HD-DVD bows out

An article in the Hollywood Reporter a few days ago stated that Toshiba is now in the stages of planning their exit from the next-generation movie format market from reports by inside sources. Although not confirmed yet, yesterday it was followed up by articles reporting the exact same thing in Reuters and NHK, practically cementing the rumour in reality.

According to the articles, Toshiba be still continue to sell their HD-DVD players until their stocks run out, and close down their factories in Japan.

The response to these articles from Toshiba was: "Based on its technological advancements, we continue to believe HD DVD is the best format for consumers, given the value and consistent quality inherent in our player offerings", lacking Toshiba's usual straight denial of rumours.

The bowing-out of HD-DVD from Toshiba would make sense due to the recent shift by retailers to promoting Blu-Ray exclusively or prioritising it over HD-DVD following Warner's announcement of exclusivity to Blu-Ray.

This announcement would finally mean a single HD movie format available so sales can increase as consumers would not have the confusion of 2 formats anymore. However, Blu-Ray still does not have set "default" player specs yet, instead labelling each player in a Profile. Most available on the market are Profile 1.0, but they lack the features of PiP and internet connectivity of more recent Profile 1.1 machines. Profile 2.0 has been announced as well, possibly moving home movie players into the space of PCs where a new machine may need to be purchased every couple of years if the owner wishes to use all the features on their Blu-Ray movie discs.

Currently the only "safe" Blu-Ray player is the PS3, due to its hard drive and ability to upgrade firmware to support new features, which should result in a boost in sales for Sony's videogame system.

Samsung have recently been sued because their players did not support all Blu-Ray movie discs and would freeze or crash in some discs, such as halfway through the recent Pirates of the Caribbean 3 Blu-Ray disc.

Despite the phasing out of HD-DVD, consumers would be recommended either use a PS3 with internet connectivity to play Blu-Ray movies, or wait until Blu-Ray players have a set standard and the current problems plaguing them have been fixed, including incompatibility and over 2 minute startup times on some players.

However, the price drop of HD-DVD players that should inevitably follow an official announcement from Toshiba due in the coming weeks would still make them a viable purchase, as they are currently recognized to have the most advanced upscaling technology for current standard-definition DVDs to HD resolutions, and the availability of over 1000 HD-DVD movies from Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks and Warner. Also, the current price of HD-DVD players ($130US for the 360 add-on, $99 to $199 for the Toshiba players, all come with 5 free HD-DVD movies) is in the DVD player range, making it a bit silly not to get one if you need a new DVD player so you can have the added extra features if you wish to pick up some cheap HD-DVDs as well as standard DVDs.

There is the possibility that Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks will even continue to produce HD-DVDs as well as Blu-Ray for a significant time after changing to Blu-Ray due to the current sales of over 1 million HD-DVD players and their association with HD-DVD and Toshiba. Currently 80% of the HD optical disc market in PCs is still HD-DVD, so it may still exist in burnable form for PCs.

HD-DVD partners Microsoft, HP and Intel have yet to be reached for comment, but previously Microsoft had hinted that whatever format wins the war, they will make an external player for it for the Xbox 360. This could slow PS3 sales as it would make the 360 a viable alternative "safe" Blu-Ray player to the PS3 as it also has a hard drive for updates and feature expansions.

Information on the current status of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD news can be found here: http://www.highdefdigest.com/

 

Yah. I guess they had to win some time. =P

However, Toshiba is expected to be able to salvage some of the losses on marketing HD-DVD by producing a Blu-Ray player or dual-format player which would be much more enticing for previous HD-DVD supporters than buying a Sony one. Toshiba's players have always been of a very high quality, and should be more stable than the current Samsung, Philips, LG and Sony ones that have been having numerous problems with bug, crashing and disc compatibility.

Toshiba have just scheduled a press conference in the next 24 hours where they are expected to announce the phasing-out of HD-DVD. Microsoft have actually responded to the rumours for once, and are saying they are waiting for an official announcement from Toshiba and don't think it will affect the sales of the 360 (why would it? The 360 has an optional add-on HD-DVD drive, but it's primarily a games console). PS3 sales will probably rise though.

 

Yeah, it's official now - Universal has joined Blu-Ray but Paramount hasn't announced anything yet. However, Toshiba "has no plans to produce Blu-Ray players yet".

This can be expected as they only now will be designing and testing Blu-Ray players of their own, so it may be a while before they have one out.

 

Microsoft have previously said that "no-one matter which format wins, you can guarantee we'll bring out a player for it" (referring to the 360), so here's hoping MS hurries up and announces an external BD drive soon.

MS never really promoted HD-DVD much, and aren't tied into any contracts with Toshiba so they're free to do whatever they want. And since MS and Samsung practically sleep together (Xbox contained Samsung DVD drive, all TVs on 360 demo-pods are Samsung, etc) and Samsung is a BD player producer and supporter they will probably work with MS pretty soon on one for the 360.

Toshiba have no plans to make a BD player yet, which I think is a mistake - all the previous HD-DVD and Toshiba supporters will be wanting at least a Toshiba BD or dual-format player from them so they don't completely have to chuck out their preference for Toshiba and don't feel "betrayed". I reckon if Toshiba did quickly make a BD player before everyone's gotten their PS3 or Panasonic / Samsung / etc BD player they cpuld possibly have the best-selling BD player on the market (apart from PS3) from sales from the previous supporters of HD-DVD.

 

Toshiba has now said they'll be focussing on digital-downloads as their choice of next-gen movie format, pushing it instead of Blu-Ray. =O

That'll be interesting...it's worked great with the movie marketplace on the 360, but will non-techy people be willing to give it a try?

 

Toshiba screwed up the marketing, not putting enough into getting people aware of it while Sony used the common knowledge of the PlayStation brand to support it.

Unfortunately, now that the competition has gone there is NO reason for Sony and their partners to drop BD player prices, which is the often-forgotten advantage to competition.

They can price them as highly as they like and together make a new "standard" price. =(