Toshiba will have to support Blu Ray. In corporate speak "no plans" means "our options are open and we're thinking about it but at this very minute we have nothing concrete to say". Furthermore it makes no sense they wouldn't seeing as joint owners of a factory that makes (drumroll) Blu Ray drives. TSST (Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology) makes OEM storage components and it's probably where Samsung gets its drives from. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Toshiba sells a rebadged Samsung player this year to catch the holidays and their own in-house models next year.
I was thinking they just hold out until Profile 2.0 and lower overall manufacturing cost were the norms before releasing a Blu player with their badge. But what you said trumps it.
Toshiba doesn't want to go crawling to the BDA just yet, and there's no need for them to rush; they have plenty of other sources of income (including SD-DVD). I also doubt they want to try to make a Blu-ray player quite yet; not until the profiles are sorted out and compatibility is better.
I hope that when Toshiba does go Blu, they'll also offer combo players. I'd probably be the best way to get HD-DVD early adopters to get into Blu-ray.
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Toshiba will have to support Blu Ray. In corporate speak "no plans" means "our options are open and we're thinking about it but at this very minute we have nothing concrete to say". Furthermore it makes no sense they wouldn't seeing as joint owners of a factory that makes (drumroll) Blu Ray drives. TSST (Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology) makes OEM storage components and it's probably where Samsung gets its drives from. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Toshiba sells a rebadged Samsung player this year to catch the holidays and their own in-house models next year.
@ DrXym,
Well said.
I was thinking they just hold out until Profile 2.0 and lower overall manufacturing cost were the norms before releasing a Blu player with their badge.
But what you said trumps it.
Toshiba doesn't want to go crawling to the BDA just yet, and there's no need for them to rush; they have plenty of other sources of income (including SD-DVD). I also doubt they want to try to make a Blu-ray player quite yet; not until the profiles are sorted out and compatibility is better.
I hope that when Toshiba does go Blu, they'll also offer combo players. I'd probably be the best way to get HD-DVD early adopters to get into Blu-ray.