Official: HD DVD dead and buried, format war is over
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Feb 19th 2008 2:59AM
posted Feb 19th 2008 2:59AM
It's official. Toshiba just made a statement saying, " it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." Cessation of the player and recorders are targeted for March 2008. Volume production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs and games will end in the same time frame. However, Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation did say that Toshiba will, "continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives." That's it folks, the format war is over, Blu-ray has won. Full press release after the break.
Update: Besides stating "no plans" to go Blu-ray during the Q&A, Toshiba committed to stockpiling HD DVD recording media for those who own HD DVD recorders. These will be sold on-line. As for future HD DVD software releases, Mr. Nishida could only say, "it was not our business, we cannot predict their business." Oh really? Is the lack of new titles on a dead platform really so hard to predict?
Update: Besides stating "no plans" to go Blu-ray during the Q&A, Toshiba committed to stockpiling HD DVD recording media for those who own HD DVD recorders. These will be sold on-line. As for future HD DVD software releases, Mr. Nishida could only say, "it was not our business, we cannot predict their business." Oh really? Is the lack of new titles on a dead platform really so hard to predict?
19 February, 2008
Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content
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.
hehe
Yep, nothing like a sore winner. Glad to see that humanity has risen above such pettiness. Not.
Thanks for showing the world, in one post, just why HD DVD folks can't stand a majority of Blu-ray folks.
That said, congratulations Blu-ray - I don't like the way you won, but you did it, and at least now we can all move on and get rid of DVD!
Hooray, now we can get on with our lives.
Aaaand...the bell has tolled.
Huzzah! One Format to Rule Them All! Let's all just enjoy highdef movies together now, without arguing over bitrates and codecs and other such nonsense.
Well for the love of various deities, I hope we can all agree that THIS is truly the final nail in the coffin. Not second to last, or nteenth to last, but the actual, true, final.
I like how they say "the next DVD format will be short-lived, anyway". Some consolation for early adopters in that one...
Man I'd be pissed if I had bought an HD DVD, IF is the key word. *Hugs PS3*
HD-DVD the look and sound of ... obsolete. At least now those of us who want to purchase a packaged HD media can now do so! Next up, an announcement from Paramount and Universal.
Nothing obsolete about a format that uses the same video and audio encodes as the new leading format.
Still, I'm glad to see one winner... hopefully Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones on Blu-ray soon!
R.I.P. HD DVD 2006-2008
Now where are the HD DVD on clearance? Bring on the deals.
>> R.I.P. HD DVD 2006-2008
What a shame. I am sure Betamax lasted more than two years.
R.I.P. Betamax 1975-1988 (the year Sony conceded defeat and started making VHS, according to Wikipedia)
Now that Blu-ray won the HD video war, there is this other HD war that's on a standstill: HD audio (SACD vs DVD-A)..
so long, farewell.
i bid you adieu....
oooo nfinity, where are youuuuu?
Bring on the clearance sales!!! If you already have Red, why wait for the Blu equivalent of a film when you can soon get it dirt cheap?
Because collections of irreplaceable films are not as fun to watch as you think. You'll spend all your time worrying about scratching one, or worrying about your player breaking.
are you kidding its a great time to buy.. what you going to do when Standard DVD is not made? go out and buy them again in case your old DVD's get scratched?
Mugatu, your argument makes no sense. If the movie gets unplayably-scratched, you can always buy the Blu-ray version!
(If a Blu-ray version never comes out, well, maybe that's why you bought the HD-DVD in the first place.)
@Raptor007
I was assuming HD DVD movie buyers would not have access to a Blu-Ray player. For as much as they bitch and moan about prices, I think it was a valid assumption.
A moment of silence for the vanquished foe.
...
OK, that's enough - Woo-hoo! Party!
Dear HD-DVD,
I never got to meet you, but farewell good fellow. Rest In Peace. Your blue laser diode will go to good use. Cheers.
Thank you Toshiba for bowing out gracefully; it shows a lot of class. Edmund Vance Cooke said it best in his poem, "How did you Die?"
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;
It’s how did you fight and why?
And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?
Awesome, now all the BluRay Circle Jerks can end and we can hopefully get some low cost BD players out on the market.
Thanks Mr HD DVD Circle Jerk
That makes no sense whatsoever, but nice try there buddy.
I personally think the "cheap" player marketing campaign did HD DVD no good. I prefer to pay the premium for quality HD components and I think a lot of other people do too. If you want to deny reality and say cheap products can also be the highest quality products, then I can't argue with you because you're nuts.
Mug,
I'm not saying that a player has to be below under $100, but there's no reason that an entry level BD player should cost what it does. At least with HD-DVD you had options. Like the entry level 1080i players. Most hdtv's out there would be wasted on a 1080p player, so a 1080i player makes sense. So why not make a 1080i BD player and intro it to the market at say, $2-300? I'm not a BD Hater, not in the least, I'd buy one in a heartbeat if a Profile 2.0 player came out that wasn't gonna cost me more than a 1 week check. HDM shouldn't be limited to the ultra high end enthusiast, but that's just my take on it.
@Prey521
Give it time. I can't believe the prices won't come down.
What do you think the PS3 was? Sony took (and is continuing to take) a substantial loss on it to get Blu-ray out the door and into homes. What, you didn't think it was for games, did you?
Low cost? I would settle for just one that was a complete product and could do everything my HD DVD player could. :) Meanwhile, I am settling for a PS3. Not as good as HD DVD, but will have to do.
I wonder how feasible it would be to develop an HDi library over BD-J. Might make it easier for studios to port existing titles. It might even make it easier to develop titles on Blu Ray that need more complexity than HDMV but don't want to hit raw metal with BD-J.
Yeah, I've wondered the same thing - would it be possible to implement an HDi engine as a BD-J application. If so, then studios who like HDi could use it and just bundle the engine on their titles.
But it could be moot as the authoring tools improve so using BD-J isn't as difficult.
I think HDi would make an nice addition to the BD spec, I don't see much harm in having an additional interactive layer for studios to choose from.
Ben, if it can be implemented in BD-J then it doesn't have to be part of the spec. Some software house (possible a Toshiba or MS on) can market an HDi authoring tool that spits out a BD-J compatible jar file. I've only quickly looked at the spec but it looks like a mix of XML for layout and JavaScript for functionality. Neither is beyond the scope of Java but the J2ME profile might be too tight to do it. Even if it's not possible I don't see why an HDi to BD-J conversion tool couldn't be produced where the user authors in HDi and then something generates the equivalent BD-J with no emulation layer per se.
It's up to studios then if they want to buy it or not. It won't be the only middleware to ease BD-J development either - I'm sure there will be all sorts of visual tools and 3rd party libraries that allow fast authoring in BD-J for stuff like PIP, interactive content etc. HDi tools would have to compete on its merits and its cost with all the other tools.
An easy way to port HDi would be nice, but as an emulation layer... ick. No doubt the CPU does not take Java as its native code, but instead runs it in a virtual machine as most Java interpreters do. Throw an HDi VM inside a Java VM, and you've got some nasty performance issues.
Now that this war is FINALLY over, can we all move on and enjoy fanboyless comment pages.I can't imagine an EngadgetHD comment page not filled with rants and abuse. It will make a nice change.
Wow was that fun, can't wait to watch the rise of Blu-ray now.
RIP HD DVD
Born Friday, April 14, 2006
Died Tuesday, February 19, 2008
It was a fun 676 days or 1 year, 10 months, 5 days while it lasted.
The war is over, but let's face it, it was the
Playstation 3 that won the war not stand alone
overpriced Blue Ray Players.....
Absolutley true. However, several people purchased a PS3 to use as a bluray player. Including myself. For Toshiba to ignore the amount PS3's out was nonsense.
It really doesn't matter what song it is when the fat lady is singing, it is to the tune of something blue...
Not a bang, but a whimper. It was a whimper the whole way through. History will look back at this, and no one will talk of HD DVD like they talk of Betamax. It wasn't even a real format war.
blu ray has won, now the sony driven raping will start. You tools have all been calling for HD DVDs death, now reap the whirlwind.
You are all about to get tooled by the biggest anti consumer cartel in modern history and you F/wits are all rejoicing.
sony has had the condom on until now, it's just been thrown in the bin and you lot are about to get the reaming you all deserve.
Fuck blu ray, fuck sony
Tissue?
HD4ME, so tell us without ranting why you think sales of Blu Ray players and discs will be any different for the consumer than what they're already used to for DVDs.
Oh dear, that's terribly bitter.
Wait, wasn't it Toshiba that was using Paramount to try to push it's own propietary encoding onto HD? Talk about wanting to screw the customers over. They wanted the propietary disk AND the encoding used for it. That way they could screw the studios over not once, but twice. Who do you think would end up paying the bottom line for that one? The studios? Hah, I think not.
Toshiba had been the one paying for the re-mastering/encoding of Star Trek: TOS, which was part of their exclusive deal with Paramount. Also part of the exclusive deal is that Paramount must use AVC in the encoding of the Star Trek Series, more specifically they must use Toshiba’s AVC encoder.
from:
http://formatwarcentral.com/index.php/2008/02/18/star-trek-season-2-canceled-not-delayed/
You're still in the mourning stage. I hope you will realize, sooner rather than later, how all these conspiracy theories are just so silly.
Either that, or enlighten us all how Sony is Teh Evil and completely screwed the consumer by co-developing the Compact Disc with Philips.
Wouldn't it have been great if that was the only thing Toshiba said in its press release?
"Fuck Blu_ray, Fuck Sony"
"Blu-ray has a lot of grandfathers. A lot of people call it a Sony standard but by our estimates Sony doesn't even have 30 percent of the IP," Doherty said. The top four IP holders are likely Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer and Warner."
from
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9874317-1.html?tag=recentPosts
So, before you go spouting off some crap that you heard from a guy you knew that knows someone who loaded boxes into trucks near a Best Buy get your facts straight. You're not going to be able to impeach Blu ray and reinstate HD DVD no matter how much you wish you could. Either live with it or stay SD...those are your choices.
"You are all about to get tooled by the biggest anti consumer cartel in modern history"
You couldn't possibly be talking about Microsoft there could you?
Anyway the last time I checked Toshiba were pretty much the only company actually making HD-DVD players, now that's really good for consumers isn't it - I'm seeing loads of competition there. [/sarcasm]
The format war is over, HD DVD lost, GROW UP!