Yesterday, after months of debate and weeks of speculation, the HD format war ended. Toshiba officially announced that they would stop production of the HD-DVD format, and that by March expect to halt all HD-DVD businesses.
Yesterday, after months of debate and weeks of speculation, the HD format war ended. Toshiba officially announced that they would stop production of the HD-DVD format, and that by March expect to halt all HD-DVD businesses. (Toshiba/J. Anderson)
The news was predicted weeks ago, solidified by announcements recently from Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Time Warner, each opting to shift to production or sales of Blu-ray hardware or movie titles. Yesterday, just after Toshiba's announcement, Universal said they too would move to Blu-ray.
“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear,” Craig Kornblau, President, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Digital Platforms, said. “The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate. While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray,” he added.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”
In terms of usage, almost ten million consumers use the Blu-ray format developed by Sony. In contrast, Toshiba said in a press conference yesterday that there are six-hundred thousand HD-DVD players in the U.S., one-hundred thousand in Europe, and thirty thousand in Japan. Worldwide there are three-hundred thousand PCs with an HD-DVD drive, and three-hundred thousand Xbox 360 drives.
The end of the debate over HD-DVD and Blue-ray means different things. For the consumer, this announcement marks the end of the debate over which format to chose. Naturally, the debate will continue with technophiles, as some will feel slighted for picking a format that in just over thirty days will be obsolete.
Businesses like Sony, have the future to look forward too. Sony, now the HD format winner, needs to place more energy and effort into the HD format making the devices more affordable to the average consumer. As it stands now, Blue-ray technology is still a major investment for some consumers.
Toshiba said they would continue to develop technologies that will drive mass-market access to high definition content. These technologies include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies.
Toshiba also intends to maintain relations with the companies who joined with them in working to build up the HD DVD market. Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers were all there in the beginning to help Toshiba launch HD-DVD.
In the IT industry, Microsoft, Intel, and HP were the founding base for HD-DVD. Toshiba said they would study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.
In other HD-DVD news, Microsoft has said that the end of the HD-DVD format will not impact the future of the Xbox 360 line. "We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace," the company said.
Last month a Microsoft said that Blue-ray support could be a future offering for the Xbox 360 platform.
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Chad LomeliFeb 22nd, 2008 - 22:42:30
Great job Blue-ray hands down the best format, easly enough said.
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Chad LomeliFeb 22nd, 2008 - 22:42:30
Great job Blue-ray hands down the best format, easly enough said.
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