It's Official: Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

[Shane]

You're right ... damn double-negatives! ;-)

- Shane

[dabhome]

Let's hope the war begins. If it doesn't we have lost. Only time will tell...

[sinfante73]

The technically superior format? That must be why Samsung is being sued in a class action for selling knowingly defective BR players? You can read the complaint here:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/02/0 ... Newark.pdf

The fact that some company manufactured defective players doesn't mean that the format is not superior... however, i've heard a lot of complains about defective HD-DVD players, of course those players where manufactured by the only company (or almost only) that manufactured HD-DVD, Toshiba, and the persons who own those defective players are not getting support from the company... i'm not sure if they are going to sue, i guess they should...

[film11]

Otherwise it's going to be another example of the LD, SACD and DVD-A scenarios playing out again and to this old-timer (and I suspect many others here) that's not a good thing.

LD lasted for 20 years. Blu-Ray should be so lucky.

[rfowkes]

Understood (and I agree). I'm intimately familiar with the entire history of LD and still own about 2000 LDs (yes, I occasionally play a couple that haven't made it over to DVD). However, my reference to LD et. al. was as a niche market product. My biggest concern is that HD Media (no matter which format) will have the same fate if the general public is willing to accept the lowest common DVD denominator (SD-DVD) as "good enough." The only way that HD discs will become mainstream, unless there is some very good education of the public, is if the players in the future are only HD models (which also play SD-DVDs and at the same price point as today's SD players) and SD-DVDs are no longer produced. This, of course, will take time, and those players would allow anyone who chooses not to upgrade to HDM to stay the course. Given a choice, the average consumer (not the average person reading this list) will opt for SD over HD the majority of the time in my opinion.

[fpnovak]

WELL THE SONY MONOPOLY WON AGAIN! I'VE MANAGED TO STAY AWAY FROM SONY AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO--NOW JUST FOR SPITE!
I BOUGHT A NEW TOSHIBA HD-AX35-DVD (THEIR BEST) JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND I BOUGHT THE NEW SAMSUNG 1400X superXX (OR WHATEVER) Blu-RAY. THEY BOTH HAVE EXCELLENT PICTURES VIA HDMI HOOK-UP THROUGH MY NEW TOP OF THE LINE YAMAHA LOSSLESS A-V RECEIVER.
THE PROBLEM IS [THE MORE EXPENSIVE] Blu-RAY PROGRAMMING IS STILL FULL OF BULL EXCREMENT! THEY DON'T EVEN TELL YOU: HOW TO START THE DISC PLAYING IN THE SAMSUNG MANUAL. --AND THEY HAVE 3 DIFFERENT KINDS OF MENU BUTTONS ON THE DAMN REMOTE.
I SENT A DISC BACK TO NET-FLIX (Blu-RAY), BECAUSE I COULDN'T GET IT TO START PLAYING; ALL I GOT WAS THIS ".............." BOUNCING BALL ACROSS THE SCREEN.
WHY IS IT THAT MEDIOCRITY (and I'm being GENEROUS) ALWAYS SEEMS TO PREVAIL, THESE DAYS!
EVER SINCE DISCO FEVER, WE SEEM TO SETTLE FOR THE MINIMUM, INSTEAD OF DEMANDING THE MAXIMUM.
TOSHIBA'S SOFTWARE IN THEIR MACHINES IS 6-12 MONTHS AHEAD OF Blu-RAY'S.
MAYBE SOME OF THE TOSHIBA TECHNICIANS CAN ACROSS "THE GINZA" AND TEACH THEIR SONY BROTHERS HOW TO WRITE SOFTWARE THAT WORKS, TODAY!
THEN THE SONY BROTHERS CAN TEACH THE SAMSUNG KOREAN COUSINS, AND I CAN FINALLY GET A Blu-RAY PLAYER, THAT WORKS -AS WELL AS MY PRESENT DAY TOSHIBA HD-DVD! LOOKS LIKE I'VE GOT A $329 PAPER-WEIGHT. DAMN... DAMN...DAMN...!
fpnovak

[film11]

It's my opinion that the killing of HD-DVD will almost ensure that HDM will indeed become a niche market. HD-DVD was an economical way for many buyers to take the plunge. Now.,with only a higher priced and underperforming (my opinion, based on exposre and comparison of both BR & HD-DVD running 8 - 10 hrs per day) format remaining, any potential adoption will certainly slow down. Even if BR players drop $100 in price, it's still not worth the price for most potential consumers. Also, as far as mosrt HDTV owners I've spoken with, the arbitrary elimination of HD-DVD has seemed to engender distrust of the industry. Apparently, some resent the fact that the choice was taken from them. Add to this the fact that there are far more HD content options via cable, satellite, etc., the need for $300 - $400 HD players is minimal. But time will tell how the cards will fall.

[akirby]

HD-DVD was an economical way for many buyers to take the plunge. Now.,with only a higher priced and underperforming format remaining, any potential adoption will certainly slow down.

a) how long do you honestly think Toshiba could afford to keep selling $200 players with 5 free movies? If Blu-Ray went away and HD DVD was left alone I guarantee you the cheap Toshiba machines would be history. And if both formats survived then at some point Toshiba would accept that they weren't going to drive Blu-Ray out of business and the same thing would happen.

The idea that Toshiba player prices were indicative of long term pricing is ridiculous.

b) most HDTV owners don't know the difference between HD DVD and Blu-Ray except for what they've heard from friends who are on one side or the other. Most owners are reluctant to buy either one not knowing what the future might hold. Don't confuse early adopters and videophiles with the average consumer.

Standard DVD players were $1000 when they first came out and prices came down quickly as the manufacturers ramped up production. The same will happen with Blu-Ray.

[film11]

A) Even the normal prices of HDD were below BR. At Xmas, the average pricefor comparative (and, being up to specs, superior) HDD players were $150 less than BR. And the occasional sale would bring it even lower.

B) The price of standard DVD players certainly were not $1000! I know...I had one of the first ones ($400.00). And you can't compare then and now. There are many more options for HD (both current and pending) so that BR is not the only game in town. In fact, in terms of just content alone, it's waaaay down at the bottom of the list.

[akirby]

Let's do some simple math.

First, throw out Xbox and PS3 because those are subsidized by video game sales. Throw out anything else from Toshiba and Sony. That leaves 3rd party hardware manufacturers like Samsung. I can't think of any reason why Samsung would be subsidizing one format or the other since they make both.

The stand-alone Samsung Blu-Ray player is $400. The Samsung combination Blu-Ray/HD DVD player is $800. If HD DVD is so much cheaper then why isn't the combination player $600?