Format war drawing to a close? Toshiba may drop HD DVD |
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The HD DVD camp has been losing backers slowly but surely ever since Warner Bros. went Blu-ray exclusive. The new word is that Toshiba, one of the largest HD DVD backers, will soon be leaving the format as well.
The new rumblings of Toshiba's departure from the format comes from a statement made by a spokesperson for Toshiba. While the spokesperson proclaimed Toshiba's continued support, she also made a statement that hints that it may not be for long:
Based on its technological advancements, we continue to believe HD DVD is the best format for consumers, given the value and consistent quality inherent in our player offerings.
Given the market developments in the past month. Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.
One source close to the HD DVD camp says that an announcement will be made soon. Will the format war soon draw to its conclusion? So far all signs lead to yes. Check back for updates.
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Comments [refresh]
...digital content will wipe out blueRay and HD-DVD. Digital content is the future... phyiscal media will die out....just like the CD to the music industry. Tech savy folks stopped buying CD years ago or MP3's....now the common folk will follow and this is the same forecast for BR and HD-DVD.
Too bad...I have a PS3 60gig....
but i don't think physical media will die out for a long time yet. like games for example. you can't download a whole blu-ray game for the ps3, that'd take forever. it's possible in the future though
it will happen eventually, but like purple_cow said, our internet speeds are nowhere near the speeds they need to be for that to be convenient. i expect bluray to live out the normal lifespan of a format, or maybe a little longer while the digital downloads catch on.
be a good idea, if implemented properly.
However, if they put restrictions on number of times downloaded, I'd probably back them up to disc, hence asking the question, why didn't I just buy it on disc?
I think, the world will be pretty darn awesome when they straighten out all the loose ends. Hardware, compatability, bandwidth, smaller more portable players, universal connectivity, all with rediculously small, yet giant terrabye drives. But for right now, we are barely scratching the surface of really taking advantage of downloadable content.
/My 32meg RIO MP3 player from heck, 6-8 years ago was "amazing" because it held 12 songs! Now, the iPod looks back and laughs.
"just like the CD to the music industry"
Where exactly do you get your non-facts from?
"Tech savy folks stopped buying CD years ago or MP3's"
That's about as horrible of a generalization as you could make. Any audiophile will tell you MP3's are TOTAL CRAP. You ever pump an MP3 through a powerful system? Yeah, good way to blow your $300 woofers even at 320kbps. You're probably one of those kids who thinks 64kbps is good enough as you listen to it on your $15 computer speakers or $10 ear plugs. Hell, even 64kbps XM radio sounded "eh" on my factory F-150 speakers. Once I upgraded them it was even worse. Oh but those CD's that this tech "savy" guy isn't supposed to buy anymore....yeah, they sound AWESOME.
Digital media is HIGHLY compressed. That might be great on smaller screens but once they hit big screens it just doesn't cut it. Sorry bud, HD media will be around for a LONG time.
you gotta understand, not everyone is like us, in fact most people aren't. The average consumer will find an 192kbps mp3 to be transparent (meaning cant hear a difference between that and a cd). Therefore it doesn't matter what we think, the overwhelming average consumers will always be right.
Also, a 320kbps mp3 has pretty damn good bass response especially with the new lame encoders.
And with speaking with small screens vs larger ones on digital, as long as there is good upscaling, screen size won't matter.
Digital is the future.
I want my movies in BD, it's stupid right now, I can buy 3 out of 4 movies on BDs, but it's always lacking a movie that's on HDdvd only :@. This need to end soon!
"And with speaking with small screens vs. larger ones on digital, as long as there is good upscaling, screen size won't matter. "
Granted this is a mater of opinion however, nope, I have a decent scaler (DVDO) and my 47 and 60 inch sets look like crap when playing HD compressed down to fit on a DVD (for example). Not to mention decent scalers cost MONEY. Good money at that. So as much as you want to point out the "average consumer", you fail to address the average consumer having a decent scaler.
As screens get bigger, digital distribution will take a big drop until bandwidth skyrockets. This is also something you failed to mention. The last time the numbers were crunched, less then 3% of Americans had the bandwidth capable of streaming HD content. Also realize that number INCLUDES businesses. Also realize that cell phone internet connections are considered BROADBAND. So before you start to address the 3% you have a LOT of filtering to do.
As for MP3. The more vehicles start to come with larger sound systems, the more consumers are starting to realize that compression is for the birds! That's why I used XM as an example. XM DOES equal the average consumer. Or is starting to anyway. Same with Sirius. You like to use the fact that the "average consumer" will be ok with compressed audio. Yet, you are addressing this in the same notion that CDs (red book audio) will be extinct. What do you think will happen when the not so average consumer starts to scream and yell over the poor quality and starts to show the world their proof? People don't like to spend their money INVESTING in poor quality even if it's "OK" for now.
High compression will NEVER replace the source. People will always go after the best possible quality.
Ok lots of people are telling me that every thing will go to digital media... I dont see this ever happing and heres why:
1. Why would you pay for something you actually dont own?
a. if you have a real item, you actuly have something!
2. have you ever downloaded a moive? seriously... it takes for ever! Even with cable, broadband, any of that it takes a while. And when every thing goes to HD downloading times will be even worse!
3. Yes digital downloads works well with music, but those are small files.
4. Microsoft has a huge advantage on computers, now if all moives went on computers... Microsoft and Apple would be very happy. Tons more bussines for them.
5. Bill Gates when he was in Europe last month said he hated Capitalism, and If your an AMERICAN i would be pissed at him! Now if everything was on your computer, Microsoft would still have a huge monoply on just about everything then. If that happens... well i dont want to think about it.
HDDVD
1. Finaly it looks like its gona die! I dont know maybe is the American in me but... THE BIGGER THE BETTER!!!!!! Bluray holds tons more, and when it becomes cheap i can asure you every one will be using it
Walmart is going Blu. By June they will only carry Blu-ray discs and players. Sorry Red, no more HD at your local wally-world.
As much as I dislike Walmart, I have to hand it to them, I'm glad they are making the move. This should help bring about the end of the "Format Wars" a little sooner
Forgot to post the link, but here it is
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id+980
saiyonara HD-DVD
For a few reasons.
It's not easy or feasible to download 50gb of data because a) it A LOT of data and b) not everyone who enjoys movies, games etc have a decent internet connection to do so.
If you enjoy a decent internet connection it's easy to see DC being something very possible, but the massive amount of people with out a decent or even just an internet connection are totally out of luck when it comes to movies, music, games etc? That will no flow.
So until you come up with a world wide available internet connection system with decent enuff speed that downloads would take just minutes you won't have complete DC only content.
The compression and decent internet connections are exactly what prevent sole Digital distribution.
While ConXept doesn't seem to notice a difference, I do appreciate the high quality my CDs provide. I do have a cheap MP3 player with a mid set of headphones and for the most part don't mind MP3's in that form (at 320k) but again, I always appreciate the richness of my physical CD.
Dang it, you beat me to it! :) I just read that news. This ends the war!!!! YEAH!!!!!!
Being a vendor for Wal-Mart I can attest to the fact that whatever Walmart does, that's how it's going to be.
even downloading 720p-1080p short video trailers from PSN can take upto 100mb-300mb.
and that takes a while.
plus a lot of us dont go for highest package or have unlimited downloads per month.
(looking forward for my bluray laptop to arrive :))
Find it somewhat amusing looking at all the coments on AVforum of all the HD dvd supporters ( and there are a number of them ) comenting on the above article.
After reading the coments here ( http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707997 ) there coments show depression, shock and then complete delusion ( hope i spelt that one correctly ) all in that order.
The safest bet was to buy a PS3. That is, if you are into gaming. After all, even if BR died, you'd still want your PS3.
Now all the HD-DVD supporters have a worthless player. Just like all the Betamax folks.
Some people are just stupid!
"However, if this IS true? the intersting thing here is, if Toshiba move to Blu Ray, I bet not a single HD-DVD owner will buy one of their players, just through the fact that Toshiba has dumped on it's customert big time"
Yeah, and no Betamax owner ever bought a Sony VHS player....HAHAHA!!!!
Anyone supporting HD-DVD now needs to get out, its losing.
I'm getting a really good desktop (gaming computer) and I can burn and watch HD-DVD (which is somthing I dont care about.. lol) and blu-ray's!
Kinda off topic but cant wait to try out crysis (heard the gameplay was kinda boring though..)
Almost a year ago, this thing was over from the start. In the movie industry you can't fight Disney & Sony Pics. when they work together.
@redbrick: Dear HD-DVD diehard.... I know that you and your brethren have been using this gimmick ("Downloads are the future!") for the last 2 months since Warner announced their switch, as a method to try and deflect attention from the FACT that Blu-ray has nearly 'sealed-the-deal', and is here to stay. But, I'm sorry --the gig is up. The Toshiba concert halls (showrooms?) are now empty. Everyone's nearly gone home now. "Too bad ..." you have a PS3 60gig? ....Why, because now all the Blu-rays that you buy are a safe purchase? ...You make no sense, crybaby.
Sorry guys but the war never happened and the consumers will still for many years get dvds and blu disk and purple spots with butterflies. Who cares.
The future is memory and this will take over regardless of what we want think or care. Technology advances faster than markets can react and often the consumers pay the price through falling victim to advertising hype. yes right now the blu is bigger better faster but in reality the images on the screen are equal. data is data and will allways be data 00100111000110101. end of story.
If we look at the markets today already apple offer a laptop with out a disk drive and also if you want to pay extra without a hard disk as this has already been replaced by memory. Sony will do the same with their vaios and hitachi will tell the world 2 years from now that they are still leading innovation. Bull.
Thinking logically the routines for most developers of games follow strict patterns and when we look to the future I see a console having memory slots where we drop in our selected developers routine chip which could be from bungie or MS or epic. The games could be downloaded as required and background download of data these days doe not interfere with our play. The days of a cpu or PC system being stuck forever as it was downloading and we had to wait have been over several years already. Bandwidth is on the increase and wireless hotspots with speeds in excess of 300kb are relatively normal. Disks will always be available so long as the market pays for them so the HDDVD and the Blu camps need not worry as these will be produced by independant companies that have done the same with music as the LP was dead 15 years ago but ican still buy vinyl if i want it.
As a different point in Germany several years ago there was a universtiy study where HIFI recordings were played and subsequently the MP3 counterparts were played. No direct order of what signal type was being played was mentioned. The study proved that 80% of the people could not differentiate between the 2 if the MP3 encoding was done correctly. The surprise was that kids between 15 and 19 were the best test group to identify the difference insound. More than 90% of people over 26 rarely hear the difference.
this does not make MP3 better but it does prove that for the mainstream consumers it will win. Companies are not stupid, digital data is cheap quick and clean with a good return on investment. For the purists there is always something available but at price that most people will ignore.
We must also remember that worldwide there is a lot of glass fibre cable already in place that is still not being maximised and that this was largely the result of adsl which offered speed over the existing copper phone lines. In many world cities experimentation is being done and implemented. Holland and germany and possibly many more countries are already using test communities where the existing powerlines for elctricity are being utilised as a carrier for digital data.
This means that if there is power then there can be digital data and at speeds that will be far in excess of anything we have today. Why is simple. The data bloodlines are already in place. just hook up high speed data switches and backbone engines and in theory the world is ready to rock n roll. 14k modem 16 years ago 500kb wireless today. 3G is finally happening and the tech is already several years old.
HDDVD DVD CD's and BLU-RAY go play me i am enjoying what I have and look forward to the future.
Oh yes im sure everyone has Terabytes of storage space right now to really make your statement credible.
In the future there is a possibility, but even then i want hard copies, cause then you download something a game music, etc and for all your know it could have a virus and such and bam your thing crashes while with physical storages devices like DVD and Blu-ray its isn't likely to get a virus or corruption.
Too bad your a 360 xbot trying to be cool saying you have a 60GB go back to your pathetic forum.