http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/ Engadget Comments for Toshiba claims "no decision" on HD DVD strategy as desertions continue http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 8:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 8:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 9:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 1:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 2:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
www.talkprice.net]]>Feb 18th 2008 8:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
It hasas been reported TIME AND TIME again that consumers DONT want hddvd. consumers want blu.
Best buy knows what consumers want, so does Warner, walmart, netflix, and toshiba. consumers chose BLU all year last year when this was still a "Stalemate". not once since this war started have consumers wanted HDDVD... not once. So its over.]]>Feb 18th 2008 12:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
So, your prediction that it was going to be announced by Toshiba that it was over today was flat wrong wasn't it?

Admit it, you're staggeringly biased and just plain nasty.

/unsubscribe]]>Feb 18th 2008 8:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
Seriously Joystiq I'm a Bluray supporter now and even I find your lack of professionalism completely disgusting.

About the recent Toshiba/HD DVD news...oh well. HD DVD had all the oppurtunity in the world to win this format war. Unfortunately the people in charge didn't seem to get the fact that they were in a WAR. As in you need to fight hard to win it?

Horrible marketing in the end is what killed them. Studio support was a good thing for Bluray to have but in the end its the consumer who makes the decision and most consumers would have made the jump to HD DVD if Toshiba and its supporters had simply done a good job of providing the WHY.]]>Feb 18th 2008 8:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
Well put. It just seems like the Blu-ray camp wanted it more.

I'm format agnostic (I own and enjoy both), and thought HD DVD had the better chance of coming out on top (fewer replication barriers, combo discs, cheaper hardware). But Toshiba missed more than one opportunity to offset Blu-ray's better studio backing. Why they didn't FLOOD the market with Paramount and DreamWorks library titles when they went red is beyond me. No automatic HD DVD player in Xbox 360s to match PS3's BD function was killer too.

It's over folks, don't kid yourselves. With plenty of players and discs still in stores, Toshiba can't concede just yet ... that's retail suicide.

But the fat lady is screaming.]]>Feb 18th 2008 9:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 12:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
I love all these butt-hurt HD-DVD nutjobs screaming murder over every Engadget format war post... good go...]]>Feb 19th 2008 12:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
You do realize that HD DVD utilizes a Blue-Ray (and not Blu Ray) type technology right?

"So, your prediction that it was going to be announced by Toshiba that it was over today was flat wrong wasn't it?"

Because anouncing this "Toshiba has not made any announcement or decision. We are currently assessing our business strategies, but nothing has been decided at the moment." is so much better?
With this kind of strong and positive declaration, watch Uni and Para flee away to Blu Ray ;)

If you guys can't accept this is over yet, then you deserve all the "this is the end" posts and articles you are getting, as you don't seem to understand what is happening...]]>Feb 18th 2008 8:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 8:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 9:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/]]>Feb 18th 2008 9:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 9:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
Early on I looked at these formats as I would hard drives (I wasn't happy with either because of HDCP, but knew these would be the only options for the near future). Given the choice, would I rather a 30GB 5400rpm hard drive or a 50GB 7200rpm one? Even if I don't plan on going beyond 30GBs, the 50GB storage space might come in hand one day.]]>Feb 18th 2008 9:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 10:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
People do see HDDVD's lack of storage and lower bitrates as inferior qualities. Just because you see it differently does not mean they are wrong either.
(I wasn't suggesting "they" were wrong by the way - if anything, I was accused of being wrong and was defending my view).
]]>Feb 18th 2008 10:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
There will always be your opinion and others' opinions. You can harp as loud as you can but not everyone will have your view.]]>Feb 18th 2008 1:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
And I'll point out again that I was replying to Jody who stated that Blu-ray was an "inferior technolgy". My response was just letting him/her know that at least one person doesn't agree. I haven't said anything about other people's opinions, nor have I assumed that I was speaking on behalf of a whole group - only you have.]]>Feb 18th 2008 2:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
You can say HD-DVD had it's extra interactive features/profiles worked out sooner than Blu-ray, but to claim superiority is not only incredibly ignorant, but just plain wrong. This is NOT an opinion. I'm talking about technical superiority as defined by objective measurements. Claims about extra features such as picture in picture or mini-games or online content being superior in HD-DVD is not what I'm commenting on as I don't have indepth experience with the Blu-ray profile 1.1/2.0. What can be said is that the profile issue is very minor as it will all be worked out soon, and as long as you buy a profile 1.1 that has a network connection you should be good to go. Even very early 1.0 players will be able to play all Blu-ray movies, they will just not be able to take advantage of some of the extra functionality.

Blu-ray = Technically Superior:

1) Blu-ray uses quite a bit of custom designed processors, ASICS and DSPs, and the disc technology itself is a much larger upgrade over DVD than is HD-DVD. The optical module is is more advanced and has much tighter manufacturing tolerances than HD-DVD.

2) All of this complex hardware gives Blu-ray not only a much greater capacity of 25GB per layer compared to 15GB per layer for HD-DVD, but even more importantly, Blu-ray has a much higher total audio+video bandwidth of 48mbps vs HD-DVD's 30mbps which allows for a greater video bitrate. All other things the same, the higher the bitrate of the film transfer, the better quality the picture is with better color and contrast, and less compression artifacts. This is especially relevant for possible future additions, such as Blu-ray video that runs at 1080P and 60fps, or even higher digital cinema 2K/4K resolution monitors/projectors.

3) On the computer and data side, Blu-ray disc already has readers and soon to be released writers at 6X. 4X writers are widely available. HD-DVD has been stuck at 2X for both read and write since it's beginning. Obviously with the amount of data being stored on these discs, it is crucial to have a fast rate at which to move data both to and from the disc.
In addition, the higher capacity 25GB and 50GB Blu-ray discs have an obvious advantage over the small 15GB and 30GB HD-DVD disc. Also, quad-layer 100GB and 200GB Blu-ray disc prototypes have been shown and are speculated to even be backwards compatible with existing readers.
]]>Feb 19th 2008 12:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 9:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 9:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 10:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
I guess if you were just buying an upconverting player none of this matters.
]]>Feb 18th 2008 10:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
Anyhow, I can understand wanting the official white flag wave for the sake of closure.]]>Feb 18th 2008 11:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 11:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 11:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/Feb 18th 2008 1:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba-claims-no-decision-on-hd-dvd-strategy-as-desertions-co/
1) Because of the broadband monopoly in this country caused by corrupt politicians, most cable companies have seriously oversold their internet bandwidth. Already, instead of upgrading their infrastructure, they are attempting to throttle or stop P2P and Bittorrent traffic completely, not because of copyright concerns, but because a small amount of their customers are actually using a good amount of bandwidth in an age when many consumers are just now starting to use the internet for things other than email and web browsing. Many broadband providers have already expressed a lot of interest in moving away from unlimited plans and moving to capped plans. I can guarantee that the average American wanting a low-cost broadband connection will be capped at 20-50GB or something close to that. This will just not allow regular downloading of 15-20GB 1080P movie files anytime soon. I'd even be willing to bet that if even 20% of broadband subscribers in America regularly downloaded that size of file, the broadband infrastructure in America would become crumble.
I'm not pulling this out of my ass, there have been many reports about the pathetic status of broadband internet in America and how the bandwidth is filling up very quickly and investment in proper next-generation infrastructure is not happening.

Your dream of Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) for everyone in 2009 is a joke. It doesn't matter how much dark fiber there is running through the major conduits; the problem is always the so-called "last mile" from the phone/cable company's closest endpoint to your home. Verizon is the only company that is building out a large-scale FTTH network, and in fact is the only one to even consider or announce such an undertaking anytime this decade. The big project AT&T has been working on, "U-Verse", Isn't even fiber to the home, they are just expanding the bandwidth capability of their neighborhood endpoint nodes and still relying on copper POTS (phone) lines to your home. This strategy is much cheaper than actually doing the real thing, but there are major bandwidth Limitations. Compare AT&T top-scale internet plan of 6mbps download / 1mbps upload to Verizon's 50mbps and soon to be 100mbps download and 20mbps upload. There are even rumors Verizon will move their top tier to bi-directional 100mbps. There is obviously no comparison.
Even when Verizon completes their rollout in 4-5 years from now, they only cover a small portion of the country, and they are only running the fiber to urban and suburban areas. Anyone outside a suburban area can forget about it.

I'm not a telecomm analyst so I don't know all the recent buzz, but I do know that fiber service being avilable to every current cable or DSL broadband customer is NOT HAPPENING ANYTIME SOON. There are of course smaller commercial rollouts in different states, especially for business use in the dense parts of cities where it's much cheaper to rollout due to the density of customers in a given area. Also, some small communities have taken action and setup their own fiber-optic municipal network, but that too has been limited to only the very lucky. I know of a small town on the Oregon Coast who's residents have access to 1.2 GIGABIT per second connections for $40/month.

The situation in European countries and ESPECIALLY ASIAN countries such as Japan and South Korea is much better. Most people in cities and larger suburban areas have access to cheap, very fast fiber-optic service. The false reasoning you always see thrown out is that Europe and Asia have a higher population density and therefore it is cheaper per mile to roll out fiber internet services. This is true when you take the entire USA as a whole, but the fallacy in this argument is that even the population dense cities in this country don't have much access to fiber internet, unless you are lucky enough to be covered by Verizon's service. The real problem is the monopolization of and lack of competition in broadband. This is in turn brought on by terrible policy choices and lax regulation made during the last 10 years, mostly from the truly idiotic bush administation and their FCC which is only interested in corporate profits and could give a shit about the citizens.

When you live in nearly any major city in western Europe, you'll find that you have telecom companies beating down your door to offer you broadband service. Because they regulate the local loop of cable & dsl service, you may have 3 Cable broadband providers and 4 DSL providers all competing to offer you service. And that's for the unlucky where Fiber service is not offered, which it is in large parts of Western Europe, especially in the major cities.
In Japan or South Korea, Fiber sevice is cheap and ubiquitous in the populated areas. I don't want to even imagine the awesome stuff they get to do.

Bottom line, Digital downloads of Blu-ray movies won't be here for awhile.


Heres a map showing Verizon Fios availability in cities: http://www.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios

See these links for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_in_the_United_States
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