www.mcgrath.ca/make-blu-ray-standard-but-keep-hd-dvd/
But if Toshiba do announce officially this week the end of HD-DVD, then the petition is no longer needed for HD-DVD supporters. On the other end if Toshiba do continue to support it, the petition is still valid. But will the other 2 studios(Universal and Paramount) would continue anyway? Does Paramount did have an exit clause that they can take now?
The ball is in Toshiba court now if the "source" told the truth. Too bad that most major news site relied on NHK single source. Is there a journalistic rule that you need 2-3 sources? Even analyst used it and that increased Toshiba's shares today. That may help the special board to make a quicker decision to drop it officially
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It's officially over!!!!!
http://tinyurl.com/2en8ko
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but Microsoft seems unfazed about it. any thoughts?
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Microsoft has said that they would consider adding Blu-ray to the xbox 360 should Toshiba discontinue HD-DVD. I guess we'll hear more on this soon.
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I feel bad for HD DVD player and movie owners, expecially those that were brought in by lower priced players over the past six weeks.
Here's to hoping the Blu-ray camp can now find a way to get prices down and get their players into as many houses as possible quickly and put plain old DVD to rest!
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I just got a ps3.. im amazed by this whole distinction of the HD-DVD in the last 2 months since i bought the pse (which includes a blueray player) .. although it may be more expensive.. its a pretty sweet DVD player… … It plays old DVD-s HD-dvds so.. no need to worry if u have a library of them.. Only problem is.. would be the prices… .. Technology adavances.. every.. year or two.. .. next year theyll be onto something else.
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blu-ray has officialy won. and i dont feel bad for microsfot or owners of xbox because most of the owners of xbox's only have bad things to say about the ps3 just cuz they dont have 1
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Okay… We'll get all movies in BD soon!!
All Hollywood studios now lined up behind Blu-Ray
Check the link:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/080221/tecnology/tech_bluray_col
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I am not surprised that Blue-Ray has won the battle – capacity is always the critical criterium.
But has anyone thought about the long-term (or short-term) consequences of owning BDs that have an extremely thin plastic protective coating (only 0.1mm compared to 0.6mm for the HD-DVD disks))? How do do think SONY was able to eke out more storage capacity on their BD disks? By cheating on reliability, that's how.
Even as careful as I AM with handling all disks I know it is just a matter to time before I ruin one. Even the slightest scratch will render a Blue-Ray HD useless!
That's tough to accept, especially after forking out $27-$30 per disk.
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Blu-Ray won because of incentives to retailers. I have been watching the pamphlets from Future Shop, Best Buy and others for the past three months and they have all been pushing Blu-Ray much more than HD DVD. It's not that I am sore that HD DVD lost the battle but how they lost it. The consumer did not decide, the retailers and payoffs to Paramount and such did. With all the incentives that Sony has given the retailers to push their product, Sony will have to sell a hell of a lot of machines to make up for lost revenue. And of course we all know that HD DVD was a better format. Better codecs, one laser, MPEG-4 technology and oh! firmware updates readily available. I will NEVER, read my lips NEVER purchase that poor excuse of a technology. HD DVD forever!!!!!!
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@hd dvd forever:
what are you talking about payouts to paramount? paramount still hasn't even committed to blu-ray yet, and the format is dead!
also, the ps3 is what pushed me into the HD market… I didn't get the console for the BD, but I was happy to get it with it
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