Toshiba officially gives up on HD-DVD format

[twmac]

Flipping heck I didn't think the battle would be over that quickly:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92955

Is this good or bad news? I never liked the idea of split formats but then again I don't like Sony very much.

[Roderick]

Jesus Christ I'm glad that shit is over. I'm happy for Blu-Ray to have won, but I'd have been perfectly content either way. I'm just glad it's done now and Blu-Ray can take the spotlight and perhaps I'll finally go buy HD movies in three years when they, and their players become ubiquitous and affordable. I might even get a PS3 around that time, if the Xbox hasn't already incorporated the player by then.

Isn't Blu-ray the technically superior format? Good to see the best player win, even if it is better by just a small margin.

[Scrobbs]

Blu-Ray is apprently technically superior, but the word on a lot of HD forums etc is saying that of the films released on HD-DVD a higher proportion of them are of better quality than releases on Blu-Ray on a like-for-like comparison. Some folks have both players apparently. The fools.

[DanJW]

As I far as I can tell, Blu-ray has a higher capacity but is slower. In other news: holy crap Sony backed a winner for once! I reckon it's because their format had the more memorable name. HD-DVD is too much of a mouthful.

[n0wak]

As I far as I can tell, Blu-ray has a higher capacity but is slower. In other news: holy crap Sony backed a winner for once! I reckon it's because their format had the more memorable name. HD-DVD is too much of a mouthful.

I'd rather say "beta" than "Vee Eich Ess".

[brkl]

Who wants to pay for a fucking beta.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yep, it's good news! After two sodding years(!!!) someone has finally bowed out. No more sitting on the fence for consumers, wondering which format will take over (although there's probably been so much damage done by the very fact of the war); the upgrade path is finally clear: BLU-RAY!

Now the prices will start coming down as there is dominance in the market place

Hooray!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Follow-up: Universal have officially followed suit and will now start releasing their films on Blu-Ray. That means that only Paramount is left to make an announcement. At the moment they are technically only releasing their films on HD-DVD for the foreseeable future... I'm guessing the announcement will come tomorrow

[n0wak]

[twmac]

Has it really been 2 years?

What is the porn industry do, move into digital distrubution only?

I only ask this as it was what made VHS and broke betamax (porn industry liked VHS). From what I remember Sony are a little squemish on allowing Adult only material onto their IP.

It would be weird if you ended up being able to download it on Xbox LIVE and the PS network...

[Scrobbs]

Edit. Silly post.

[miffy495]

Most of them are. What's so wrong with that?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ugh. It turns out it was all (possibly) Microsoft's fault. Their desire to control the next gen of codecs seems to have meant that the war continued for years. Plus they used all kinds of crappy marketing tactics like spreading mis-information to online communities that HD-DVD was easier to crack than Blu-Ray... which was a total lie.

Read it: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/02/21/lessons-from-the-death-of-hd-dvd/

Every tiny detail might not be spot on (I don't know), but apparently the peeps at TheDigitalBits say that everything they know about from their point of view (ie. films) is pretty spot on.

[brkl]

Microsoft’s efforts to support HD-DVD in Windows Vista and on the Xbox 360 had a limited effect because Vista turned out a commercial failure, and 360 sales were in a precipitous free fall, dropping 33% year over year in 2007. Sony had attached Blu-Ray to its PS3 rocket at launch while Microsoft tied two sandbags to HD-DVD: Vista and the Xbox 360.

What? 360 in freefall and "PS3 rocket"?

[Ben]

To twmac, I'd say this is a good thing for the consumer ultimately. They were not being best served by the "format war" and all most people care about (both on the consumer and business side) is simplicity (for ease of decision making on the formers side, and cost/profit efficiency on the latters), which is accomplished having a single format to focus on.

I can't comment on the "rocket" thing, but the 360 in terms of sales and penetration definitely reached its peak last year and things have been going downhill since. Aside from the States, the 360 is doing quite poorly in relation to the others on a monthly sales basis. I've heard from more than one MS employee that they have basically given up on europe and are focusing their attention on North America (and to some extent the UK) where they believe they will continue to do well.

[twmac]

Yeah, I agree that single format is good. Just wished it wasn't going straight into Sony's pocket.

As to the 360 performing poorly, it is doing pretty well in North America so when I came back to Europe recently it was quite a surprise to see how little anyone seemed to know about it aside from in the UK.

[Wrestlevania]

Personally, I'm subscribing to the idea that Microsoft backed HD-DVD to fuck about with Sony.

Not because they care about codecs, but because they want people to download their HD media directly from MS instead of buying it on a physical medium (irrespective of the format).

Let's call it The iTunes Strategy, only I think it's failed. But then I think HD outside of gaming is a commercial failure; consumers aren't ready for it and your average Joe couldn't care less either -- they're perfectly happy with their extensive (and dirt cheap) DVDs, thanks.

[Ben]

But then I think HD outside of gaming is a commercial failure; consumers aren't ready for it and your average Joe couldn't care less either -- they're perfectly happy with their extensive (and dirt cheap) DVDs, thanks.

I'd agree that people are perfectly happy with what they have, but extending that to assume that HD as a whole has been a commercial failure...? I'm not so sure. I think it's way too early to tell and I don't believe there's a direct correlation between the two (i.e. people who are happy with DVD does not necessarily equal people who will never consider HD now or in the future; I for one am happy with DVD and still buy them, but I also have a PS3 and buy the odd Blu-Ray). Outside of gaming HD is being continually pushed as a televised format with the likes of BBC HD etc. and all TVs now - from LCDs to the few remaining CRTs - are HD enabled. So HD as a general format (regardless of whether it is physical, digital/downloadable or televised) is here to stay.

I'm pretty sure that no one in the HD business planning arena just expected people to drop DVD, and that they have fairly long term goals which take both that and the increase in digital content/transactions into consideration.

[DanJW]

Yeah we're still in the Early Adopter Stage here. Once the trends have been clearly set, that's when the mass market will follow suit.

[Wrestlevania]

No, admittedly it is too soon to say it's a failure.

But in terms of dragging attention away from DVD to hi-def I think it's very, very low on your average consumer's priorities.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well one thing's for sure: The format war didn't help that

WV, did you read the article? Because it definitely was to do with codecs. They pushed their codecs on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Why would they bother spending millions upon millions trying to keep HD-DVD alive if they just wanted digital distribution?

What? 360 in freefall and "PS3 rocket"?

Yeah, not sure what I make of that article. I'd hardly say that Vista was a commercial failure either. It took quite a while for XP to saturate the consumer base, I don't see why Vista would have been any different.

It's not like the PC world is filled fanatics who are happy to buy a slight OS upgrade every year or so... *cough* *OSX* *cough*

[Wrestlevania]

Why would they bother spending millions upon millions trying to keep HD-DVD alive if they just wanted digital distribution?

Because a codec doesn't care how it's delivered, just that you have sufficient rights to consume the media. And sufficiently enabled hardware in order to consume it, most critically.

Getting the media companies to subscribe to production in your codec is a habit-forming thing. And film distributors are so massive that they likely wouldn't change once they'd switched over to HD encoding with a certain codec.

Microsoft used HD-DVD and Toshiba for it's own - much wider - agenda, not to further the HD-DVD format in and of itself.

Just as a side note: did you hear that Sony is rumoured to have dropped $400,000,000 (four hundred million US) in order to persuade Time-Warner to switch formats?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yup, I think Toshiba was offering $500 million to Universal before that.

[werd123]

The Format isn't over yet, the HD-DVD still have to compete with media downloads (Like it matters here, Australian internet speeds are horrible) and DVD's.

Yeah and with HD, the customer is absolutely clueless, I know a couple of friends that have a 30" inch Sony Bravia, I keep giving them hints "You have a HD television" but they don't seem to care, just the fact that they have a big television. We were even watching tennis through the analog-aeiral setup and watching DVD's on a non-upscaled DVD player.

[Wrestlevania]

But it is dead; Toshiba have officially killed the HD-DVD format with immediate effect and has ceased production of hardware and media.

Another interesting Sony-funded tidbit: it's rumoured that Toshiba agreed to bow out of the format war quickly and quietly, after the Time-Warner switch, on the premise that Sony purchased one of Toshiba's PS3-essential chip fabs. Which Sony duly did.

So Sony may have won, ultimately, but, what with the format wranglings and the huge losses they've incurred over PS3, they've paid for it in blood. It'll be interesting to see which form of HD consumption catalyses with consumers first -- Blu-ray or downloads. I'm hedging my money on a fairly even split in about 18 months' time, with both still being completely dwarfed by healthy DVD sales.