HD, 1080, Blue Ray...

[Steve St.Laurent]

Latest on this ( http://www.hddvd.org/hddvd/ ):

What's New
By Henning Molbaek
FIRST ONLINE Jan 29, 2008
The latest NPD numbers show HD DVD gaining back some of their lost market share in the week ending January 19th.

As we reported yesterday, Blu-ray owned week two with a 92.53% market share according to numbers from NPD.

The numbers from week three (ending January 19th) had HD DVD gaining some the lost ground back. HD DVD had 34.37% against 65.63% on the Blu-ray side.

Lastly, Stephen Baker, vice president of the NPD, has said that to base sales trends on weekly sales is very uncertain. So, please interpret the data accordingly.

Please note: NPD figures do not include sale from online giant Amazon.com and the data is based on standalone player sales excluding the Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 HD DVD add-ons.

and

What's New
By Henning Molbaek
FIRST ONLINE Jan 29, 2008
Technology research and advisory firm Gartner predicts Blu-ray will win in 2008.

This was the conclusion in the Gartner´s Semiconducter DQ Monday Report this week. In Hiroyuki Shimizu's analyze called "Toshiba's HD DVD Price Cuts May Prove to Be Useless Resistance" he said "Warner's shift from producing in both formats to Blu-ray alone has left HD DVD with just Paramount and Universal as its major Hollywood supporters, both of which account for only 30% of all HD movies," and concluded "Gartner believes that Toshiba's price-cutting may prolong HD DVD's life a little, but the limited line-up of film titles will inflict fatal damage on the format. Gartner expects that, by the end of 2008, Blu-ray will be the winning format in the consumer market, and the war will be over."

5 of the 7 studios are now supporting blu-ray.

 

[a454elk]

Interesting, thank you.

 

[Okiewan]

Just wait another 12 months, it'll be worked out.
Sony will probably buy the remaining studios... done deal. lol.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Sony put a lot in the BluRay thing with the PS3 .. which, while a better machine than the XBox 360, is failing BIG TIME.

BTW, the PS3 has outsold the Xbox360 every week for the last 5 weeks (by 22.7% - 1,158,847 PS3's have been sold versus 944,448 Xbox 360's): http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?con...eg2=All&cons3=&reg3=All&start=39110&end=39474

 

[hunt4steve]

You could do what I did. Get the Toshiba A30 (1080p player) for the HD format, then get a PS3 (1080p/24 output) for the BlueRay. All this with the Sony 52" 120HZ LCD is simply AWESOME! There is a big difference between the standard 60HZ screens and the 120HZ screens. The 120HZ looks soooo much better.

Playing COD4 online has been a blast as well. The higher you get in rank, the better the weapons are.....

 

[Aryain]

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_replace_dvd

 

[LEllis7motox]

ok, 1080p is true definition... its a slightly better picture than 1080i. It has more lines of resolution. So 720p is about the same as 1080i and 720p isnt as good as 1080p but it is alot cheaper.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

HD Dvd is dead - long live bluray!

http://www.engadgethd.com/ :

Announcement of HD DVD's death expected in short order (duh)

Posted Feb 17th 2008 11:46PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: HD DVD, Toshiba

We know it looks like HD DVD's death is a foregone conclusion at this point, but it isn't official until Toshiba says it is, and Ars is reporting that a number of their sources have pegged the impending announcement for within the next few days -- not weeks. Apparently HD DVD's future was in serious jeopardy even before Netflix dropped 'em, and the holdup on Toshiba's part now comes from the company's need to formulate its plans to shut down production -- which is no small task given the volume of hardware and media they were geared up to move.

Of course, out Tokyo way the party line's all the same. Our Japanese bureau checked in with Toshiba HQ, which was obviously on PR red alert since they responded to our query in nine minutes, and well well before business hours. The boilerplate response is about what you'd expect, though: "We are considering our future business policies and plans, and studying the market response [to recent developments]." Let's just get this thing over with already, okay Toshiba?

Retailers already forgetting HD DVD

Posted Feb 17th 2008 9:26PM by Richard Lawler
Filed under: HD DVD

Even without an official announcement, it appears the world is moving on without HD DVD. At the Fifth Avenue Best Buy, HD DVD hardware is already special order only, while its disappeared entirely from this week's Circuit City advertisement. The only people still picking up HD DVD players seem to be value shoppers looking for to deep discounts when retailers clear out movies. Red put up a good fight, but with retail support rapidly following the studios, its clear what time it is.

There's about 10-20 other news items on there in the last week or so basically saying the same things. Walmart, Netflix, Best Buy, and Blockbuster have all announced they are going bluray only - along with a host of other companies.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

It's official now - HDDVD is dead: http://www.dvdtown.com/news/breakin...ces-discontinuation-of-hd-dvd-businesses/5254

BREAKING NEWS: Toshiba announces discontinuation of HD DVD businesses

By Henning Molbaek
FIRST ONLINE Feb 19, 2008

Press Release

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.

Toshiba Corp.

 

[Okiewan]

Finally....

 

[FloopyDisk]

Game, set, match.

 

[fatcat216]

We had a mini "bluray" "hd" battleground set up in our foyer after Christmas.
Bluray won that battle. It was just a question of time til it won the war. (jk.)

(Usually we just buy one of everything, early on when prices are high, to fuel the economy for the rest of you guys.;))

 

[a454elk]

Answers my question, thanks.

 

[Offroadr]

Bought a PS3 a couple weeks ago for the Blu-Ray player. Best deal going, $399 same price as the players and you get firmware updates over wi-fi as well as playing games!

 

[a454elk]

I like that idea.

 

[fatcat216]

Early Adopter Gets Screwed by Every Player in the Electronics War!

I'm the Idiot Who Bought an HD-DVD Player
A casualty of the format war tells all.
By Josh Levin
Posted Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008, at 5:18 PM ET
Illustration by Rob Donnelly. Click image to expand.

Toshiba finally mercy-killed its HD-DVD format last week, ending a drawn-out fight with Sony's Blu-ray for high-definition disc supremacy. The format's demise has brought HD-DVD owners untold humiliation: reams of newspaper stories comparing them to the losers of yore who bought into Betamax and LaserDisc, the sad sight of desperate early adopters peddling brand-new players on Craigslist, and, worst of all, a Web site celebrating the similarities between HD-DVD and Hillary Clinton. I'm sick of the mockery and abuse. You see, I'm one of the morons who bought an HD-DVD player.

While I freely admit my moronitude, I still believe the HD-DVD owner is an unfairly maligned creature. It wasn't dumb to jump on the HD-DVD bandwagon: Toshiba's technology was cheaper and more consumer-friendly than Sony's. It was dumb, though, to assume that the forces of good would triumph. In the end, the fight between Sony and Toshiba played out like some kind of bizarro sports movie: The bad guy won at the end by clocking the lovable underdog in the crotch with a baseball bat.

In retrospect, it might've been smarter not to buy either player. But alas, I have a strange affliction that left me susceptible to HD-DVD's limited charms: I'm a gadget-loving cheapskate. The typical early adopter opens his wallet first and asks questions later; he doesn't care how many gigs of RAM are inside the MacBook Air, just that it slides into a Manila envelope. The HD-DVD player, however, appealed to a different group, electronics fetishists too imprudent to wait out a format war yet stingy enough to base their purchasing decisions entirely on price. Of course, this is an irrational position, like signing up for the inaugural commercial flight to the moon but only paying for a coach-class ticket. But that's how my brain works—I have a Creative Zen Micro, not an iPod.

My HD-DVD delusion began, as so many gizmo-induced fevers do, in the run-up to Black Friday. Like most Americans, I spent my Thanksgiving Day scouring online message boards for rebate coupons. Following a brief flirtation with an off-brand digital picture frame, I fell in love with another shiny object: an HD-DVD player (with seven free discs!) for only $149.50. Never has a piece of electronics equipment looked more alluring: I love high-definition TV, and this was a new, exciting, cheap way to pour HD goodness into my living room. Seriously, seven free discs!

But what about that format war? After three minutes of research on Engadget and Gizmodo, I decided this was clearly going to be a war of attrition. While Sony had the lead in disc sales, Paramount and DreamWorks had both announced they would release titles only on HD-DVD. Since a) neither side looked ready to budge, and b) I have no impulse control, it was time to make a decision. Blu-ray discs can hold more data than HD-DVDs, and more studios were behind Sony's format. Still, Sony never had a chance to get my business. Wasn't it my duty as a shopper to back the cheapest option? For the $377 that Circuit City was charging for a Blu-ray machine, I could've bought two of Toshiba's players (14 free discs!) and had enough money left over to buy a Walkman and a rotary phone. I was casting my lot with HD-DVD. What could possibly go wrong?

In the first carefree days, all was bliss. I put on my first free disc, The Bourne Identity, and went into a reverie. A standard-def DVD creates a flat image on a screen. An HD disc gives the image weight, texture, depth, verisimilitude—in a tight shot of a knife slicing through Jason Bourne's wetsuit, you see a real blade cutting through real fabric. A few days later, the BBC nature documentary Planet Earth came via Netflix. If Bourne is a gateway drug, Planet Earth is hi-def heroin—the most transfixing collection of moving images I've ever seen. I watched great whites breaching, snow leopards hunting, and birds of paradise preening for about an hour, then went to Amazon and bought the whole series for $70. For weeks, I forced all visitors to sit down and watch, building up the experience like it was looking into the face of God. Nobody was disappointed.

 

[fatcat216]

HD DVD Guy stuck watching Nature Shows for Eternity!

I'm the Idiot Who Bought an HD-DVD Player
A casualty of the format war tells all.
By Josh Levin
Posted Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008, at 5:18 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

The good times didn't last. On the eve of January's Consumer Electronics Show, Warner Bros., which has the largest library of any home-video retailer, signed an exclusive pact with Blu-ray. With disc sales declining, Warner's president said, the company needed to "erase consumer and retailer confusion over dueling DVD formats." Warner's defection put five of the seven major Hollywood studios on Team Blu-ray. Just like that, nobody seemed to care that HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies looked and sounded pretty much the same or that Toshiba's players were way cheaper than their Sony counterparts. No, this war ended in the most annoying way possible—with a bunch of mega-corporations telling gadget buyers they didn't care which format was better. They just wanted it to be over.

At this point, Toshiba turned to a strategy that industry experts call "denial." After admitting he was "disappointed" with the Warner Bros. announcement, a Toshiba exec added, "Sales of HD-DVD were very good last year." This was a bit like the scene in The Naked Gun where Lt. Frank Drebin stands before an exploding fireworks factory and shouts, "Nothing to see here!" In the succeeding weeks, every entity that's capable of writing up a press release—Netflix, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, the nomadic tribesmen of Outer Mongolia—announced it was going Blu.

As these HD-DVD disavowals hit the Web, I got sad ("This blows"), then mad. ("This blows!") All of these companies had been too lily-livered to pick between HD-DVD and Blu-ray when it could've made a difference; instead of having the guts to make up their own minds, they let Warner Bros. tell them what to do. Even worse, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and BusinessWeek reported that Sony, perhaps having learned its lesson from the Betamax debacle, paid Warner Bros. between $400 million and $500 million to go with Blu-ray. Sony hadn't won because it offered the HD-buying public any other tangible advantage. It took down Toshiba because it knew whom to pay off.

In three short months, I was screwed by every cog in the gadget-industrial complex. The tech blogs convinced me that the format war would drag on for years. Sony pulled sketchy backroom deals behind my back. Netflix cut off my HD disc rentals. Even Toshiba did me dirty. Remember those seven free discs? Two of them (The Bourne Identity and 300) came with the player, but I had to mail in a UPC code to collect the other five. Perhaps the cereal-boxlike nature of this giveaway should've tipped me off that HD-DVD was the Frank Stallone of high-definition disc technology. Or maybe the pathetic list of available titles—The Hulk, Aeon Flux, Darkman—should've alerted me to Blu-ray's back-catalog advantage. Anyway, the relevant point here is that I still haven't received any of these terrible movies. You can keep them, Toshiba. I'm sure there's someone somewhere who collects unplayable copies of Black Rain.

While nobody did me any favors along the way, I ultimately screwed myself. It was dumb to assume that HD-DVD's cheapness would give it an advantage in the marketplace. Toshiba's price-cutting sucked in a few idiots like me with HDTVs and (some) money to burn. Still, HD discs are such a niche product that undercutting Sony on price didn't come close to making HD-DVD a mass-market product. Take comfort, landfill managers: The world supply of stand-alone HD-DVD players is a measly 600,000, a microscopic total compared with the number of standard DVD players.

If there's any consolation for us HD-DVD-buying losers, it's that disc-shaped physical media won't be around much longer. Once high-definition digital downloads, like those available through Apple TV, hit the mainstream, Blu-ray will be as dead as HD-DVD. Take that, Sony! In the meantime, I'll console myself by watching hour upon hour of Planet Earth. And no, I'm not going to buy a Blu-ray player. Those things are too damn expensive.

:rotfl: :rotfl: