News Toshiba drops HD DVD - the format war is over

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02..._war_is_over/1

Toshiba has announced that it is pulling out of HD DVD, which brings the format war to an end. We can now start to watch HD content!

[kitt]

Great. Now i may consider buying a player. (Blu-ray i mean)

[DXR_13KE]

company has "no plans at all" to adopt Blu-ray at the moment.

i feel something interesting coming...

and i see a blueray attachment on the 360...

[cjoyce1980]

its a shame, HD-DVD was the better format for developers, a Java for Blu-Ray is a nightmare to use, over HDi. Hopefully in Blu-ray version 3, we could see a return of this development application.

you can win anything with alot of cash to buy support

[RTT]

Boo.

[DeXtmL]

finally....
Hope blu-ray's price can be brought down...

[rjkoneill]

so my housemates new top end ROCK games laptop with the HDDVD as standard is now as pointless as a fridge in the arctic

oh how i will laugh when i get home

i think this may take some months to establish itself

its strange how big super markets and media stores stock a 20% BR 80% HDDVD in my area
where as in my recent trip to london i noticed the exact opposite.

[JK23]

Damn!!! Looks like my 360 HD-DVD Drive is gonna be a paper weight now - lol... If only someone would hack the damn PS3 then I would get one of those - lol

[alextwo]

Shame the better format lost. Oh well.

[mclean007]

Sony are going to shift a LOT of PS3s over the next few weeks now that the 'wait-and-see' crowd, like me, finally commit.

[naokaji]

Originally Posted by mclean007

Sony are going to shift a LOT of PS3s over the next few weeks now that the 'wait-and-see' crowd, like me, finally commit.

or affordable blue ray players start to appear in significant numbers outside of japan...

[Flibblebot]

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a case of "Hip Hip BluRay!" at all. BluRay is a standards mess, with many of the components of the standard being optional - this will mean that in a couple of years we'll be seeing cheap BluRay players only implementing part of the BluRay standard, meaning that they'll only be able to play part of the content on some discs.

Now that there's no competition, there's absolutely nothing to stop the BluRay camp (which, after all, is lead by Sony) tightening the DRM screws, enforcing region coding and ICT.

A sad day. Again, the best format loses out - but this time it isn't because of public support, it's because of corporate tactics.

[quack]

Boo!

I'm glad the war is over, just a shame the wrong format won.

[sandys]

I dunno where all this wrong formats stuff comes from but some of the stuff proposed in BDLive profile sounds great for the consumer and something the HDDVD did not offer, the ability to have a portable copy of a BD film you have purchased for one is a great move, so it'll be packed full of DRM does it actually matter to anyone bar pirates so long as it doesn't get in the way of playing a movie you've purchased? Also most films being simultaneously released kind of negates the issue of region control too.

Of course the new profiles might upset some early adopters but as with any early adoption of new tech there is always a bit of risk involved and for the most part it would just mean a few people might miss out on some features but as the hardware gets commoditized as it will it should be cheap enough to add a better player to your collection, I'd argue most early adopters knew what they were buying into and possible problems as the price of the kit was beyond an impulse purchase and would be done by the more informed.

[Flibblebot]

Originally Posted by sandys

Of course the new profiles might upset some early adopters but as with any early adoption of new tech there is always a bit of risk involved and for the most part it would just mean a few people might miss out on some features but as the hardware gets commoditized as it will it should be cheap enough to add a better player to your collection, I'd argue most early adopters knew what they were buying into and possible problems as the price of the kit was beyond an impulse purchase and would be done by the more informed.

But it's not just the new profiles, that's fairly easily managed with a firmware upgrade. As you say, most early adopters tend to be technical and well-informed, and I imagine most will know how to upgrade their machines.

The real problem is that there are parts of the BD spec that are apparently optional, and this doesn't just affect early adopters. It's fairly easy to see cheap players that eschew these optional parts of the spec to save money, and so we'll end up with a two-tier BluRay market: those with players that can handle all of the content on a disc, and those who can only see some of the content.

HD DVD, as a spec fully ratified by the DVD Forum, is 100% obligatory which meant that all discs would play on all players.

[proxess]

I guess I'll continue living the next years of my life with the wonderful 4.7 metric gigabytes to store my Anime. I doubt Toshiba will take on Blu-Ray because they would just have to completely remodel their industries for the blue laser discs, while they are setup for the red laser disks.

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

Originally Posted by proxess

I guess I'll continue living the next years of my life with the wonderful 4.7 metric gigabytes to store my Anime. I doubt Toshiba will take on Blu-Ray because they would just have to completely remodel their industries for the blue laser discs, while they are setup for the red laser disks.

HD-DVD does use blue lasers. Red laser wavelength is inefficient for use with the higher amount of data that blue lasers can read. The reason for this is that blue has a shorter wavelength than red relative to the rest of the visible spectrum, so it suffers less from diffraction effects; resolving smaller
details/information.

It's common sense that Toshiba would have to develop some kind of player for even their home turf. Over 90% of the HD market in Japan is Blu-Ray. They will have to shut down their doors if they don't do something. Business is business.

[quack]

Originally Posted by sandys

I dunno where all this wrong formats stuff comes from but some of the stuff proposed in BDLive profile sounds great for the consumer and something the HDDVD did not offer, the ability to have a portable copy of a BD film you have purchased for one is a great move, so it'll be packed full of DRM does it actually matter to anyone bar pirates so long as it doesn't get in the way of playing a movie you've purchased?

DRM and region coding are always bad.

[mmorgue]

Ok, you said you weren't going to release anything until you were sure of the formats, etc.. Well, now you are....

...Enough stalling Lucas and get your @rse in gear -- gimme my original Star Wars trilogy in 1080p!

And none of this Special Feature bollocks. I want pure, unadulterated original Star Wars!

And throw Indy in there as well.

[hawky84]

I wonder if blue ray will stay at its current price or even go up now it has no compitition...

I personally would have prefered the format with the set in stone standard to win rather than the one the has changed its standard several times since launch. Oh well I still have a CRT TV which has an awesome picture on it anyway so no worries for me.