Banned
Death of HD-DVD
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
19 February, 2008
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Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content
TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.
"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."
Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.
Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.
Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.
beginning of the end?
Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise
Infidel Bear
Mini Putt 2 Champion!
thank god.
Was sick of the fight between them.
Blu-ray FTW!!
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
- Theodor Seuss Geisel
its was always going to be canned...it was just inferior.
but kinda reminded me of the SACD war a bit, i mean why would anyone buy a whole new specialised unit to play a medium that only has a very small listing of available works to be played on it...just stupid.
Quagmire: My fellow Americans, I have not been entirely truthful with you. I did gagoogidy that girl. I gashmoygadied her gaflavity with my googus. And I am sorry.
Once the major studios got on board blue ray was going to win. It's been popular in Japan for like the last five years. HD-DVD how ever was not. I was hoping to see HD-DVD drive down the price of sony's technology but alas they now have a monopoly on the market. One thing that no one needs.
<davy> remember when braveheart came out and everyone said you can't have mel gibson playing a scottish guy cuz it wont be realistic?
<davy> well look at him now
<davy> an alcoholic racist
Donating Member
<<<There's a good present
i still think Blu-ray will die. History will repeat itself, remember Beta video? Microsoft will incorporate HD-DVD into computers. Whats Blu-ray got apart from movies? Also Pixar has left Blu-ray and gone to HD-DVD from what I read.
Customize your life.
Good Blue-ray is superior.
Originally Posted by Yoda
Banned
Ummmmmmmm... Did you miss the point of this thread? Toshiba are discontinuing HD-DVD development and withdrawing from the market. How will Microsoft incorporate hardware into computers when they make and sell software? Dell have been selling a LOT of computers and laptops with Blu-Ray players for a long time now.
HD-DVD was not an inferior product. It had slightly less capacity and was region free. Blu-Ray can hold more but that's about all it had going for it over HD-DVD. HD-DVD was also completely region free, but not so with Blu-Ray. Telling the two apart on screen is impossible as the quality of both is so high. Blu-Ray was just marketed and pushed to the consumer a lot better thanks to Sony. The Australian media is always keen to say "consumers voted by choosing Blu-Ray" when for the most part, there really was no choice.
Infidel Bear
Mini Putt 2 Champion!
Well, there was a choice, X-box or PS3, i chose the latter lol. From what i have read the 2nd gen blu-ray will go region free also.
Blu-ray wont die, not when you have massive production and entertainment companies behind it.
lol, you do realise that Beta was contesting against VHS right? One come out victorious. We both know which one that was.
As for pixar switching, erm why would they? HD-DVD is ceasing...
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
- Theodor Seuss Geisel
Customize your life.
It's not that hard to pick the changes, Movies after movies you can pick the detail sometimes blu-ray burns your eyes with it's perfect colour it's like the picture is about to jump outside the screen, Some are better and some are the same, You can also have a greater selection of movies with Blu-ray,
But as for being inferior what gave you the idea of that?, It's not up with Blu-Ray but it's the 2nd best even if there is only the 2 of them, Like HD with LCD's and Plasma's, In movies you can slightly only slightly with a very keen eye see the difference, Like normal TV is the same with the 2 of them,
I was more hoping they would just come together and settle the fight and build formats together.
We had a beta video
ATM region free isn't important to these players.
Inferior? How so?
The fact that all HD-DVD players can play all features on a HD-DVD disc? The spec was complete when the players were released. Blu-Ray has been making changes since they first released it, there are very few blu-ray players that aren't obsolete now only having limited access to functionality on BD discs.
Picture and sound wise, the two formats are identical. It's cheaper to produce hd-dvd discs and it was a more scaleable disc format.
The only reason BD came out ahead was because it was backed by sony, the ps3 got it into plenty of homes. HD-DVD players were priced at the same price as high-end dvd players with the same upscaling ability, so it's not as if people were just "throwing away" money at them.
HD-DVD was far from inferior, BD just won by using brute force, it's spec still may not even be finalised 2 years after it's release.
I'm glad the format war is finally over though, and all the decent movies on HD DVD will be released on blu-ray now.
I'm interested to know which you think is better?It's not that hard to pick the changes, Movies after movies you can pick the detail sometimes blu-ray burns your eyes with it's perfect colour it's like the picture is about to jump outside the screen, Some are better and some are the same, You can also have a greater selection of movies with Blu-ray,
But as for being inferior what gave you the idea of that?, It's not up with Blu-Ray but it's the 2nd best even if there is only the 2 of them, Like HD with LCD's and Plasma's, In movies you can slightly only slightly with a very keen eye see the difference, Like normal TV is the same with the 2 of them,
I was more hoping they would just come together and settle the fight and build formats together.
We had a beta video
ATM region free isn't important to these players.
Considering both technologies have some big strengths and weaknesses.
Neither is "better", just different. Plasma is much better at displaying quick motion, LCD is better at still images.
There is no difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray in terms of picture quality, they're both encoded in the same codec. Just stored on a different disc format with a different structure.
Banned
LCDs are on par these days provided you buy the right model. The Samsung 100hz F-Series LCD is as good as any Plasma for sport of action. My mate has the 46inch HD F series LCD and I have the 50inch plasma HD. Much of a muchness. I just love the video upscaling with my yamaha amp. Never had it so good before
Likewise the still image quality is much better on plasma's as well.LCDs are on par these days provided you buy the right model. The Samsung 100hz F-Series LCD is as good as any Plasma for sport of action. My mate has the 46inch HD F series LCD and I have the 50inch plasma HD. Much of a muchness. I just love the video upscaling with my yamaha amp. Never had it so good before
Between the high end models there is very little between the two technologies. LCD has the smaller tv market cornered, plasma has the larger market.
At the end of the day, whats going to affect the picture is the quality of the product, not the technology used now.
im going to regret even repling to your post, but here it goes...
its inferior because:
blu-ray has TWICE the highest tested capacity, 100GB vs 45GB with a theoretical max capacity for blu-ray of 200GB!!!! vs a measly 60GB for the hd dvd. in their respective single layer capacities they are 25GB vs 15GB.
the reason blu-ray "came out ahead" is because its BETTER than hd dvd and many companies realised this straight away, with the smart ones jumping on board to produce titles on blu-ray....
heres a list for you:
movie studios supporting blu-ray -
20th Century Fox
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Hollywood Pictures
Lions Gate
Miramax Entertainment
MGM Studios
New Line Cinema
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Touchstone Entertainment
The Walt Disney Company
Vivendi Universal Games
Warner Bros.
movie studios supporting hd dvd -
Dreamworks
Paramount Pictures
Universal Studios
not too many people backing up hd dvd is there....doesnt make much sense to buy a specific hd dvd player and discs when there is stuff all titles available for it and blu-ray is a superior medium supported by four times more major studios.
ontop of this blu-ray also has a huge range of major manufacturers supporting it -
sony, dell, apple, hewlett packard, LG, hitachi, mitsubishi, panasonic, phillips, sharp, TDK, samsung, pioneer....the list goes on.
where the only manufacturers supporting hd dvd are (were??) - NEC, toshiba, and sanyo.
if all of this doesnt make the hd dvd technology inferior to the blu-ray then i guess there must be something special about it i dont know about.
Quagmire: My fellow Americans, I have not been entirely truthful with you. I did gagoogidy that girl. I gashmoygadied her gaflavity with my googus. And I am sorry.
2 hours of 1080p content uses around 14gb of storage. There aren't many blu-ray or hd dvd discs that have over 6 hours of 1080p content which is required to fill a hd dvd disc is there?
The main advantage of HD DVD to studios is that it uses conventional dvd pressing methods to produce the discs, it costs nothing more to produce them. The size in the end means nothing to the user, the end product on both formats was pretty much identical. No companies are filling that 6 hours full HD content, in fact most of the time it's just the movie which is 2 or 3 hours maximum, then 720p bonus content upscaled.
Both studios were paying for the dedicated services of these studios, it wasn't a matter of saying hey this is the better format, lets go with them. Sony spent so much pushing the blu-ray that they couldn't afford to let it go under, they spent plenty of money luring over studios. The format war was 50/50 until Warner decided to switch to blu-ray... Which was only what 2 months ago? Gee for all these super smart studios, it took them 3 years to work out which format was technically superior?
HD DVD had HP, Samsung, NEC, Toshiba, Sanyo, Medion, ACER, ASUS, ROCK, LG and Buffalo Technologies all including HD-DVD in their products.
Your list doesn't look much bigger now does it?
In any case, I really don't care who won the battle, infact I prefer blu-ray because I have a PS3 to use to play them. But the fact of the matter remains, it was far from an inferior technology. What is inferior now is the the BD 1.0 Spec which early adopters got burnt with and cannot use all the features of new Blu-ray movies.
BD just had more financial backing and ended up winning in the end because it had too many studios in it's pocket which they paid for, and toshiba simply could no longer compete.
Im content with the quality of the DVD's currently on the market. There quality is good enough. This Blu-Ray and HD-DVD cr#p is just another way there trying to rip consumers off with over priced DVD's..
Jesus drove a Honda but did not talk about it:
"For I did not speak of my own accord" John 12:49-50
as much as i want to stay out of this debate, i have to correct you. granted there arent many movies, except maybe the lord of the rings, that would fill a disc, what about tv series? instead of buying a boxset that contains 6 dvds, have them on one bluray disc at 1080p. id love having just a few bluray discs of tv season boxsets, instead of the 100 or so dvds i have now
1995 Manual HSV Clubsport
Wade Cam :: 9.2:1 CR :: Pacemaker headers :: Twin 2.5" Exhaust :: VT Brakes
1991 Supercharged VN Berlina
9 PSI SC14 Intercooled :: Genie headers :: Twin cats :: HM Twin 2.25 exhaust :: 3.45:1 LSD
That's right stocky, I'm sure my wife will be first in line to have all of will and grace on one disc :P
In 720p, which is the maximum tv shows are broadcast in, content is at about 1.5gb per hour. Your regular standard definition tv shows are transferred at around 0.3gb per hour.
HD DVD actually has discs that are 51gb so it equates to around 34 hours of 720p footage. Which is more than enough for a television series and it's bonus content on one disc (unless you want a whole year of neighbours on one disc
They were also working on getting more layers on the disc.
I can't think of any real world examples where the limits of HD-DVD or BD at present would truly be tested for pressed video formats.
For both formats, the numbers are irrelevant, both are more than capable of doing whatever the job is. Neither format is inferior or superior, whichever one prevailed the content would have been exactly the same. Blu-ray was immature when it hit the market, it still is, once the format is finalised then it's time to go out and buy a standalone player, but not until then. I just think it's a massive stretch to call a technology inferior, without understand the technology itself, or the technological requirements needed for it's purpose. BD could have had 900gb, it still wouldn't have been any more superior for it's purpose.
Last edited by ProphetVX; 20-02-2008 at 03:04 PM.
Now driving R34 GT-T taxi
But Warner Bros went the other way...
Cancels Pixar out easily...
Warner is what killed HD-DVD, no doubt about it.
HD Video however still has a long way to go IMO. Unless they manage to secure the mum and dad market, not just the tech savvy market it will never be profitable.
Realistically most regular people don't notice or care about the difference between a new dvd on a quality dvd player (with upscaling) and blu ray. Not to the point that paying out $600+ means a good return on investment.
In terms of sound quality, there is very little most will pick up the difference with unless you have a top of the range sound system.
The extra features of HD video don't really pack much more punch over regular dvd, PiP isn't really all that useful for most. Regular DVD still looks good enough to most people, and buy the time most people start to think it isn't good enough, who knows what's around the corner, most people may move to just having downloadable movie content like on iTunes. Digital media is becoming more and more prevalent.
<<<There's a good present
why is everyone saying HD-DVD is ceasing? All I've read here is that Toshiba aren't producing anymore players. Doesn't mean no one else is.
more space is always going to be better, and theyll find a use for it. theyll put 10 movies on one disc as a sales pitch just to sell more if they have to. i like the idea of having not 1, but multiple seasons of one show on a single discIn 720p, which is the maximum tv shows are broadcast in, content is at about 1.5gb per hour. Your regular standard definition tv shows are transferred at around 0.3gb per hour.
HD DVD actually has discs that are 51gb so it equates to around 34 hours of 720p footage. Which is more than enough for a television series and it's bonus content on one disc (unless you want a whole year of neighbours on one disc
They were also working on getting more layers on the disc.
I can't think of any real world examples where the limits of HD-DVD or BD at present would truly be tested for pressed video formats.
For both formats, the numbers are irrelevant, both are more than capable of doing whatever the job is. Neither format is inferior or superior, whichever one prevailed the content would have been exactly the same. Blu-ray was immature when it hit the market, it still is, once the format is finalised then it's time to go out and buy a standalone player, but not until then. I just think it's a massive stretch to call a technology inferior, without understand the technology itself, or the technological requirements needed for it's purpose. BD could have had 900gb, it still wouldn't have been any more superior for it's purpose.
1995 Manual HSV Clubsport
Wade Cam :: 9.2:1 CR :: Pacemaker headers :: Twin 2.5" Exhaust :: VT Brakes
1991 Supercharged VN Berlina
9 PSI SC14 Intercooled :: Genie headers :: Twin cats :: HM Twin 2.25 exhaust :: 3.45:1 LSD
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