Toshiba Raises White Flag, Kills HD DVD
Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:32AM EST
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At last, it's official. Toshiba said today that it has given up on HD DVD, ceding the lengthy HD format war to Blu-ray.
After some last-minute hemming and hawing over the weekend, Toshiba—the prime mover behind HD DVD—finally threw in the towel, announcing that it will cease the development and sales of HD DVD players and devices, according to the AP. The move effectively ends the Blu-ray/HD DVD battle in one fell swoop.
The news leaves Blu-ray owners (including those with the Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3) sitting pretty with the HD disc format of the future, while those who bought HD DVD players (like your truly) have essentially been left high and dry. That said, Toshiba pledged to continue offering support for now-defunct HD DVD decks.
The HD format war has been a long, twisty tale, not only for industry observers and home video manufacturers but also for consumers, most of whom waited on the sidelines for the dust to settle before committing to one side or the other.
As it turned out, winning support from the major movie studios was a decisive factor. For many months, the balance of power shifted back and forth, with Blu-ray getting backing from the likes of Disney, Sony, Fox, and MGM, while HD DVD had the exclusive support of Universal, Paramount, and Dreamworks.
But in early January, Warner Brothers, which had supported both formats, jumped the HD DVD ship and went exclusively to Blu-ray, a development that Toshiba execs admit was the beginning of the end.
"That had tremendous impact," said Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishiba during a press conference. "If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win."
Indeed, once Warners went Blu-ray-only, others began to follow suit. Netflix announced last week that it would phase out HD DVD rentals by the end of the year, and Wal-mart announced Friday that it would stop stocking HD DVD players.
For those of us left with HD DVD players, now what?
On the (small) plus side, expect more HD DVD disc fire sales like the one now at Amazon, except with even steeper discounts. Unfortunately, unloading your HD DVD player at anything more than at a fraction of the price will be next to impossible. It might be time to consider recycling—or stick it in the closet, wait 20 years, and sell it as a collectors' item.
Meanwhile, is it finally time to go Blu-ray? I'll be weighing in on that topic soon. Stay tuned.
Related:
Toshiba quits HD DVD business [AP, via Yahoo! News]
Comments on Toshiba Raises White Flag, Kills HD DVD
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2 Posted by jirojas on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:35PM EDT Report Abuse
I'm glad it's over. Does this mean Universal and Paramount keep their incentive money?
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3 Posted by blueyesoul1l on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:09PM EDT Report Abuse
im just glad its over...bluray is far superior to the hd format...
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4 Posted by ncaaking on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:34PM EDT Report Abuse
One of the underlying issues in the High Def DVD war was people getting burned in the past from VHS vs. Beta. If you recall, Beta had the better picture quality, but because VHS had the cheaper format and you could record more hours on VHS-VHS won that format war. However, the win was based on THE CONSUMER’S CHOICE. I can remember going to rent movies and for a while there were 2 options, VHS and Beta. Finally COMPANIES stopped carrying/creating Beta related products because the CONSUMER’S stopped renting/buying them. Flash forward to 2008 and you have HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray. HD-DVD was thought to be the early winner because (tell me if this rings bell) cheaper hardware and media. However, because the movie COMPANIES decided to “jump $hip” (the dollar sign is in there for a reason) and produce only 1 format, we the CONSUMERS have only 1 choice for high def movies: Blu-ray. I find it ironic that now the COMPANIES have made the decision for us, the CONSUMERS who choose whether or not to buy the merchandise. This is one of the reasons I will be holding off on this format for a year or 2. That, along with the fact that companies are making progress on the option of downloading your movie or streaming it versus buying/renting a disc. I feel this will be the next wave of technology to invest in, versus Blu-ray.
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5 Posted by hedo4three2002 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:18PM EDT Report Abuse
Im sort of getting tired of the comparison of Blu-Ray- HD-DVD to Beta(max)vs VHS. There too completely different battles. VHS was the logical winner NOT THE "CONSUMERS CHOICE." As stated because of the recording time everybody was going to get a VCR so it only made since to produce movies in the same format. The root of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray has been DRM and interactivity. Standard DVD can be ripped as easy as a CD.HD-DVD took about 30 days I read to crack. Sony is consistently upgrading there copy protection methods which from a Company standpoint makes it a very attractive format. Therse is alot you can do with 50GB of room to play with. Also you didnt have competeing game systems fueling the battle between VHS/Beta. And most important, that consumer group 18-35 bought alot of PS3s given the Blu-Ray camp a pretty good customer base. As the price for Blu-Ray movies, most will be renting, and or gifting and some will purchase blockbuster titles until prices come down. As for streaming and downloading HD...most likely the future but thats the same thing we said when satelite and cable companies offered pay per view... and I can guarantee streaming of HD especially current hits will be very expensive
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6 Posted by tyederk on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:25PM EDT Report Abuse
It's a hard blow to the film industry as well. I own an independent production company and we were going to release our films on all three formats but releasing a much smaller amount on blu-ray cause of the costs. Blu-Ray is just much more expensive to make. in bulks of 20,000 discs a fully packaged DVD costs about .90 cents for the disc/case/turnover a HD-DVD costs $1.90 per package but blu-ray costs a whopping $3.60 per disc. A huge cut into profits for any independent companies. The reason blu-ray costs so much is because of that protective layer they put on the disc, which is more a necessity then a luxury for blu-ray writes its information closer to the surface of the disc and would be extremely fragile to lose data. And Blu-Ray was not FAR superior they just had better funding and backing. HD-DVD would have had more space then Blu-Ray if HDDVD would have been the victor (51gigs on Three-Layers). The quality is the same, and were going to run into compatibility problems with HD-DVD as you will with Blu-Ray. Also this technology is totally not managed well. No one has come close to using up all of a blu-ray disc(Games use about 20%). But and heres a prime Example - The release of Harrison Ford's Blade Runner the Ultimate collectors edition is 5 discs on standard DVD. It is ALSO 5 discs on Blu-Ray... You could have fit the whole thing on one disc, two without question. RIP HD-DVD
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7 Posted by s_mccrea on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:53PM EDT Report Abuse
I was one of those who bought an HD-DVD player for Xmas last year. What REALLY torques me is that TimeWarner made the annoucement that they were going Blu-Ray-only two weeks (or so) AFTER Xmas. Had they made it BEFORE Xmas, I almost certainly would have bought BR--probably in the form of a PS3 even tho' I'm not terribly interested in a gaming console (I have $3000 computer for gaming). I've been feeling like I'm looking at my HD-DVD player from between my knees ever since. The only upside--if there is one--for suckers like me is that HD-DVD disc prices will continue to fall. I imagine that very soon Blockbuster will be off-loading their HD-DVD stock at a fraction of their original cost. Also, retailers, especially Amazon (which is currently running a 50% off sale on about 30-40 titles) will almost certainly be running fire sales. So, we HD-DVD buyers got hosed, but at least will get real good deals on our dead format! And, contrary to blueyesoul1l's opinion, BR does not have a higher quality picture--just a higher price. The resolution is the same for both formats. Now I know how all those Betamax owners felt back in the day. Except that Beta offered only a SLIGHT improvement in picture quality over VHS (I have 20-15 vision so my opinion obviously carries more weight than those with simply average vision).
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8 Posted by pcdebol on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:04PM EDT Report Abuse
Makes me ill to see sony win this format war. This one was decided by who had the best DRM not by the consumer at all. Anyone who states blue ray is technically superior is just silly from a consumer standpoint the only difference is on some very long movies HD/DVD may have required two disc instead of one. The other difference that consumers would notice is price HD/DVD was cheaper.
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9 Posted by imnolegend on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:23PM EDT Report Abuse
i never knew that there was even a war between the two... im glad blue ray won tho... i wanna get a ps3 so yeah... the price of blu ray is kinda high tho... the price of the player isnt all that bad cause u only have to pay it once but the price of buy each movie for, what is it, $40-$60 is just ridiculous... i might hold off on getting a blu ray player or ps3 until the price of blu ray drops to about $25-$30...
1 Posted by magpagbst on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:03PM EDT Report Abuse
i agree matt . . . as much as i despise multiple formats . . . the death of hd-dvd results in no competition for blu-ray . . . no competition means no appreciable drop in pricing for both blu-ray hardware and (especially) software . . . i won't have the desire to jump into blu-ray until disc pricing is consistently at or below the twenty dollar range . . .