HD DVD is dead...

[darksword_08]

kasi naman di sila agad ngrelease ng updated profile/firmware for HD-DVD kaya ayun talo tuloy sila,, unlike Blu-ray almost every month yata my new update

tama kayo jan.. lumalaki din files,,sobra kaya ang inilaki ng windows vista when installed compare to XP almost 300%

but mp3 safe keep nayan,, such a small file....ngaun a BD disc cost around 500-1500 per piece sobrang mahal pa.. sana magmura na

[wildthing]

siguro kasi nakita nila na ang bulk ng nakikinabang sa HD DVD is yung pirated market.

plus moving into non-disk na rin ang market trend, so eventually mawawala na rin siguro ang mga disk.

[tsupermario]

This news article provided me with more info:

Toshiba quits HD DVD business

By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business WriterTue Feb 19, 7:02 AM ET

Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

"We concluded that a swift decision would be best," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company's Tokyo offices.

The move would make Blu-ray — backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios — the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago.

Nishida said last month's decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

"That had tremendous impact," he said. "If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win."

Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox in that move.

Nishida said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs.

HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity.

Only one video format has been expected to emerge as the victor, much like VHS trumped Sony's Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.

Nishida said it was still uncertain what will happen with the Hollywood studios that signed to produce HD DVD movies, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation.

Toshiba's pulling the plug on the technology is expected to reduce the number of new high-definition movies that people will be able to watch on HD DVD machines. Toshiba Corp. said shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers will be reduced and will stop by end of March.

Sales in Blu-ray gadgets are now likely to pick up as consumers had held off in investing in the latest recorders and players because they didn't know which format would emerge dominant.

Despite being a possible blow to Toshiba's pride, the exit will probably lessen the potential damage in losses in HD DVD operations. Goldman Sachs has said pulling out would improve Toshiba's profitability between 40 billion yen and 50 billion yen ($370 million-$460 million) a year.

The reasons behind Blu-ray's triumph over HD DVD are complex, as marketing, management maneuvers and other factors are believed to have played into the shift to Blu-ray's favor that became more decisive during the critical holiday shopping season.

Once the balance starts tilting in favor of one in a format battle, then the domination tends to grow and become final, said Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo.

"The trend became decisive I think this year," he said. "When Warner made its decision, it was basically over."

With movie studios increasingly lining up behind Blu-ray, retailers also began to stock more Blu-ray products.

Friday's decision by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. retailer, to sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware appeared to deal a final blow to the Toshiba format. Just five days earlier, Netflix Inc. said it will cease carrying rentals in HD DVD.

Several major American retailers had already made similar decisions, including Target Corp. and Blockbuster Inc.

Also adding to Blu-ray's momentum was the gradual increase in sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 home video-game console, which also works as a Blu-ray player. Sony has sold 10.5 million PS3 machines worldwide since the machine went on sale late 2006.

HD DVD supporters included Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp. and Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 game machine can play HD DVD movies, but the drive had to be bought separately, and Nishida said about 300,000 people have those.

Worldwide sales of personal computers with HD DVD drives total about 300,000 worldwide, including 140,000 in North America and 130,000 in Europe, he said.

Recently, the Blu-ray disc format has been gaining market share, especially in Japan. A study on fourth quarter sales last year by market researcher BCN Inc. found that by unit volume, Blu-ray made up 96 percent of Japanese sales.

Sony said it did not have numbers on how many Blu-ray players had been sold globally.

Toshiba's stock slipped 0.6 percent Tuesday to 824 yen after jumping 5.7 percent Monday amid reports that a decision was imminent. Sony shares climbed 2.2 percent to 5,010 yen after rising 1 percent Monday.

Also Tuesday, Toshiba said it plans to spend more than 1.7 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) for two plants in Japan to produce sophisticated chips called NAND flash memory, which are used in portable music players and cell phones. Production there will start in 2010.

[Bogeyman]

And to think that there are still 44 HD DVD titles waiting for release in Japan, as of February 19. Bagsak-presyo na sigurado ang mga HD DVD players.

[ringostarr]

in my opinion, all dvd formats will surely die in about a year.

we are now entering the age of 16GB flash drives, 1 terabyte external hard drives and Solid State Devices

video will be like mp3. software format na lang talaga ang deciding factor. it's either apple's H.264 or XVID HD pa din para sakin.

these people who will be buying/collection/cataloguing blu-ray discs in their homes are in for a surprise. while the older less technologically-inclined people boast of their cabinet collections of high format movies. we, the young ones, will just be bringing pocket drives with high definition movies anywhere we go, plug it to any available display be it on a bus, or a digital signage or someone's home.

kaya i dont even bother reading about this proprietary format wars.

[ghosthunter]

in my opinion, all dvd formats will surely die in about a year.

I doubt if it's going to happen that quickly nor that completely. Blue-ray will definitely be the top choice but since it requires you to buy a new machine (if you don't yet have a blue-ray machine). Also if you don't yet own a high definition television screen, you won't really benefit from the new format.

[tsupermario]

in my opinion, all dvd formats will surely die in about a year.

i think it'll all depend on how fast the gaming and movie industry will adapt a new format.

[boybi]

The DVD format won't die that quick. BD players are all backward compatible and can play even VideoCDs.

[tidus1203]

The question is if the consumers will bite on the new HD formats? I for one am still contented with regular DVD's.

[Monseratto]

Interesting Editorial about the war...

Bluray can hold 30-50GB while HD DVD can hold 20-30GB

The war ends...

Walmart goes with Blu-ray, and as of today (2/18/2008), Toshiba is saying different things to different people (ranging from "we haven't made a decision" to (paraphrasing) "we may give up really really soon." I'd say this is akin to the moment when Rudy Guliani's top strategists saw the writing on the wall and played football (instead of working) shortly before exiting the campaign. I'll leave it to others who spent much more time on this than me to figure out when the tide turned (of if it ever did), but I'm sure the HD-DVD team at this point is looking back at the last few years of their lives and wondering the same thing.

One thing I did learn from managing this site is that a first-mover advantage (as HD-DVD had for a few months) is nice, but it doesn't mean much when no one's watching and no one cares. Back when HD-DVD was winning, far fewer people had HD TVs, and there were very few HD DVDs available. Toshiba was winning all the games in the preseason (with noone watching) while Sony was preparing for the regular season (recruiting their team, working their "relationships" with the umpires, etc). By the time the regular season (covering Q3/Q4 2007) ended, Sony clearly won, and won big.

Another thing I learned is that price isn't everything. HD DVD always had the less expensive players and often the less expensive DVDs. They also had extensive giveaway sales and packaged HD DVDs with regular DVDs. Still Blu-ray won. Why? Because, for these particular decision makers (those with HD DVDs who even considered buying HD DVDs), price wasn't nearly as big of an issue as the answer to the questions of "what movies are available?" and "who will win?". Of course, price reductions would (and did) result in temporary hits to the blu-ray lead, but these answers were the only thing that (I believe) could fuel a sustainable lead.