Toshiba launching Blu-ray player by year's end
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 18th 2009 3:50PM
posted Jul 18th 2009 3:50PM
[Thanks, Rata]
posted Jul 18th 2009 3:50PM
The percentage of electronics at the end of their lives which were recycled.
The EPA found that the percentage remained consistent from 1999-2005. Even as recycling rates went up, the amount of electronics reaching end of life outpaced the increase, leaving the figure static. (source: EPA, July 2008)
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So what? Big deal! Just b/c Toshiba is making a BD player doen't mean that BD is going to make it.
If the story is true (and I'm not entirely sure I take it at face value), then it means that Toshiba believes dipping a toe in the Blu-ray waters is profitable.
Toshiba is a mid-market brand which means they can sell what other companies have to sell for $199 for $299-399. Now, EHD has made the claim that mainstream prices have dropped to $99 recently, which is patently untrue (yes, a couple of brands are being closed out at that price at a couple of stores, but there's no evidence any manufacturers are making BD players that are intended to be sold at that price), but it's certainly possible that by year's end, the cost of making a (modern, non-obsolete) BD player will fall to the $100-150 price range. If that's the case, and if BD players are being shifted, then Toshiba certainly can expect to be able to put something out there that would sell with a decent mark-up.
What I would hope is that Toshiba doesn't forget those who invested in its HD format and ended up shafted by the entire industry. The cost difference between a BD drive and a combo BD+HD DVD drive boils down mostly to patent royalties that Toshiba doesn't have to pay. The cost difference between BD high level support and HD DVD high level support is also not that high as the majority of the patented technologies are common to both platforms, with HD DVD's Advanced Content system being the exception.
So I would hope Toshiba throws HD DVD people a bone and makes it a combo player. There's little reason for them not to, and it would certainly help their image - and give their players just a little niche market advantage the others don't have.
But we will see.
Quite so Red
Besides I'll believe this when I actually see it (and not a silly photoshop job).
It's one thing to slot someone else's BD drive into your laptop quite another to actually manufacture a standalone.
I could see their BD player being dual format, but I can also see it not. 30/70 chances if you ask me. But I think a good parallel would be when Sony entered the VHS market. How/when did they do it?
I hope they make a good player. If it's a good player with the same quality as my XA2, I might pick one up and move my PS3 to another room.
Those of you that believe there will be HD DVD compatibility should just let go of the idea. While it's technically feasible to do so, Toshiba wrote off all the R&D for HD DVD and making a dual format player would require them to do some creative accounting.
I'd rather they spend some more R&D money on 2160p and higher resolution on SDXC.
As a recovering hddvd ONLY collector turned blu ONLY collector, Ill not soon forget my distaste for Tosh and their counter-productive attitude after defeat. Sure, hddvd was the best format (at the time) and Ill always believe that, but Ill NEVER forgive Tosh for pushing dvd up converting tech and outlandish claims of 'near hd quality' possible with their dvd tech. Dont get me wrong, Ive no love for sony either (especially being the ps3 AND 360 owner that I am), but I will NEVER buy a Toshiba blu player, and Ill never recommend one to anyone else either!
[/ bitter rant]
Such an apt name you have there.
They should have done this about a year ago.
Too bad it doesn't play HD-DVD also
Although highly unlikely, Toshiba could produce an unlabelled dual-format player. It would relieve them of any responsibility for updates or fixes to HD DVD compatibility, but will draw plenty of HD DVD stragglers, including BH100/200 and BD-UP5000 owners.
How would it draw BH200 stragglers? BH200 owners have an HD DVD player along with a BD-Live blu-ray player that can decode most HD audio formats (sans DTS-HD) and bitstream them all. Why would they want to upgrade?
As a happy BH200 owner, the BH200 is flaky compared with many current BD players. The Firmware and disc problem threads for the BH200 at AVSforum are a testament to that. I'm convinced many BH200 owners would jump at the chance to buy a new dual format player that could easily have XA2 HD DVD performance, along with expectations for future updates for BD discs.
MFM, where is the counter? How is this a sign that Blu is done for? Come on...I can't wait to hear it!
Maybe you can compare blu-ray sales increases to car rentals....
Wow, you do have it bad Jim, shucks sorry but I'm just not that kind of guy, sweetie.
Instead of inventing your own exaggerated and ridiculous narrative why not just stick to what I've actually said.
I've never said Blu-ray was going away or about to vanish.
I have said that those who expect it to slide in as 'the next DVD' are deluded.
We are seeing this come to pass as (even with the boost PS3 gave the format) the mass-market stay resolutely away.
Small short-term niche format, nothing more, nevermind.
MFM, you're a pathetic joke. All trends point towards healthy blu-ray growth, even in tough economic conditions and your response? "It's not good enough cause I said so..." or "download rentals did a trillion dollars and therefore blu-ray can suck it..." getting old...tired...and simply takes up unnecessary bytes on some computer...not to mention the unnecessary bandwidth it takes to download your worthless drivel...
Nothing you do or say can alter reality...blu-ray is doing fine and will continue to do so...
As per you have nothing but feeble personal attacks to offer Jim. Very sad.
Of course you (like the rest of the Blu-ray fanclub) have given up even trying to pretend that Blu-ray stands a hope in hell of being the enormous success you once preached it would be.
Which is pretty funny.
JimC:
Don't bother with MFM. Just check his profile and take a look at all his past comments on HD, Bluray, plasma vs LCD, large screen TVs, etc, etc. The guy is full of bitterness, frustration, sits at the computer all day to rant, all his comments are retarded, lack logic, and negative, and does not even have a medium sized screen HD TV (I don't even think he has an HD TV)!! He is what we call a troll under the bridge, waiting for someone to pass and a chance to annoy. He cannot make any logical sense, bitter that he cannot afford a TV, and knows he cannot bring evidence to the table but only resort to the same name calling. It was actually a friend of mine, who is a regular Engadget reader, told me that he is a troll and leave him alone, even he knows about this guy!!! Anyone who has been on Engadget knows about this troll. Leave him and his illogical rant be. You cannot change a troll.
c
LMAO
A long ad hominem attack and nothing more, irony by-pass or what?!
Hilarious.
Why do you say being in the "blu-ray" fan club is a bad thing. Surely you should be a fan of devices that you buy and put money in to.
Anyway, surely if you think it's a negative thing, then it's just as bad as being in the "HD-DVD fan club".
Benny Boy,
MFM is a fan boy of unconverted standard resolution DVDs and small TVs! No HD!! All this guy has as far as video equipment is the unconvertible chip in his Onkyo receiver, that is it!! Really!!! Check out his long list of rants, and one of them he lists his equipment. He just runs his mouth without even experiencing anything than the few outdated equipment he has. Check his profile and see!! He is full of BS!
Multi-format-mayhem, you wouldn't be Truth Teller by any chance? I ask simply because he used to use the stupid LMAO ephithet just as much as you do. And of course his arguments were equally vapid and off the chart too.
Man, Multi Format's bitterness is almost palatable.
>"I've never said Blu-ray was going away or about to vanish.
>I have said that those who expect it to slide in as 'the next DVD' are deluded."
Actually you said...
>"'Blu ray is a dead man walking.' Apparently most agree-- the poll shows fewer
>intend to buy BR in 2009 than 2008--that's a death sentence.
>
>Never a truer word."
A death sentence sounds to me like "the format is going away."
And further...
>"This is plainly yet another kiss of death for a video format hoping to take a majority
>share of the retail video market.
>Ain't got a hope of happening."
Above you claim that you're simply countering the idea that "those who expect it to slide in as 'the next DVD' are deluded." Except that "kiss of death" is saying that the format is going to die, not just miss the DVD mark. Die, aka "Vanish."
So indeed, what you say above about past claims is not true. At all. And "not true" is the nice way of putting it.
Sheesh.
-Pie
The link for the quotes got removed. My bad...
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/06/25/harris-poll-concerning-blu-ray-and-hd-dvd-penetration-is-way-off/comments/19705162/
For those that want to double-check.
-Pie
I think my meaning has always been perfectly clear.
Blu-ray is a niche format destined for a relatively short life.
It absolutely is not 'the next dvd' - which has always been my point in this.
The BDA and the Blu-ray fanclub always preached loud & long to anyone who'd listen that Blu-ray was the format to become what DVD was.
It isn't - and in that sense it is indeed a dead man walking.
You can chatter away and amuse yourselves with silly verbal linguistics over the semantics if you must, no doubt you'll imagine yourselves incredibly amusing and clever about it, even if no-one else does.
.....and I've still yet to see a shred of proof of this supposed 'Toshiba announcement' that Japanese report claims has been made.
Still, who's interested in the truth when the PR campaing is still on-going, huh?
c do try and grow up a tad, devoting paragraphs to personal attacks is pathetic, small and supposedly against the rules here.
(and btw your descriptions of my stuff are laughably sad and well wide of the mark, actually......be honest now, are you sure you aren't just projecting?)
The best thing about Multi-format-mayhem is that despite the new screen name he is actually one of the oldest and greatest of the HD-DVD defenders from the hi-def flame wars that occurred here at EngadgetHD for a year or so before Blu-Ray finally won. I can't remember what his old screen name used to be but his constant use of LOL and LMAO in his posts reveals him. I'm sure someone else recognizes this dude by his language and hatred of Blu-Ray although he has toned it down a bit in his posts lately.
I’ll bet he’ll buy a blu-ray player pretty soon so he can watch Transformers II when it comes out. He was all over the last one since it was HD-DVD exclusive. How’d that work out for you buddy? Still watching that movie Mr. Mayhem?
Oh, Truth Teller, that was his old screen name. I should have read the other posts, Sorry guys. Totally him. Didn't he get banned? EngadgetHD, ban him again. Bye dork.
You see this is what I don't get.
I've said often enough that I have a Blu-ray player (the clue is in the name), I just refuse to go along with the BS that Blu-ray can ever become 'the next DVD'.
I hold the view it is patently obvious that Blu-ray is riddled with too many flaws to ever have allowed that to happen (the regular firmware and security updates being a prime consideration).
I also happen to think the choice of Blu-ray in the old format war was fundamentally the wrong one and this is why Blu-ray is not seeing mass-market adoption.
However that ship sailed long ago (something else I have never denied, no matter how much others prefer to pretend otherwise).
Nevertheless we are stuck with the repercussions and prime amonst these is that Blu-ray is lumbered with being a short-lived niche product.
We're living with the knock-on effects of HD being idiotically treated as a cash-cow, which is also keeping it out of so many homes - and simultaneously raising expectations which many transfers simply fail to meet.
Just because you personally have the player & buy the films doesn't mean that you have to worship at the alter and switch off all of your critical faculties, you know.
mugatu
Does banning people with a different POV really help. does it make the scary thoughts go away for you, poor lambikins?
"You see this is what I don't get."
You should have just stopped there....you don't get it. In your twisted little world, if HD-DVD would have won the format war, DVD would be in a big hurt but because your beloved format lost, well, nothing can dethrone DVD...meanwhile, blu-ray continues to increase as DVD decreases, just because it isn't increasing as fast as your masterful economic mind thinks it should doesn't mean it will not eventually overtake the old SD formats.
The only thing that could keep blu-ray disc from accomplishing that is some other blu-ray content physical media, 'cause the retailers ARE NOT GOING TO DO ANOTHER FORMAT WAR ANYTIME SOON. You don't get business, at all....
Yes, you let it all out Jim.
There there there.
Shout away, I bet even you're really really really convinced.
The funny thing is, if I'm so wrong on this how come you and a few friends can always be relied upon to slam any and all the data I post (with links) showing Blu-ray is not, in fact, about to 'become the next DVD'.
Paranoid, much?
"I've said often enough that I have a Blu-ray player (the clue is in the name), I just refuse to go along with the BS that Blu-ray can ever become 'the next DVD'."
You also refused to go along with the BS that blu-ray could ever possibly win the format war. Look how that turned out. Is there not any chance that you are wrong? People might like your POV better if it wasn't filled with spin and opinions masked as fact.
I'll believe this when I see it, but if they make one as good as my XA2 it will be the bomb.
Just make sure it has a resume play function and half decent load times and it will take the market by storm. My XA2 loads and plays a full minute and 10 seconds faster then my poxy BD35.
On another note, this may bring a small smile to Tosh.
http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Gaming/Industry/E4N7P8G4
Descent load times? Do you think the load times of the XA2 was descent? My HD-XE1 (european version of XA2) is slower than my Panasonic BD55 and by far the slowest of the HD players I have owned. If Toshiba want to impress anybody they have to beat Oppo BDO-83 and offcause the Sony Playstation 3 that have been in the market since day 1 of the "Great HD War".
For me, if this is true. Toshiba is too little, too late. Their XA2 HD-DVD player was a very good player for the format, something BD lacked for some time. I now have Oppo's unit and I don't see myself buying another player for a while.
HD-DVD fan boys - you are a hoot. Seriously, get over it. It is dead.
Buy a BD player and move on. So sorry you have hundreds of dollars of red plastic cases on your shelf. You took a gamble and you lost. Move on.
I'm just so glad the battle ended as quickly it did.
I expect most HD DVD owners did get over it. It's just a handful of unhinged and vocal individuals who still can't get over it. One format had to win and it could easily have gone the other way. At the end of the day its easy to transfer content from an HD DVD or just continue to watch it on an existing player. It's not like anyone's collection disappeared in a puff of smoke when the format died.
To quote kosty from HDD:
"The combo SoC is just frozen in R&D and unless Toshiba just bought up all the Broadcomm dual format motherboards that were made for one model years production run and searched the globe for combo HD DVD Blu-ray drives its just unlikely to happen. No manna in it to continue HD DVd support I'm afraid at this point in time. That may have made sense last year but not now or in the future"
I'm glad they are finally getting in. I thought they wouldn't but more quality products the better. If they make a kick ass Blu-ray player like they did XA2.. I'm getting that without a second thought.
And I agree squiggleslash it might be profitable but I don't expect them to sell it below $300 which is again fine, if they make the player of XA2 quality.
I would like to see these players read 3XDVD (that is HD-DVD format on standard DVD). I have a number of home movies, some OTA HDTV burned in this format. It would not require any additional hardware to support, so the cost to make the player would be the same.
But if they added true HD-DVD support, that would be fantastic, but I seriously doubt they will do that. Such a small minority of buyers would be interested in that feature. But I bet they add that cell processor to the player, to give top notch PQ.
Great news... since so far, it has taken the Blu camp all these years to make players that are finally as good as the Toshiba HD-XA2, including their adoption of internet interface, which Toshiba had in their players and made for their HD DVD format within a few months of their initial lunch into the high def dvd market... and that is a fact folks! Blu Ray players have been consistantly struggling behind in quality overall since their insertion into the high def market, and it is nice to see Toshiba getting into Blu Ray finally, and like many said here, if they make their Blu Ray players as good as my HD XA2 I am getting rid of my current blu ray player for theirs... in heartbeat.
I think my meaning has always been perfectly clear.
Blu-ray is a niche format destined for a relatively short life.
It absolutely is not 'the next dvd' - which has always been my point in this.
Blah, blah, blah...you've been wrong and you'll continue to be wrong...unfortunately, we all have to waste bandwidth downloading your wrongness with each of these blog posts....
A new cool feature for any blog would be customizable comment filters, so say I never want to have to waste bandwidth on another MFM comment again, I simply set my filter to be "where user != 'Multi-format-mayhem' "
That would be awesome...
"A new cool feature for any blog would be customizable comment filters, so say I never want to have to waste bandwidth on another MFM comment again, I simply set my filter to be "where user != 'Multi-format-mayhem' "
That would be awesome..."
Yes, one of many improvements the comments system on Engadget/EHD needs.
Anyway, I'm not here to butt heads with grumpy fanboys who won't let go.......I've realized something that would make me buy a Toshiba-branded Blu Ray player, and not just over any other manufacturer, but also in spite of the fact that I own a PS3 and I'm likely to buy a BDR drive for my PC this fall.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/2457/139/
"Microsoft and Toshiba said on Friday they had reached a cross-licensing agreement, the latest move among global technology companies to expedite product development and avoid patent disputes.
The pact allows Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, and Toshiba, the world's third-largest notebook computer manufacturer, to use each other's patents on computer and digital electronics technologies, a Microsoft spokesman in Japan said."
Whats this got to do with Toshiba finally entering the Blu Ray player market? Well, who else would you imagine making a Blu Ray player with a next generation Media Center Extender built in? This cross-licensing agreement would make it best in breed.
Dry your eyes Jim, get over yourself and quit your gurning.
It's a public message board, no-one makes you agree with or even read what anyone else says here.
(btw, it's laughably sad & small to be calling for people to be banned here, this place is like a morgue except for the rare occasions this stuff gets an airing)
xemumanic
There is a perfectly feasible alternative - and it has nothing to do with Blu-ray.
Microsoft are looking for a secure large capacity disc based means of delivering games (particularly for those parts of the world where Internet infrastructure is patchy at best).
The DVD Forum have reported on-going HD DVD development in their minutes (relating to the 51gb TL version).
I expect this is what is coming in the next gen of Xbox.
It would give Microsoft a secure format all of their own, it would be a neat pooling between the 2 already well used to dealing with each other on this subject.
.....and it means they can do this without giving the BDA a dime.
That seems to me to be far more likely that Microsoft ever using Blu-ray in their Xbox.
OK, make you a deal, get me a BD recorder in the states, and I'll forgive this whole 'format war' waste of time! Deal??
They've apparently confirmed the move anyway:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/168670/toshiba_will_sell_bluray_player_this_year.html
That's not what I see.
PC World just reported on the Japanese newspaper report.
Personally I've seen nothing of this claimed 'announcement' from Toshiba other than these 3rd party reports of it.
If this is accurate then how come no-one is able to show the actual Toshiba HQ announcement or a press release from them?
They've not confirmed a single thing. Other outlets are just repeating the same story, but there's no official word.
In addition, the article quoting "sources" within Toshiba has indicated Toshiba has no plans to release Blu-ray recorders, even with Japan.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20090720TDY01302.htm
"According to the sources, Toshiba was aiming to recover from its setback by developing a next-generation technology that would supersede the Blu-ray format, but it changed the policy because the market is growing too big to ignore, the sources said.
{...}
Toshiba will start with play-only models because it perceives demand for Blu-ray recorders is unlikely to increase.
{...}
The company will consider producing Blu-ray recorders based on the demand it sees after entering the market, the sources said. "
Doesn't look like Toshiba has much faith in the long term viability of BD. Having read TFA, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find, indeed, that they don't intend to "make" a player such much as rebadge an existing one to fit in their line, I give it 50/50 as to whether they actually make a Blu-ray player of their own or not.
So, alas, if anyone here is hoping Toshiba will do something to improve the quality or functionality of BD players within the US, unfortunately that's not going to happen. And if they rebadge then, alas, the chances of it being able to play HD DVD discs are non-existent.
Given how well the HD DVD player's interface was designed, maybe Toshiba can clean up the crazy mess that BD-Java and the utter lack of standard controls has left blu-ray in. Quick, which button on which manufacturer's remote on which studio's disk will bring up the extras menu, and can you be paused when you hit it?
So when can I expect my 360 BD add-on from them?
Even better, if they allow external xbox 360 HD-DVD drives, or any external USB HD-DVD drive to connect and play HD-DVD's along side Blu-ray.
That will be a tough market for them, just about every brand is release blu-ray player, toshiba is like the last kid in the block, in order for their to success they must release a fast loading blu-ray player as fast as oppo and with media support.
It took them long enough