Toshiba To Make Announcement Tomorrow

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Engadget, quoting an English-language business newspaper, says that Toshiba will be making the announcement tomorrow that it will drop all support for the HD DVD format.

Apparently Toshiba will pull its units from retail shelves, but has no intention to give burned early adopters any refunds (no kidding?); it sounds like the ceasefire will include the bare PC drives as well, so those hoping to keep using HD DVD as a personal data storage medium probably won't have much luck.
 
I have both formats and I intend on continuing to use the HD DVD drive for upscaling my regular DVDs on my 42” office LCD and when the actual movies hit rock bottom over the next week or two I am going to snatch up a crapload of cheap HD DVDs.

Everything else will be Blu-ray from here on out on my 1080P / home theater set up I guess.
 
I have both formats and I intend on continuing to use the HD DVD drive for upscaling my regular DVDs on my 42” office LCD and when the actual movies hit rock bottom over the next week or two I am going to snatch up a crapload of cheap HD DVDs.

Everything else will be Blu-ray from here on out on my 1080P / home theater set up I guess.

I agree 100% - I am doing the same.

One odd question - what about those MIR offers for free HD DVDs? Anyone going to see them?
 
I agree 100% - I am doing the same.

One odd question - what about those MIR offers for free HD DVDs? Anyone going to see them?

Well I got my 5 free MIR titles about 2-3 weeks ago. I sent mine in at the beginning of November after getting one of the $99 HD-A2 models at Walmart.

I'm still fine with the purchase. Spending $99 for an up-scaling DVD player and getting 5 free movies was not bad at all. I bought a few other HD-DVD titles since and will continue to enjoy those. My old DVD player (480p but no up-scaling) was going on 7 years when I got this model and I figured the laser might be nearing the end of its lifespan anyway. I was able to pawn that for $25 so that dropped my actual money spent on an HD-DVD player to $74.

I will probably get a Blu-ray player in a year or so. I'll let them actually get the 2.0 spec out and have the prices drop before I get too excited.
 
Just like the $40 DVDs that didn't budge in price for years, because there was only one format on the market?

Yeah, but this is Sony we're talking about here. ;) I see three ways it could go from here:

(a) Sony is arrogant, prices players and media really high now that HD-DVD is out of the picture, and loses out to plain DVD's until holographic storage, downloads, or something else becomes mainstream; Blu-ray becomes the new LaserDisc
(b) Sony heavily subsidizes Blu-ray until it has soundly defeats plain DVD's, then jacks up the price heavily, once we're all trapped
(c) Prices stay high at first, then slowly go down, just like VHS and DVD. Sony either sees the wisdom of not pricing themselves out of the market, or are forced to by other Blu-ray partners.

Option (c) may well be the most likely, historically speaking, but given that this is Sony after all, I wouldn't count (a) and (b) totally out...
 
Assuming Toshiba does announce that they are backing out of the HD DVD market, I'll be picking up any cheap HD DVDs I can find over the next few weeks. I expect Toshiba to come out with a dual-format HD DVD/Blu-Ray player, so I'm not concerned about the discs becoming coasters.

I'm currently format neutral with an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on and a PS3, so I'm not really affected by who wins the format war.
 
^^^ I totally agree, I hope they do option C because I know of average consumers wouldn't spend that much on a player no matter if Sony thinks that everyone should have a PS3 in their home.

I know people that still buy 'new' ps2s because it cheaper and has a larger library of games than any new gen console on the market today.
 
Yeah, but this is Sony we're talking about here. ;) I see three ways it could go from here:

(a) Sony is arrogant, prices players and media really high now that HD-DVD is out of the picture, and loses out to plain DVD's until holographic storage, downloads, or something else becomes mainstream; Blu-ray becomes the new LaserDisc
(b) Sony heavily subsidizes Blu-ray until it has soundly defeats plain DVD's, then jacks up the price heavily, once we're all trapped
(c) Prices stay high at first, then slowly go down, just like VHS and DVD. Sony either sees the wisdom of not pricing themselves out of the market, or are forced to by other Blu-ray partners.

Option (c) may well be the most likely, historically speaking, but given that this is Sony after all, I wouldn't count (a) and (b) totally out...

Hmm, I might have read more than your first statement but you made the "Sony=Blu-Ray" argument so I stopped. Sony doesn't own all the studios who release movies, nor do they also own all BD manufacturing.

BD winning isn't going to kill competition. Now all the BD manufacturers and studios are going to try and kill each other.
 
Hmm, I might have read more than your first statement but you made the "Sony=Blu-Ray" argument so I stopped. Sony doesn't own all the studios who release movies, nor do they also own all BD manufacturing.

Your fault for not taking the few seconds to read the rest of my post; I cited partner influence in keeping the prices down in option (c). Sony may not be the entire Blu-ray coalition, but they are the ones with the largest influence and likely the most patents. They are the primary backers of Blu-ray. There's a reason nobody calls it "the Dell/HP Blu-ray standard" or even "the Phillips Blu-ray standard". Sony is the one firmly in the driver's seat, even if it graciously gives those in the backseat some influence.

BD winning isn't going to kill competition. Now all the BD manufacturers and studios are going to try and kill each other.

As I said in my post (if you'd bother to read it), that is a possibility. It is by no means certain though. If Sony (et al.) charge enough for the patent licenses, it doesn't matter how much the BD manufacturers and studios compete with each other, the price will remain high or go higher.

Sony is to Blu-ray as Nancy Pelosi is the democratic party.

Good analogy, as Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House. Not the entirety of the Blu-ray coalition by far, but there's no denying that Sony's the one in charge right now, even if they might back down on occasional points if the entire rest of the coalition is against them.
 
Was DVD = Sony because they put DVD in PS2 and pushed it? For a while it was also the cheapest DVD player, it helped jump start the format.

I don't see any difference this time except last time there wasn't a bunch of bitter fanboys of an opposing format to claim"DVD = Sony, prices are never going down, the sky is falling, movies are going to $40..blah, blah...."

Sony, is only one of many BD hardware manufacturers, one of several studios, only one of several owners of the patent pool. Just like with HD-DVD There is a license pool with a non discriminatory license so anyone can build a player under the same conditions to encourage industry adoption. Many of the same companies have patents in both pools.

See: http://www.mpegla.com/pid/bluray/

Just how is Sony controlling anything? Sony could disappear tomorrow and bluray would continue. Unlike Toshiba who is the only manufacturer of HD-DVD.
 
I'm not a fan of HD-DVD or Blu-ray, and have neither. I prefer playing games to watching movies in general, so it's not exactly a big concern to me (though interesting to talk about, hence why I post about it). I'm simply cynical when it comes to things like this. :p
 
Hi,

IIRC, VHS and Betamax tapes went for way more back in the day when VCRs were the new it. I remember a magazine catalog which had tapes between $50-100 a pop! Since I too do not own either format, I really do not care who wins or won.

Chances I will not support Blu Ray backed by Sony only because it is Sony. I felt burned on the whole memory stick concept. I felt trapped by higher pricing for a piece of portable flash memory. Sony keeps this kinda of proprietary BS up all the time. Blu Ray is no different. You will be the loser in the end. Unless BR goes the way of the CD and becomes affordable and effective portable media just with a higher capacity.

I think the real future is in direct download content. We are increasingly becoming more wired. The issue right now is we do not have an infrastructure to handle the traffic that will be generated by download content. What I am saying is we need to have fiber to the home. Once there is FTTH, then you will see the real revolution. Fiber is the new copper. Unfortunately, the copper out there still is being paid for.

Hopefully Blu Ray will go the direction of CDs and not the other way like other Sony based or backed products like memory sticks.

Later,
shaggy
 
I think the SRP for a new release movie on Bluray is $28, $8 more than DVD.

They still have to compete with DVD, so prices may not go up right away - but they may eventually go up as they try to recoup cost.

It would be great if the HD coding was sourced out and opened up. I'm sure someone would pick it up to try and create a HD-Flash using the same codecs (Spinning discs, bah!)

It concerns me that HD-DVD is leaving the game so early, it should be a warning sign to Bluray that the whole HD idea may be a little premature. Sort of like DVD-audio and SuperCD, both technically far superior to Compact Disc - but when it came right down to it, consumers did not buy either format...
 
They should release HD-DVD as opensource on the coding and no license on hardware.
 
To those who say Sony will keep the prices high... remember that there are more companies/studios involved than just Sony...

Fox
Disney
Warner Bros
HBO
MGM
etc...

Sony may have helped develop Blu-Ray... but all those studios are providing content on Blu-Ray. They won't let Sony keep their movies so expensive.
 
Hi,

Chances I will not support Blu Ray backed by Sony only because it is Sony. I felt burned on the whole memory stick concept. I felt trapped by higher pricing for a piece of portable flash memory. Sony keeps this kinda of proprietary BS up all the time. Blu Ray is no different.


Just make sure you are consistent. Don't use DVD/CD/Digital interfaces based on the Sony-Philips standard. Because Sony had just as much involvement there as well.
 
Was DVD = Sony because they put DVD in PS2 and pushed it? For a while it was also the cheapest DVD player, it helped jump start the format.

I don't see any difference this time except last time there wasn't a bunch of bitter fanboys of an opposing format to claim"DVD = Sony, prices are never going down, the sky is falling, movies are going to $40..blah, blah...."

Sony, is only one of many BD hardware manufacturers, one of several studios, only one of several owners of the patent pool. Just like with HD-DVD There is a license pool with a non discriminatory license so anyone can build a player under the same conditions to encourage industry adoption. Many of the same companies have patents in both pools.

See: http://www.mpegla.com/pid/bluray/

Just how is Sony controlling anything? Sony could disappear tomorrow and bluray would continue. Unlike Toshiba who is the only manufacturer of HD-DVD.
You actually have the gall to call someone else a fanboy? That is just epic fail hypocrisy
 
Whether it's Sony or a wart on my mother's ass that owns the Blu-Ray format, if the licensing is retarded then the prices will never go down. I hope they just wind up overtaking DVD eventually, with movie and player pricing falling to replace it, instead of an extended raping of consumers. I don't think the prices will go down for a while though, to recoup all the money spent on brib.. I mean, R&D. :D
 
You actually have the gall to call someone else a fanboy? That is just epic fail hypocrisy

It is one thing to express a technology preference, but another to go of the rails over this like just about every ranting "Sony eats babies" posts for the HD-DVD crowd, your know like the most recent above by UrielDagda. I wouldn't post at all if it weren't to respond total fabrications mixed in with their gibberings.
 
Now that HD-DVD is out of the picture and placed into relative obscurity in the PC only arena (Toshiba will still make laptops with HD-DVD drives)

It will bring back to light the idea of "How many people can actually see Highdef?".

I mean really, there was a pretty big debate way back when - about Sonys Superbit DVD's which cut out all the extras and soundtracks and usually put an extra 2GB of videodata compared to the standard release. There were some who swore up and down that it was vastly superior to regular DVD's, citing pictures as proof. Others said they couldn't tell the difference at all, me - well I sided one the "barely any if any noticable difference".

I liken it to the 2Mb cache on most processors nowadays. If you happen to have an old Celeron that only has 128Kb of cache, then its brutally noticable. But once you go beyond 2Mb, the difference becomes less and less noticable for the applications used.

CD quality audio 700MB for 80 minutes was also a little bit too high of a bitrate, most if not all mass consumers have since regressed to a much lower compressed MP3 bitrate. I get the feeling that somewhere around the 4GB mark is where most people find 2 hours of video of suitable quality before they say "Its good enough". Of which DVD did handily a long time ago.
 
Zen.. do you even own either format in your own home to compare? The difference is so obvious it makes you shit your pants.
 
Well, I'm biased as I only have 16/20 natural vision. But even wearing a pair of 21/20 corrective lenses on a 50 inch screen, its not as huge a difference as I'd otherwise expect.

I think that a good chunk of the population with perhaps 18/20 vision simply cannot tell the difference at first or even second glance.

Sure, broadcast football games look better in HD - But how often to you need to count the freckles on Milla Jovovich's face.
 
Its the same with audio, a lot of people who created the sound standards did not want to have any sounds beyond 24khz, as less than 2 percent of the population or so can actually detect those sounds at any reasonable comprehension level, all are invariably below the age of 35 as audio perception takes a nosedive as one gets older (Vision as well). At about 16 years old is the best time for visual and audio perception (before the constant drone of traffic and airplane noise, and ultraviolet light destroy your senses.)

Every khz above 24 would require a lot more *useless* data than if they simply compressed the more audible range of hearing better. Eventually they came up with a great idea, compress the LFE (low frequency range) at a different channel and bitrate as it needed to not be very accurate *at all* and concentrate on clarifying what people can actually hear, which is in the vocal/violin/guitar range.
 
its a sad day for sony haters everywhere

oh well, heres to hoping that upcoverting DVD players will be good enough till HD downloads
 
Blu-ray may have won the format wars, but it will be a long time before it becomes the standard amongst everyday average consumers and not techies or home theater enthusiasts like us.

Bottom line, several of my family members just switched to DVD players from VHS once the prices dropped on the players to sub $100. I imagine until the price drops significantly, Blu-ray will be a niche product for a while.

Kudos to Sony and Matsushita though.
 
Just installed my new LG Blu/HD player. This is all well and good, bravo Sony. Now..... the industry needs to get som APPLICATIONS to actually use the winner Blu.

The drive comes with PowerDVD, and it is THE WORST piece of software I've ever seen. It doesn't wanna play anything, and wont even let the drive EJECT a disk, the button is disabled. Horrible horrible.... and there are basically no alternatives, congrats to the winner but I find your disk's as usable as your competitor... NOT usable.

Drop the costs involved for developers to make applications/devices to play your shit, or you win will suffer limited success and be blown out of the water by downloadable content before it ever really gets off the ground.

It is obscene to have a bought a player, bought the software to run the player, bought disks to play on the player, and still be unable to access the content. Advisor shows all green, everything in the DRM world is correct and complete, and yet... garbage.

Sony being a giant corpus will instead try to bleed every $$ possible and make it as difficult as possible to actually USE the "winning" technology.
 
Now that HD-DVD is out of the picture and placed into relative obscurity in the PC only arena (Toshiba will still make laptops with HD-DVD drives)

It will bring back to light the idea of "How many people can actually see Highdef?".

I mean really, there was a pretty big debate way back when - about Sonys Superbit DVD's which cut out all the extras and soundtracks and usually put an extra 2GB of videodata compared to the standard release. There were some who swore up and down that it was vastly superior to regular DVD's, citing pictures as proof. Others said they couldn't tell the difference at all, me - well I sided one the "barely any if any noticable difference".

I liken it to the 2Mb cache on most processors nowadays. If you happen to have an old Celeron that only has 128Kb of cache, then its brutally noticable. But once you go beyond 2Mb, the difference becomes less and less noticable for the applications used.

CD quality audio 700MB for 80 minutes was also a little bit too high of a bitrate, most if not all mass consumers have since regressed to a much lower compressed MP3 bitrate. I get the feeling that somewhere around the 4GB mark is where most people find 2 hours of video of suitable quality before they say "Its good enough". Of which DVD did handily a long time ago.
I know you didn't just compare superbit dvd to HD DVD. Ok you did, and I get your analogy, but that's the same as a girl saying she can't tell the difference between a Denny's $10 steak and a prime dry aged ribeye from a premium steakhouse - it doesn't mean there isn't a difference.

Oh and also, no matter how high of a bitrate you cram into a the DVD format, it still is 720x480. That's all superbit was, was the higher end of the DVD format. It would be akin to comparing the max bitrate that HD DVD can achieve, and what Blu-Ray could achieve (BD can achieve a higher bitrate and bandwidth). While some might be able to discern the difference, it would be minimal to most undiscerning viewers.

Mass consumers have regressed to a much lower bitrate because they were getting it for free of Napster. Yeah they're paying for it now, after they've gotten used to it. Plus, I think visual differences are more easily distinguished than audio differences.
 
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