HD-DVD: It’s all over except for the funeral
Recent rumours about Toshiba’s imminent exodus from the HD-DVD hardware and software business seem to have been correct.
Recent rumours about Toshiba’s imminent exodus from the HD-DVD hardware and software business seem to have been correct.
According to EngadgetHD, quoting an article from Reuters, insiders at Toshiba have confirmed that the company intends to formally announce their withdrawal from the HD format war. This news paves the way for Sony’s Blu-ray format to become the standard in what has been a long battle between the two rival factions.
While consumers are the ultimate winners here, many of them have already jumped on the HD-DVD bandwagon and are now faced the question of what to do about their recent investment.
As we recently reported, Amazon.com is offering 150 of their HD-DVD titles at 50% off, which means that if hardware prices take an equally steep dive in price, folks who don’t mind shelling out a few hundred dollars could easily build a decent HD system and library, assuming of course they don’t mind the idea of dwindling title selection in the coming months and years. After all, most HD-DVD players are also excellent standard DVD upconverters which means if you were considering buying a regular up-converting player, a few bucks more for an HD-DVD player may make sense.
On the other hand, now that Blu-ray has emerged victorious, would this be only slightly better than buying a Betamax player?
Let us know what you think – especially if you have already bought an HD-DVD system.
Honestly, the real winner is Sony and blureray associate. As we all know, the cheaper price point is HD DVD. It also offers all next generation features since early 2006, while bluray is still implementing most of the feature as we speak in 2008. Picture-in-picture has been great, i've also tried the harry potter web function and it's pretty cool. Blueray is still crippled. They just offer better image and sound over regular DVDs. Ultimately, the trojan PS3 helped blueray (the next gen format with less next gen features) win.
How can they say that consumers are the real winners here. The real winner is SONY, and watch the prices soar.
I am so upset with DVD HD Toshiba. I bought the player and discs. Blu ray players aka Sony namely are expensive , that is why I chose Toshiba in the first place . Now what am I suppose to do when Blu ray takes over ? I would like Toshiba to reimburse me for the player I bought and all HD DVD discs purchased… I CAN'T play blu ray disc movies on my "no good for nothing" HD toshiba player. I hate Toshiba for what they can not do for consumers !!!!
This is irresponsible reporting on your part. There has been no such action taken. What happened to fact checking, this is just a bunch of clowns creating FUD, and is a incredible poor example of lazy journalism on your part. You should apolgize to the public for this kind of rumor moungring.
Don't hate Toshiba, they are just doing what they can to save their butts after big players like Disney decided to endorse Blu-ray. Everyone loses in this deal, consumers especially. Trevor is right, the only winner here is Sony….Sony sucks!
I think you forgot to mention the CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT against BLURAY Players made by Samsung because they don't work. I think we can expect a massive class action lawsuit to occur out of this mess, the public has been taken for ride by the BDA and they will to have to pay in the end.
No. The consumer is NOT the real winner. Not with all the anti-consumer and anti-fair use features that Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) have. This was all decided by Hollywood and the major corporations way before the so-called format wars.
Just take a visit to http://writersblocklive.com/boycott/
Stop whining… you knew it was gonna happen. Now go and hook up those HD DVD players on the kids's TV's and go buy yourself a PS3 40G @ $399.00 ….and enjoy the best "next gen" video game system! Oh ya, if anyone wants to buy a Nintendo Wll, we have one here unused since X-mas, when the wrapped PS3 got opened
"On the other hand, now that Blu-ray has emerged victorious, would this be only slightly better than buying a Betamax player?"
Betamax does not even compare. It's actually unfortunate that people like to bring that up just to create a buzz.
The fact is, Sony isn't the only company behind Blu-ray. It also belongs to Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Apple, Dell, Hitachi, LG, Samsung and Sharp.
Isolating Sony with Blu-ray is just disingenuous.
As for soaring prices, I'll take a page from your play-book and ask: how did VHS come down in price once the war with Betamax was over ? That's right, by having different companies compete with each other over their players.
Bottom line is, it's over. Now we can start wide mass market adoption of one HD format.
The catalyst for HD-DVD losing was Microsoft, they could have forged the new format choice years ago. Had MS bundled the HD-DVD drive with the xbox360 from the start (instead of the silly HD-DVD add-on) Blu-Ray would have bowed out long ago as the studios would have picked the overwhelming consumer-driven format years ago. The Sony Playstation3 was launched almost 2 years later than the xbox360 and was a disaster in terms of sales at the beginning, but was the only reason Blu-Ray survived as the price of the console dropped over time. Heck, the PORN industry even announced the HD-DVD format was their choice early on… and they were the reason Sony lost their BetaMax vs. VHS war in the '80s. Toshiba should have been giving serious and delicious kick-backs to MS to bundle HD-DVD with the xbox360. Major ball-droppage there.
Great! I picked up a Toshiba A3 with 7 free movies when the price dropped to $148 CAD recently. I hope everybody ditches their HD DVDs, I'm waiting to buy them up cheap now. Having 400+ titles to choose from makes for some fine viewing, and the A3 upconverts regular DVDs beautifully!! Plus, I'm ALREADY enjoying HD at home, I don't have to wait around and worry about when to buy Blu-Ray! BTW, did you know that Sony is considered a crappy brand in Japan for consumer electronics? I don't trust them anymore.
THis is too bad, and BARF is right, the reason why blu-ray became such a dominant force is because of it's bundling with PS3, its too bad, because the price of HD-DVD was cheaper from the start, and who wants to pay 400-500 dollars for a glorified dvd player and 30$ for a glorified DVD?
@ Rick M.
I seriously disagree with your comment here. PS3 is NOT the best next gen gaming system. Graphically, it's still inferior to Xbox 360. Xbox live is superior to PSN. BUT one thing that PS3 does have and Xbox 360 doesn't is Blueray. I don't consider this as a gaming feature, so no, PS3 isn't the best next gen system.
Back to topic, consumer didn't win. Hollywood. They can now keep the blueray price at 30-35$ since people who want next generation doesn't have a choice to buy blueray. While players will stay above 300$ for the forseeable future. As long as it's not a profile 2.0 or 5.0 player (which finally has next generation features) selling below 200$, it's still not a consumer win.
I've always believed that SONY would be the winner in the end. Why? Remember BetaMax and VHS? If BetaMax was a winner then, Blu-Ray would have existed more than 10 years ago. It is the public who dominates the standard. However, what the public does not realize is that the folks who use it day in & out know which technology allows them to be more flexible and advance in the industry. Too bad it was only Toshiba. It could have been Zenith or JVC?
For those have invested in PS3, you'll know what your investment has turned into. Sorry Microsoft folks…
think about it this way, all of u hating Toshiba. Why not buy an HDVD player now, with hundreds of titles to choose from and 7 free with the purchase of a HDVD player for 148.99, thats cheaper than a DVD player when you consider the regular price of DVDS (21.99-24.99)
Why not buy one???
Just some clarification on a few points:
I think the consumer wins simply because having two competing formats fragmented the market, and forced studios into producing both, or picking one. That limited consumer choice. With a single format, the whole market can move ahead. And Jay is right, there will be many manufacturers competing to offer Blu-ray players to the market, so prices should drop and quality should improve.
@ Bob Ancle: Reuters is a very respected news gathering organization so I doubt they're on the wrong track here. However, if it turns out they were wrong, I will absolutely write an apology to this blog for passing along incorrect info.
First, I will wait for Toshiba to announced it officially first. I have seen this rumor elsewhere too but it's not on Toshiba's site.
Reports are starting to show that Toshiba won't give the 5 HD-DVD movies with lack of reasons. So, if you get them great for you.
Price of Blu-Ray products will fall because of competition between manufacturers/studio and with regular DVDs.
Barf: The PS3 was launch 1 year later not 2 years. If Xbox 360 had launch with a HD-DVD, it would had been around the expected launch of the PS3 in March 2006 and HD-DVD players. MS wanted the holiday money thus launch with a DVD. Also, it's was still possible to have one HD format at time but talk fell. ;)
Joe: It's always best to compare current generation games against with each other. The first years, programmers learn the machine and so, games are not at their best.
Until Paramount/Universal says they are dropping HD-DVD, then HD-DVD is not officially dead. If they continue, it could be a "niche market" for the 1 million players. More players will be added with the fire sale in the coming weeks from Walmart.
If you have a HD-DVD, Just sign the petition:
Make Blu-Ray Standard But Keep HD-DVD
http://www.mcgrath.ca/make-blu-ray-standard-but-keep-hd-dvd/
But if Toshiba announce the end of HD-DVD this week, then the petition is also dead for HD-DVD supporters ;)
P.S. Those that don't know me, I'm a Blu-Ray supporter. It's the content and not the price that won me over.
I think that it has been clear all along that this battle was Blu Ray's to win. Let's be honest here, in terms of quality and potential, BD are the future. BD have much more capacity than HD DVD's and they offer higher quality. Also, in terms of marketing, HD DVD sucked. Making the PS3 a BD player was a brilliant move that was most likely the reason they won the battle. I'm glad I got a PS3, now it's time for all the prices to go down. Sorry for all you people who bought lousy HD DVD players.
I have a Sony PS3 and an Xbox, they are ok.
All the manufactures makes a good something, but in my opinion Sony makes the worst sound equipment and ok video equipment. I guess I shouldnt be so mean, but in my experience Sony is mediocre at best.
I say go buy a good used "high end" Denon, Marantz or NAD with upscaling, and you will see AMAZING 1080 video and far superior audio quality with regualar DVD's.
Will: The official capacity is now 50GB for Blu-Ray and 51GB for HD-DVD but it's not used in any HD-DVD movies yet. Will it be now?
Yes, the gamble paid off with the PS3. Now, they just need more games(exclusive or not). 2008 is looking good.
Marketing did not go well for them. Plus, under cutting their competitors did not help them gain major manufacturers.