About six weeks ago I mentioned on this blog that the high-definition DVD format war might be drawing to a close; on Tuesday this was confirmed at a press conference called by Toshiba, at which they announced that the manufacture of HD-DVD machines would be discontinued. So, Blu-Ray has won the battle – a battle that was largely fought between multinational corporations; it was Warner that delivered the killer blow to Toshiba's HD-DVD when they made the announcement that they'd no longer be backing the format.
While Blu-Ray was outselling HD-DVD, the majority of consumers weren't voting with their feet – perhaps because they didn't want to back a format that would become obsolete, perhaps because the units were too pricy, or perhaps because they hadn't yet bought into the idea of having supremely crystal clear images on their screens. I certainly don't know anyone who owns a high-definition DVD player of either flavour – but are existing HD-DVD machines now as good as useless?
Well, they'll still work. They'll still play any HD-DVD movies that you bought, and because they're backwards compatible, they'll always be able to play regular DVDs and CDs. But obviously new films won't be released in the format, blank media will become increasingly scarce, and the machine will inevitably end up gathering dust in your shed, your loft or under your bed. (It's unlikely to fetch much on eBay, and unlikely to ever be a museum piece.) But, as many commentators have pointed out, this is the price you pay for being an early adopter. You get the thrill of being ahead of the pack, but if you choose the "wrong" format – Betamax, Digital Compact Cassette, SmartMedia – you end up with an obsolete piece of technology.
The figures for the number of HD-DVD machines sold have become slightly garbled, but the tally seems to be 600,000 in the USA, 100,000 in Europe, 30,000 in Japan, and an additional 300,000 external HD-DVD drives for the Xbox 360 games console. You can't help wondering that if Microsoft had chosen to build the drive into the games console itself, whether the whole story would have turned out differently. But now it's all over and, fortunately, we no longer have to think about it. Hopefully the higher demand for Blu-ray will now drive down prices as manufacturers compete with each other, and who knows, maybe I'll even end up buying one.
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I bought a new Samsung combo player just before Christmas for just this eventuality. I thought that HD DVD would have more legs than this and am somewhat surprised. I wonder how this announcement will affect existing combo players by LG and Samsung. Looks like mine will be the last of the breed. At least I can still play the HD DVDs I have already purchased. Let me know your thoughts....
Posted by: John Bender | Thursday, 21 February 2008 at 09:41 PM
Three weeks ago I purchased a Toshiba HD DVD A3 player on Amazon for $127.00 shipping included. I just could not pass up what I thought was a great deal. It seems that once I bought the A3 the HD DVD format came to an end. My fault? Toshiba says they will not give discounts on any Blue Ray players that they may produce in the future to HD DVD owners who are now stuck with a dead format. Toshiba says the A3 can still play dvd,s and cd,s. I say to Toshiba "You guys suck!" You would think they would want to help out the consumers who jumped on their bandwagons and tried to make their HD DVD format winners.I will never buy Toshiba products ever again. In closing I must admit that the A3 upscales reguar DVD's to an unbeliveable picture, as good as HD.
Posted by: John McLean | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 12:48 AM
This i seen coming for months. The fact that not everyone seen the playstation 3 as a cheap blu ray player that also supported HD didn't seem to matter. But as the individual film company's took sides it started to remind me of the betamax/VHS war from when i was a child and sony lost out then and i was pretty confident they wernt gonna make the same mistakes again even though they did have the better format even then.
Microsoft have now said they plan to release an external blu ray drive for the 360 but keep there games on there current format (duel layer dvds) so what about the 300k suckers that spent upto £100 on there external HD drive for there 360s?
I hope for there sake that microsoft plans to exchange them for blu rays or i for 1 would be a very unhappy chappy.
Posted by: Nick Castro | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 01:15 AM
I LUV MY HD PLAYER I HOPE MOVIES PRICE WILL GO DOWN
Posted by: desmond | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 02:24 AM
People will be sorry.
The corporations decided this, not the consumer.
Blu-ray got a wholly expected initial boost by being built into the PS3 - a console bound to sell in multi-millions and which only needed a small proportion of owners to buy 1 or 2 Blu-ray movies to establish a 'lead' - as their poor attachment numbers clearly showed.
Sadly without the competition of HD DVD the Blu-ray group will move ahead with their draconian plans.
Expect charges for future updates (no, profile 2.0 is not the final profile, just the final free profile update) and within 18 - 24mths owners of profile 1.0 & 1.1 Blu-ray players can expect to buy again (well, what do you expect from the sort of people who dismiss your problems with a "well, they knew what they were getting into"?
The only good thing about any of this is that Blu-ray is too late.
They will not have a proper range of players at mass-market-friendly prices & specs this year.
3 years in & counting.
Posted by: DaveBG | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 02:35 AM
DaveBg i do believe you may be mixing things up here by saying this "Blu-ray got a wholly expected initial boost by being built into the PS3 - a console bound to sell in multi-millions"
The PS3 has been outsold all over the world by the PS2,360 Wii, DS and even PsP until recently. During the Christmas period the PS3 outsold the Wii 2 weeks in row in Japan but that wasn't due to popularity it was due to lack of stock on the Wii part.
In the past 2 to 3 weeks though the PS3 has outsold the 360 for the first time in the USA. This has happened before anyone knew about Toshiba giving up on HD-DVD.
I mean wasn't it Paramount (cant remember the exact film company that said they were not going to support blu ray)?
I do believe theres many companies that will have to eat there words.
What im trying to say is all in all the PS3 is still miles behind the Wii and 360 in total sales and it will be at least a year before it can even catch up never mind take over.
I understand what you are saying because of the market brand and the last 2 generations of consoles, but its not like that anymore for the smart buyer. Consoles are not directed towards "kids" anymore, they are directed towards the mass market in general and more mature game players. (the Wii is an exception because it may appeal to anyone and everyone because of its advertising)
This is just my opinion and as an owner of 2 ps3 1 ex 360 and a 1 week loan of a wii i have experienced them all and id still keep my ps3 before any of the rest due to its much more advance media capabilities and a cheap blu ray player :) (games of course to) but id play Call of Duty 4 on my PC before id even think about looking at it on any console
Posted by: Nick Castro | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 04:20 AM
Well Ive have been a computer tec for over 13 years and ive owned an xbox, ps2 and PC I still own my PC I now own a Xbox360 ive played the ps3 and it no where near comes close to 360 for the fact that the 360 is made by microsoft and pc 's have just boomed in the last 15 years.
The playstation may have the internal blu-ray but that's more cost when repairing and the only reason they put it in was because they couldn't make the ps3 as good as the 360 it has less graffics and slower cpu thats why the relase date was held off till after the 360 just to offer blu-ray so there at least 3 year out of date with the ps3 and the 360 is a pc made for games, Dvds, Internet, Emails, chat, downloads and constent game and movie updates.
being a viewer of HD-DVD and Blu-ray HD is far more advanced I dont know why they would want to stop.
If not they should relpace all Hd-Dvd with Blu-ray for all those millions of people that have been let down
Posted by: Derek Todd | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 06:49 AM
Here's an amusing little summing up of the impotence of HD-DVD and Blu-ray's imminent victory, posted about a month ago on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWfmRdOmJ0
Posted by: Geoff Thomas | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 08:08 AM
Nick Castro, you area a COMPUTER TECH????? and a Microsoft lover???? Why not? Your job is to fix the broken stuff that will keep breaking. If Microsoft made things SOLID, then you would not be needed. I assume you are Microsoft certified, right? This makes you an expert on HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
Buddy, this has nothing to do with HD-DVD being better than Blu-ray because of Microsoft??? Just because PCs boomed the last 15 years has nothing to do with XBox360 or HD-DVD. BTW Microsoft makes software.... check and see who manufactures the XBox360 and the Zune for that matter. So you think they added Blu-ray because the graphics (not graffics) are poor? It's about value, to compete, a company adds value to their products. Do you suppose that the delay was based on 360? Sounds like you are speculating, you need to get your facts straight. PS3 does all the same things Games, Movies, etc. But you already know this - right? You tried them all - right? Yet PS3 gives you a little more... hummmm a Blu-ray player. Wait!!!! Sony makes computers too! Computer hardware and yes Sony is great with electronic stuff too. In the end, Microsoft is rumored to offer a Blu-ray external player for the Xbox real soon - guess who might manufacture that one for them.
You need to study the specs on each format and find out which one offers more, you will find that the Studios went with Blu-ray because of all the capabilities. But, hey, you're too smart - PC Computer Techie - you should already know this... unless you comment without doing your homework.
Posted by: Marco | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 09:32 AM
Sorry Nick Castro my comment was directed towards Derek Todd THE COMPUTER TECH who knows all about computers and all about Blu-ray.
Posted by: Marco | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 09:36 AM
First, Warner did touch off this move because they have the largest movie library in the world. They own something like 65% of all American films EVER MADE. When they said they were only going to support BD, it was only a matter of time.
Second, the latest PS3 update includes BD 1.1 AND DiVX support. DiVX support on the 360 is still a hack, and a kludgey one at that. Add that to the poor build quality of the console and the problems they had with the last two revs, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Posted by: Steve S | Friday, 22 February 2008 at 06:11 PM
I enjoy the quality results of my Toshiba HD-DVD player. I am very disappointed that Toshiba and others have made the decision to abandon the HD-DVD technology. Here is my opinion: I have been a technology enthusiast for many years, and I have seen many formats I bought into come and go. Laservision, CED videodisc, Beta, VHS, 8mm and several others come to mind. I still have the hardware and software for these formats, and I still derive lots of pleasure and enjoyment from them. The distinct difference here is that I have only had my Toshiba HD-DVD player around 7 months before the discontinuation announcement came. The player is still under warranty! The other now extinct formats were, by contrast, around for a reasonable length of time before they faded, unlike what is happening with HD-DVD. I purchased the player in good faith expecting that the format would be around longer than 7 months. I think this was a realistic expectation on my part. To find out otherwise amounts to deception in my mind.
Posted by: pahrumpterry | Monday, 03 March 2008 at 10:58 PM