A Toshiba company source, who does not want to be identified, has confirmed an earlier report that it is ready to pull the plug on HD DVD, which would include the scraping of HD DVD players and recorders. Going by this PC World report, Toshiba has now halted production of HD DVD players and recorders. This plan concedes defeat to the competing Sony-backed Blu-ray technology and will likely put an end to the format battle that has been on-going for the past couple of years.
This has been the result of Toshiba suffering several set backs in recent weeks as a result of retailers abandoning the HD DVD format. Warner’s move in January to abandon HD DVD quickly resulted in consumers losing confidence in the HD DVD format, which in turn led to falling HD DVD hardware and disc sales. Toshiba’s response by slashing HD DVD player prices did little to recover, particularly with the chain reaction of events by the retailers to drop HD DVD together.
According to the Toshiba source, Toshiba has entered the final stage of planning to make its exit from the next generation DVD business and is expected to make an official announcement as early as next week. The move would also result in Toshiba suffering losses of hundreds of millions of dollars between scraping its production of HD DVD players & recorders and the steps involved in withdrawing from this business.
Further info can be read in this source Reuters report.
42 Comments
Regardless of which is the better format, you're product is not going to win, if the movie companies aren't putting the titles out on your format. If they wanted to win they should of given the world to warners. Now they got stuck with only having access to 25 percent of movie catalogs, and thats not good. I'm happy to see one format emerge though, hopefully it will help to mainstream HD movies, put more movies and tv shows in HD etc... instead of having the limited shelf space for duplicate movies and what not.
Well Im obviously disappointed if this news is indeed true.. Im not going to buy any Blu-Ray player till prices drop under $99 and up-converting of DVD media is up to par.. And that all also depends on what the prices are for Blu-Ray media, because I wont be buying $30+ titles either..
yeah, i'm also not going to buy a BR player anytime soon, not as long as they are region locked.
I was hoping to get one of the new Toshiba HD-DVD burners so I could finally convert my Betamax tapes with my OS/2 system. 
lol RTV71..hey hd dvd fanboys...wait till blu ray is cracked open to bits loovely jubbly :B
loovely jubbly :B 
Only thing I'm wondering is if all the HD DVD only movies will be ported to Blu-Ray now.
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 17 Feb 08 01:18
LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL I was hoping to get one of the new Toshiba HD-DVD burners so I could finally convert my Betamax tapes with my OS/2 system. ============== Only thing I'm wondering is if all the HD DVD only movies will be ported to Blu-Ray now. ^^^^^^ They probably will. That way they can sell the same movies twice and make up for some of their losses from having chosen HD DVD. Looks like it's finally ending! 
Ahem: "scrapping" not "scraping".
well, I'm always a BluRay fan, but too bad HD DVD is not on the competition anymore, because they would make BluRay players cheaper :B
^^^ agreed but HD DVD's immediate and total death is required for Universal and Paramount to join Bluray...so I don't feel sorry for Toshiba. If Universal and Paramount takes a neutral stance then I don't really care if Toshiba pulls the plug or not...
It seems that the whistle blower must have leaked this info out earler and that could be why Warners, WalMart, Bestbuy and other jumped ship! You know that's why during a General Election, TV Stations are required Not to broadcast Exit Polls because when people that have not voted hear who people are voting for they say to themselves well if everybody is voting for so n so I guess I also have to ! That's how to sway the public! JohnnyJT :X South Philly
If true, I feel sorry for the consumers stuck with HD DVD players. I guess Sony can jack up the prices now since the competing format is probably gone.
Urk, this is not good. The only loosers are the consumers. I allways liked to see HD-DVD as the natural evolution of the DVD format. And Blu-Ray as the thirs generation format. But not to be. I think that the only reason BR might win is simply the copyproctection and other things. But if the movie industrys think this will stop piracy the are wrong, it will be cracked. HD-DVD had lots of other advantages too, like backward compatability and other nice things. If HD-DVD dies out and blu-ray burners are keept at high prices plus media to prevent piracy and so on, well then we are all loosers to sony. Lets hope not, regardless of what format wins the war.
Hopefully slysoft will make it easy to rip my HD DVDs and burn them to BD-Rs. It is indeed too bad that the unfinished and far more expensive format is winning out here, its a bad day for consumers.
@ivid there have been posts in here regarding that crap statement ie far more expensive format it is ot far more expensive
heres proof ivid most HD DVD-ROM movies are DL, while most BD-ROM movies are SL, which would make HD DVD more expensive to replicate in most situations. taken from here http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-replication-costs-revealed/111/ UPDATE: Blu-ray vs HD DVD replication costs PART 2 http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-replication-costs-analyzed-again/113/ :B
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 17 Feb 08 13:52
The only way to "win" this game was not to play. I won! And I will continue to win until dvd dies or until blu ray burners and media become much more affordable.
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 17 Feb 08 14:19
R.I.P. HD-DVD. This war is finished now. Toshiba was a founder of HD-DVD format... and it done all possible and impossible to lose the market!!! No PC and standalone burners and disks for consumers, no advertising... They are loosers.
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 17 Feb 08 14:31
What really pisses me off is i bought a HD-DVD player for my 360 a month before this betrayal by warner 
looks like i just wasted a hundred quid on shite all
looks like i just wasted a hundred quid on shite all
The only way to "win" this game was not to play. I won! AGREE 100%.
punan, I am talking about expensive for the consumer ! $150 vs $300-400 for a player. And cheaper movies (according to people who owned both). And the $300-400 one can't be upgraded.
Congratulations to the anti-Sony squad who fought bravely against the impossible. Time for "as I told you so", the PS3 would win this, so called format war. And it did. It was so obvious, I fail to understand why people didn't saw it coming. And what's the next Betamax, again? :d
This message was edited at: 17-02-2008 21:13
This message was edited at: 17-02-2008 21:13
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 17 Feb 08 21:53
So most are happy with a US monopoly? We'll still get HDDVD from other sources. So what if most game sources would only supply XBOX? It's better to have equal choices - not forced choices.
@ ivid well i bought a ps3 for 300 quid and i can get latest blu ray films for a tenner plus games for 20 quid,you might not believe me tho,anyway stuff high def i wanna fill a dual layer bd with tv shows/movies in standard dvd format, blu ray is all about storage for me,i wonder what 15 dvd rips on single layered bd will look like upscalled on my hd tv??ive a collection of zed/trinity/walrus multy dvds with 3 films on each disc all with dolby 5.1 excelant quality i may add and thats on single layer dvd-r ,now multiply that by 5 to fit on a bd :B
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 18 Feb 08 02:31
It's too bad for folks who fell for (got a good deal on) the recent lower priced HD-DVD players. I would feel betrayal from BB, CC, etc if I had just bought one (but I didn't). Why sell something if you know you're going to drop all support the following week? That's BS. That's like selling a video game console and not producing games. As for the Blu-ray fanboys and the "I told you so" crowd, keep it to yourselves. I mean, what contributions did you make? Did you write the specifications or sign any deals with the studios for rights? No. Fanboy. As for me, I have a combo drive. I don't care who won. It was inevitable that one format would eventually prevail. 'Bout time.
Hey, where is that $99 Blue-Ray player? Don't hold your breath or your face will turn BLUE! JohnnyJT :X South Philly
@ johnnyjt $99 hd dvd players are worthless now :B now that was a total waste
How does a trade in promise for every HD DVD owner out there for a $99 Tos. BD player sounds? :d :+
BTW punan, according to your links, no its not going to cost more to make HD DVD DL vs. BR SL in most cases. The only cases where it was more $$ was in low quantity production (ie not movies) and it was 5.5% more expensive for 20% more storage capacity.
This message was edited at: 18-02-2008 15:54
This message was edited at: 18-02-2008 15:54
It's hilarious reading these predictions that the end of the format war will result in HIGHER prices of Blu-Ray players. If anybody can give an example of tech products that had their prices rise over time, I'd love to hear it. More manufacturers, such as Toshiba, will begin producing Blu-Ray players, resulting in more competition for Sony, not less. The prices of these players will drop quickly once consumers start snapping them up.
The end of the format war may not signal higher prices on BR players, but it will not cause lower prices either. Sony controls BR rights and licensing so any company that wants to make BR players has to pay royalties to Sony, so Sony can (and probably will) keep the prices as high as possible now that there is no competion. If you were a company and had no incentive to lower your prices, would you? I did not buy in to either format, because I remeber the VHS/BETA war all to well, and did not want to take part in another format war. I also will probably not buy in to BR anytime soon, because as far as I'm concerned DVD is working just fine for me. I am too put out with Sony for what I see as quality control issues on their part to buy anything with their name on it. I am not a Sony basher. I own a ton of Sony products. But I will not and have not bought any Hardware from them in many years.
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 18 Feb 08 17:15
I am curious to see if one format will result in more sales, do these general public HD fence sitters exist or are these people a myth created by the press. Are people going to really start buying Blu-ray OR are people just going to wait until their old DVD player craps out and replace it with something new?
fol34, perhaps. Probably not, prices are still way to high for the general consumer, the players and the media. Compared to DVDs If the format war is over, I do hope that this will generat better quality players. But only time will tell.
I sat on the fence as well due to the fact I remember the VHS vs. Beta max and didn't want to go through that again. Now that there is a clear winner I am now going to get a HD LCD TV and a Blu-Ray player soon. So no people will start buying but not in the masses as one would think since there is a winner.
I choose... Piracy! I win!
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 18 Feb 08 18:24
Yeah ... i didnt choose piracy !!! They didnt left me any choice ... piracy is a problem but its caused by them ... why dont they sued themselves !!! Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD ??? BS by sony vs Consumer friendly format. Toshiba lost ? Nah ... WE ALL LOST !!! And we will pay for that !!!
Its certainly good that most rentals will now stock 1 format. Although I dont suppose it is good time to get off the "fence". Blu specs are far from being finalized, in exc. of PS3. There is still some chance VMD will get a boost since there is a niche created. (VMD does not have all the crazy DRMs and players are cheap, and so are the movies). BTW having a "chosen" format does not guarantee its popularity. A good example is HD audio formats VS conventional CD. Ppl decided they dont need it. end of story. Now with Blu or VMD I really want to see a player that supports playback of individual .264 files. a $100 for the appliance sounds like my price :d http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Multilayer_Disc
From the horses mouth http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm
Well, I was always a so called BD Fanboy since for me BD is better technlogy but I didn't expect this war over so fast. IMHO the real loosers are the costumers.
while im over the moon that my format of choice has won, i still feel sorry for the folks that bought HD-DVD and got screwed over!!
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 19 Feb 08 19:54
VMD = video 2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000 (Video 2000 is the forgotten format that competed against Beta and VHS.) No DRM means no major studio support, that's fine if they can get 50 GB burnables cheap and get stores to actually carry it. I'd say that's wishful thinking. If you hate DRM as much as I do just don't touch anything with DRM (even if it's free) and all DRM will disappear faster than the Sony CD rootkit.
I hear ya. Thats why I kinda like the format. Some studios have released many decent movies, but I'm not sure about the new titles: http://nmestore.com/index.php?cPath=2
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