As reported that Toshiba gonna exit HD DVD!

Sony won the format war, it's all over!

Thanks for the future's monopolization, and thanks for HD DVD, all efforts you have done to make the price of HD discs and players dropped quick!

Personally, i wishi it's just one rumor! I'd love HD DVD.

See details, please view: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssC...27196120080216

As attached, it is NHK news - Toshiba suffered losing huge amount of money and to beat a retreat.

However, it is still not an official announcement.

Oh sorry that I didn't notice it is discussed in another thread, can anyone combine?

I don't understand Japanese, maybe someone can help with the translation?

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...kpZAeqNBaW.php

not a translation but it gets the point across that hd-dvd is dead and blu-ray wins.

Meh, bring on the clearance sales.

At this point, what BluRay has "won" is about 0.4% of the disc and player sales market.

I agree, bring on the sales! I am going to snap up a bunch of movies when the price is right.

Even though the format war is pretty much over for now, I'm still not moving on
not for quite a while that is not until it is the only alternative to get new releases
if and or when they decide to kill off standard definition DVD. I see no need to go
out right away and invest a large sum of money into all new equipment only to find
out it will be outdated again in another year or two if and or when they come out
with something else like another new format. If it looks like BD is going to be around
as long as or longer than the DVD format has been around I might consider it then
and only then.

The best thing they can do now is to open the HD-DVD standard and let everyone to have royalty free access.

even more info about hd-dvd being dead... http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/t...row-stop-sale/

p.s. good point by 'getit29' above

That would be nice. If so then there might still be some major releases put out on the format for a while.

Now it's official. Keep a close eye on the clearance sales folks:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/02/19...t-war-is-over/

the offical statement from Toshiba

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Toshiba...s-release.html

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/0...eath-of-hd-dvd

official statement.. but it's already been posted lol ... o well, ill post it anyways

damn shame though cause i was hoping hd-dvd would win (mainly cause sony is a shady company with the rootkits on peoples pc's a while back) but thats not gonna happen now.

wohooooo, M$ was pretty fast

M$ switches to BD

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Microso...r-Xbox360.html

So yet again the worst format for the end user wins again....

Its amazing what the lure of dollars does to people and companies.

If Toshiba did open up the format and allow anyone to use the technology royalty free I could see BD being burried by it very quickly.

Isn't "the lure of dollars" the primary motive for a company to conduct business?

Rem what Gates said: "m$ is neutral" LOL

worst for the end user wins?! BR is the better technology, and for all the bull about it being more expensive, fine ill throw down a couple extra bucks for the better quality

Since i have ANYDVD will the Blu Ray discs create a problem with the ANYDVD software?

now the question is what do do with the HD players and movies.. will sony give the folks a"deal" to switch over to their units? i kinda feel sorry for the HD users and their "paper weighs"

it reminds me of the Beta vs VHS days (oops just showed my age)


O and about Anydvd read this

http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

Yep my cheap A-2 will now explode and totally stop playing the hd dvd's I bought on 2 fer sales so I guess I'm screwed, likewise my laser disk players exploded when dvd came along and I couldn't watch those disks I had on hand either....
Well I bought a Panasonic dmp-BD10a BD player so that when all the smoke clears I'll be able to still play new hd movies, paid 169 as a demo.

In what way? The hardware is more expensive, it has region coding, uses the Java based interactive software which is more difficult to work with (hence the reason why there is the whole V1.0, V1.1, V2.0 spec deals), requires separate production lines from the existing DVD lines. As for better quality that is truly questionable at best. As a whole the entry model A3 faired just as well if not better than the Entry model Blu-Ray players and the flagship A35 still cannot be matched for specs/features BY ANY BLU-RAY PLAYER CURRENTLY ON THE MARKET!!!!!!!! Yet, even prior to the Warner announcement it ran between $400-$500, which is the price of an average Blu-Ray player. Yes, there is the argument of disc capacity but that was set to be solved with the release of the triple layer HD-DVD at which point space would've been a moot point. So once again I fail to see how Blu-Ray is the better technology for the consumer speaking strictly as a format.

It has more storage space.... thats the only reason its better.

Movie companies took the cheap option for the start and used MPEG2 for early transcodes. This reduced quality and is cheaper for them but costs us the same. They also used cheap audio codecs as they were not limited for space. Due to the lack of huge space on HD-DVD most encodes are in VC-1 and H264 format usually giving better quality video (but thats down to the encoding done).

Region coded - No buying the discs from where they are cheaper or released earlier, in no-way does this enhance the user experience and is just used as a way for the movie industry to squeeze extra money out of us end users. Best example is 2001-ASO, not out in the UK until next month but released ages ago in the US.

Different final versions that mean early adopters cannot access all features on the disc even though the players they have cost thousands. Nothing like spending a fortune on a player to only find out you cannot view all the discs content without buying a new one again (usually 2 days after the one you purchased). Currently we have v1.0 (most set-top players) v1.1 (adds interaction and PiP) and the new v2.0 (adds network ability), all were present on HD-DVD from launch.

There are also so many different encoding formats that have just been tagged onto the end of the disc format structure as the developers decided they would like them. Mostly audio formats but I forsee a change in video codecs when a more advanced and more encryptable encoder can be used.


The only true players that have so far proved they are backwardly compatable are PC's and this is because the software can be changed when needed. Next comes the PS3 but that will only last as long as Sony wants to keep them upto date. Lastly come the set-top players that are stuck at whatever level they are made with (usually 1.0 or a few 1.1's).

HD-DVD had a standard set out from the start and had not changed it so any player could access all features and content throughout its life (in theory). Blue Ray standards keep changing forcing the end user to spend more and more money on upgrades....


So, personally Blue Ray is not the best HD format, not by along shot. Its going to be expensive and limit the way the end user can get access to it. I do forsee in the very near future you will find BD discs that have printed on the back "Contains BD+v2 encrypted content, you must use a player capable of playing BDv2.0 Discs to be able to access the contents of this disc" and who does this help appart from mr fat cat movie studio boss... Not me or you as it will mean yet another set-top player needed.

I wont' buy into Blue Ray. I will wait till the next millenium for the ultimate vision dvd.

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