Toshiba to give up on HD DVD
Toshiba Corp is planning to stop production of equipment compatible with the HD DVD format for high-definition video, allowing the competing Blu-Ray camp a free run, public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday.
Toshiba is expected to suffer losses amounting to tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) to scrap production of HD DVD players and recorders and other steps to exit the business, Japan’s NHK said on its website.
No one at Toshiba could be reached for comment.
The format war between the Toshiba-backed HD DVD and Sony Corp’s Blu-Ray, often compared to the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, has slowed the development of what is expected to be a multibillion dollar high-definition DVD industry.
Toshiba was dealt a blow on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would abandon the HD DVD format, becoming the latest in a series of top retailers and movie studios to rally behind Blu-ray technology for high definition DVDs.
Toshiba plans to continue selling HD DVD equipment at stores for the time being but will not put resources into developing new devices, NHK said.
Source: NHK, Reuters
Comments(86)
OLD NEWS!!!
SUCKS FOR ALL YOU WHO BOUGHT A HD PLAYER LOL!!!!
I KNEW BLU-RAY WOULD WIN…IT JUST SOUNDS BETTER >:-)
I’m glad their killing now instead of spinning it out at the consumers expense.
Judging by the events fo last 3 months this was the obvious outcome… sooner or l8r this was supposed to happen considering how M$ kept silence is this whole subject & never came out in support of HDDVD! i wont be surprized if those bastaardas release a BD accessorie/addon thingie now for the seXBox360 in a month or 2! I hate both the camps for unneccessarily delaying the logical evolution.
What about the Xbox since MS was backing HDDVD ? are they gonna swap out hte old ones for BR disc or make u purchase them from MS for hte 360?
wow the HD-DVD Xbox 360 players are pointless now!
Blu-Ray 4 Life!
and u guys are late on this!
another one bites the dust!
At last win for consumers. It never does them good to have too many formats. Be it for disc/connections/adapters!!
Its just a matter of time. Blu Ray is 50gb and you cant argue the logic in the longevity of it opposed to HD-DVD
Xbox games will start being on 5 discs LOL.
@5 hmmmm
U r asking this prolly bcoz u do’nt yet know how M$ do business sonny. All HD-DVD seXBox owners b prepared to shell out more bucks to make your console complete & future proof so that u can play future game releases on them which will only be released in BLUE-RAY!!! HooRAY!!
(Just a new chapter in teh book: “How M$ loves to fcUKK its own GENUINE customers!” LOL)
how many of us even have HD tvs? i dont….maybe next year, prices seem to be getting more attractive.
maybe criterion will release blu-ray releases by then…
A wise decision of Toshiba. I wonder why didn’t they join forces at the beginning to create something ultimate and share profits? Sooner or later only 1 standard holds (Like VHS) only confusion remains of those who have chosen the wrong path…;)
And i agree..Blu-Ray simply sounds like a next gen tech ;]
prevail.penelope CAM
http://rapidshare.com/files/92489781/prevail.penelope.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92489859/prevail.penelope.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92489946/prevail.penelope.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92490005/prevail.penelope.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92490101/prevail.penelope.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92490170/prevail.penelope.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92490255/prevail.penelope.part7.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/92490264/prevail.penelope.part8.rar
Just like Sony has done in the past…improving on formats…
wonder if there going to release a blu-ray player 4 the x-box 360 i just came back back from walmart and there throwing them away like old beta players. hope they throw out slutty school girls 1-9 lol lol
i got a hd-dvd player free with my toshiba tv, full hd, i was always disappointed with the movies same as ps3 with blu ray, the nine inch nails live concert was the exception, it is truly like being there, upscalling with the 1080-7 sd dvd by samsung was practically as good as both hd formats,
The interesting thing is, that sony owned beta-max and they lost out in the video tape war to vhs. I think they were really trying hard not to let history repeat itself with blu-ray.
@brOWN: SamSung seems to know the ultimate trick for making the best digital graphics display solutions and that shows… even their color mobile screens show better vibrant colors! I wonder why they are not that much prominently present in the PMP iPod segment, maybe DRM tech or battery power draining is possible reason.
i feel sorry for the hd dvd
PS1: the boost on CD-sales and CD-devices
PS2: the boost on DVD-sales and DVD-devices
PS3: the boost on HD-Quality and HQ-quality devices
3 times in a row Sony has proven to be on the right track
Sad, not for HD-DVD but for Toshiba… I really like the company and their products (except HD-DVD)… not like the Sony with their Ego and their high-priced and over estimated products…
dude, you should’ve known that HD DVD would fail! how? well microsoft backs HD DVD, so you shoud have known HD DVD would fail.. seriously dude, the only 3 things i like that microsoft own is Xbox Live (not Xbox, but just live) , HDi and XMLHTTP!!
greeetzz
oh btw, does this mean that HDi will come to Blu-Ray?
People are going to be gutted that have just bought HD-DVD players. :/
lol@21
you’re kidding, right? don’t even think about the ps1 had anything to do with a boost on cd sales…
btw .. always remember sony for it’s rootkit-”attack”
I’m glad I never shelled out for the 360 HD-DVD player now. If MS makes a Blu-Ray player I’ll gladly shell out though. I’m just happy the format war is over so I can finally start buying movies again.
ME SONY! ME SMASH YOU!
Sony is equally evil as M$ if not more. Most of their produckts are overpriced. And their DRM scemes and methods are purest forms of twisted Jap evilness!
toshiba made a HUGE mistake in not working to come to an agreement with microsoft which was financially viable for both companies, meaning, toshiba shouldve sold the HD-DVD player cheap to microsoft so that they wouldve incorporated the unit internally and come standard with the 360. if they had done this, they definitely wouldve won the format war, as the only real reason sony won is because of the PS3 and its internal BLU-RAY drive which equates to everyone who owns a PS3 = owns a BLU-RAY player.
i was really pulling for HD-DVD to prevail… oh well, doesnt really bother me tho either way
I think Sony went all out and spent billions in making this happening. Movie studios made fortunes out of Sony handouts. On the other camp Toshiba and Microsoft simply went half in. HD had its advantages but there was a clear advantage in Sony’s handling of the situation.
bout bloody time now so this mean BR SHOULD!!!! become cheaper then i can embrace this high def thing more then my one BR movie and other dvds through hdmi
Its gone the same way as Vhs vs Betamax. Vhs had 2hrs, Betamax had 1 hr playtime on the tape. Porn industry backed vhs because of this and vhs won.
HD DVD 15gb per layer
Blu-Ray 25gb per layer
Porn industry backed bluray, and bluray has won!
Long live bluray!
who cares about both formats? and how the hell it could be good news for customers? paying 30 Euro for repacked crap movies on $ony Blu-Ray disc can’t be called good news.
I’m impresed by sheer people stupidity! is there anybody here who have brain?
@31
I totally agree, Blu-Ray didn’t win just because of the technology, each had it’s own ups and downs. Honestly when it first came out, I figured HD-DVD would top it, and most others probably did also just by the name. For the majority of the world that has just glanced at the players, HD-DVD makes sense, it says what the hell it is haha. Blu-Ray is, well lets just say it shall leave a LOT of wal-mart customers standing n the store scratching their heads.
@Everyone else
Come on, enough with the “I rock because I bough Blu-ray crap”, if your going to be that immature, you should at least include how good you were at convincing your parents to spend an extra $200. At least come up with something that requires a bit of thinking, his site can at ties make it highly apparent that we need multiple lifeguards in the gene pool.
Does no one realise the future is in neither format – look at V+ in the uk or TIVO in america – and sites like this… the future is in downloadable content – the question is how do you sell it?.. given people enjoy having packaging for movies and music?
@13 beenbee
They did and Toshiba waked away to create their own format partly due to what I’m about to write:
@24 superaktieboy
HDi will never be on Blu-ray as the BDA chose to use JAVA instead. This is one reason why Toshiba walked away from a joint HD disc venture to create HD DVD.
all those who say the customers win are clearly clueless idiots.
what we won, DRM + a nice region codig, right? you all think studios backed BR for its quality?
Toshiba deserved that! Look at my example: In March/07 I´ve bought a 500 Eur PS3 already equipped with a BluRay player. Later, in July/07, I adquired a 1400 Eur Toshiba Notebook with no HDDVD whatsoever! What were you expecting? It was acting like this that Toshiba expected to win the war?
Heads rolling in Toshiba headquarters!
I agree with Beinstein. Consumers lost.
A pat on the back to Toshiba for fighting a mature fight. Unfortunately Sony are prepared to grease every palm, and they’re backed by the MPAA cartel.
Sad to see so many people at a site like this being convinced by Sony’s bs. It’s no wonder the average consumer doesn’t have a clue how their rights are affected.
33 @pffffttt
Long live Pr0n industry
But as I already said… SonyfaB1tch is EVIL, no less than M$!! Way b4 M$ thought of WGA & Apple applied DRM, Sony was trying to cook one DRM/region locking poison soup after another and was trying to test them silenly on customers who had no idea about it as they were very carefully left in the dark! I am not at all happy to see that the winner camp includes such an evil element as SONY.
I have both and I slightly prefer HDDVD. But I guess that’s a choice I don’t have anymore.
Pretty sh!tty.
@37 Peter
hmm too bad, coz HDi is a nice piece of tech, but erm, if BDA choose Java, doesn’t mean that they can’t have both can they?
lol @21… yes, clever Sony ‘capitalising’ on CD sales/devices. Boost my d!ck.
So, on to a subject closer to our hearts:
How will the Blu-Ray win affect the scene? Will there be new standards, such as Blu-Ray rips to DVD5 size?
hahaha !!! yes bluray won!!! lets go buy a bluray device now!!!
Anybody hoping that prices will come down, do you really think that will happen when a Sony format has a monopoly. Especially after Sony blew a fortune paying off studios and everybody else.
As for Bluray rips the main reasons the studios went for Bluray was the extra BD+ DRM, region coding and the payoffs. Could be a long wait for Bluray rips when Sony starts cranking up the DRM.
I agree Sony has made some nice products but they are always overpriced and Sony has a long history of screwing over customers (rootkits, memory sticks, proprietary formats etc).
I highly doubt Sony will allow M$ to put a BluRay player inside the 360…
so much for those who just bought hd-dvd player.
blank bru-ray disks are getting cheaper but bru-ray drives are still too much to afford. cracking blu-ray was not a prob any more.just wait and see……..
OH GOD I AM A COMPLETE FAILURE IN LIFE BECAUSE I BACKED HD-DVD!!!
I just hope blue ray stuff is as easy to rip as HD-DVD would have been.
wow, i finally got to see the monopoly come to fruition.
lol like any of you really care no one here is going to go out and pay $40 thats the reason you are on this site now
I see the BluRay and Sony bashers are out again. I love the way you lot try to make out this is HD-DVD against Sony. It is quite simply, Blu-Ray against HD-DVD (or Toshiba against Sony for the conspiracy theorists amongst you). The fact is BluRay was pretty much always going to win because of 3 reasons:
1. It has stronger encryption, studios prefer encryption. Even if BD+ has already been broken, it doesn’t matter, as long as the encryption is strong enough to make casual users think twice. Of course us lot will always download programs that can break the encryption however Mr and Mrs Smith in general userland wont bother.
2. Region coding. HD-DVD had no region coding. MPAA and the big studios like region coding because they can control release dates around the world to maximise profits. Of course, here in Europe you can already buy multiregion BluRay players.
3. The PS3. Like the PS2 and it’s DVD drive, shipping the PS3 with a built in BluRay player was bound to tip the balance in favour of BluRay. The recent announcements that the PS3 is now outselling the XBox360 in Europe shows that BluRay sales will increase.
BluRay was developed by Sony but it is the BluRay Association that controls future developments, marketing and promotion. An independant body of (originally) 18 hardware and software companies. Same as the HD-DVD backers, it was developed by Toshiba but it is an independent body that overseas the product. The BluRay backers (and not just Sony) were just bigger fish with more clout.
It is absolute nonsense to say Sony will keep prices artificially high. Sony are not stupid and understand the laws of supply and demand. Other hardware companies will now come on board and we will see cheaper and cheaper players in the same way we did with CD and then DVD. Why should this time round be any different?.
So will Toshiba be giving refunds to all of us who bought HD-DVD players??
I only went with HD-DVD because it was cheaper than Blu-Ray.
@Oh No!
I keep reading all over the net these people that say they have already broken the DRM on Blu-Ray and that no DRM is unbreakable.
Are these people all lying, or is this Sony DRM truly unbreakable?
@superaktieboy
And what about the Zune?
And the winner between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is… Downloading!!!!
What is more sensible… buying an expensive Blu-Ray device or a PS3 and then buying expensive Blu-Ray movies or… setting up a Media Center or laptop with your big-screen TV’s and just watching content directly?
I think my last “tangible” movie collection is and will be traditional DVD’s. Original movies are very cheap nowadays and get even cheaper as time goes by. And come on, as if DVD quality is “bad”. Sure HD is great but DVD is NOT “bad” quality, unless you have a really big screen (which in 90% of your cases, is just NOT TRUE).
Optical Discs, even Blu-Ray, are yesterday’s technology. Even with most people downloading movies directly off the Internet (be it through sharing or the stupid way via iTunes or whatever), I believe there will always be a “tangible” movie selection in stores. Why? Because there will always be people who enjoy making visible collections and those who like to give Movies as gifts. You can’t give anybody a download as a gift! So in this sense, I predict that the next medium will be flash-like memory non-eraseable cards in which the movies and extras will be shipped. This day will come when flash card production costs lower and their capacities increase.
However, Optical Disc or Memory Card, it appears content Downloads are here to stay.
My friend, in 2 words: SONY RULES !!!!
@54
No chance that a refund will occur? Remember DVD vs Divx?
@Teebo
So you think that Hollywood is just going to say to themselves, “Gee, lets only sell our HD movies to people who have high speed internet connections and a well-equippedPC in their home…all of these silly 10 cent discs are just too much trouble.”
Are you kidding? Right now, with just a couple of hundred dollars for a player, you can rent and watch any movie in HD. To do that over the internet would be a ridiculous. How long would it take most people to download a 30GB HD video? Better start planning on Monday if you want to watch a movie by Friday night.
And that is before you even solve the problem of what format these internet movies would be available in, and what type of PC would play them back.
Silly idea.
@59 (myself)
I meant to post that first “question” as a statement, or expression. (Oops)
@Chris
But then Toshiba fooled me into buying this now useless player. If no more movies are going to come out for it, what good will it be?? This is false advertising.
Does anyone think I have some basis for a lawsuit against Toshiba?
@extra happy
I’m not saying Hollywood is all for what I just said, but that is what will happen.
What is the point in buying an expensive stand-alone Blu-Ray player, if for instance I have a laptop that reads blu-ray? Just hook up the laptop to your High-Def TV and there you go!
If Blu-Ray stand-alones prices fall to where DVD stand-alones prices are, that’s another story.
Mark my words… not long from now there will be movies on flash cards and Blu-Ray will be history (but curiously traditional DVD’s will still be around because they are great value for money)
@62,
go ahead and class action sue.
are the HDDVDs not working you have purchased?
did anyone tell you that no mivies will be in wal*mart?
you can still buy HDDVDs on Amazon.
And you said you bought is cheaper, probably in the current promotions. So now, enjoy your 100 free DVDs.
pwn on hd-dvd ! now give me a blu-ray player for my computer. and after you have that, a dual-quad core xeon with 8GB ram and 2TB storage.
I red somewhere : Low price on HD player for the Xbox with 6 free movies (LOL). People with HD player for the Xbox are just F*****.
THIS POST IS UNRELATED TO THE MOVIE RELEASE.
@Admin…..Everytime an add pops it causes Firefox to crash.
There is no forum here..Is this the only way I can get through?
I’m not alone, numerous people that I know(That is using firefox) are suffering from the same problem.
Can’t you guys see this in your visitor Stats/lenght of time stayed etc?
Please get it fixed as this is a great site!!
Just re read my post and realized that it is not a movie release but it was the only topic I could get into without and add popping up and crashing Firefox.
BTW..anyone using Firefox who is NOT suffering these problems does not have the latest update so avoid the update for now.
Cheers
ReeGed: I use the latest beta of Firefox and everything is working fine. You should probably update your version.
So what are you guys doing with your xbox 360 HD-DVD player now?
Can’t sell it on fleabay for nuffin.
Any ideas?
@Matt
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
at least now you don’t have to worry about buying an expensive paper weight. I kinda doubt that there will be a blu-ray player for xbox since sony makes the playstation, why would they help microsoft sell more machines when they could use it to sell more playstations? it is now the only system with an hd player now. if they do make an agreement with ms then it’ll prob be a while, or at least expensive, or both.
I feel like I have been taken advantage of by the Toshiba company.
They advertised and promoted their players as the better format for sonsumers, but how is it better for consumers like me if there are no movies to play on these players??
This is to the level of fraud for them to say such things.
Hopefully Toshiba comes to their senses and realizes that they have ripped people off and begins offering refunds for these useless players they have sold.
They can take their obsolete “best for the consumer” format and shove it.
[quote]ReeGed: I use the latest beta of Firefox and everything is working fine. You should probably update your version.[/quote]
Here is an idea.
How bout you put a poll on the front page. Should be interesting results with those that use Firefox.
I have the latest version set to AUTOMATIC updates…I watched it update then I watched it crash with the adds.
At a guess I would say yours is NOT updated.
[quote]http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm[/quote]
HFG…THANKYOU Mate!!
hfghdfg…your a bloody champion.
Seems to have fixed all problems mate…thankyou!!!!
Hey Reeged…you wouldn’t happen to have the same file installed would you??
lol..bet you do.
Still the issue remains…what about the other punters who haven’t seen the post by hfghdfg???
@Matt
I have tested Firefox/2.0.0.12 with Adblock turned off a number of times and it didn’t ever crashed.
$ony.. BD+, DMR’n'r00tk1tz and expl0s1ve batteries
Blu-ray is here to stay for better or worst. And no, sony isn´t paying me to say this, or I´m getting some profit in return for stating this, it just is what it is. Bluray actually has a future. It might be expensive for a while, as is all technology when it first appears, but it will cheapen eventually, especially when ¨smaller¨ companies like benq or memorex start making bluray burners and disks. DRM is a drag, so let´s hope some one cracks it up ASAP. AND NO, downloading purchased HD content will never be the future as long as in many parts of the world broadband is unavailable. Besides, if you are here posting anything to praise downloadable content, it´s cause you are getting it via the sceners, not actually purchasing it. Unless you´ve got 5mbps+ connection like US or Europe, people will need physical storage space. And even then if you´ve got the power to download, you´re gonna end up spending a lot of money on buying a lot of hardisks to keep your stuff. If bluray is the best for now, I say, let´er rip. We´ll keep debating this some more after 10 years when some newer technology shows up.
@56 Jeremy
dude, are you serious? zune? dunno if you have ever heard of the Ipod? coz i have, and i prefer the ipod to the zune, hell, my Sony Ericsson with Walkman is better than the zune. BUT don’t get me wrong, im talking here about the older zune, as i have never played with the new zune, and probably won’t.. !!
@69: Well, you could hold on to it and cash in on all the cheap HD-DVDs that stores will be trying to unload now. Or if you REALLY rush, you might be able to eBay it before the general public knows about this news. Just make sure to stick it at a lower price point than your competing sellers.
I had a feeling this was coming when Amazon recently had the special on 360 HD-DVD drives for like $89.
79 and above, your all g4y go play some D&D and wahk off
wow billy that was kind of rough….
dam and ive just brought the full dvd box set of all Mash episodes ever made on HDDVD !!!!
@45
How will the Blu-Ray win affect the scene? Will there be new standards, such as Blu-Ray rips to DVD5 size?
there is already HD/BR Rips at sizes of 4GB, 8GB and even some of 12GB
I have both formats and didnt care which won, cause either way I would be using my ps3 all the time
@53
Excellent post. When deciding between a PS3 and an XBOX360, the internal BD drive finally won me over. Sony handled this format war masterfully, and I was an XBOX owner, not a PS2 owner!
HVD (holodisc) will soon be the leader with a storage of 1,6TB produced by Inphase Technologies (american company) and Hitachi Maxell (japanese company). Maybe Blu-ray will be history, sooner then you think.