HD DVD R.I.P.

[Chalupa]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080215/tc_nm/hddvd_dc_1

Toshiba's HD-DVD going the way of Betamax

By Thomas K. Arnold and Erik GruenwedelThu Feb 14, 10:23 PM ET

The high-definition DVD format war has turned into a format death watch.

Toshiba is expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format in the coming weeks, after a rash of retail defections that followed Warner Home Video's stunning announcement in early January that it would support only Sony's rival Blu-ray Disc format after May.

Officially, no decision has been made, insists Jodi Sally, vp of marketing for Toshiba America Consumer Products. "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," she said.

But she hinted that something's in the air. "Given the market developments in the past month," she said, "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."

Immediately after the Warner announcement, the HD DVD North American Promotional Group canceled its Consumer Electronics Show presentation. The following week data collected by the NPD Group gave Blu-ray 93% of all hardware sales for that week.

Toshiba subsequently fired back by cutting its HD DVD player prices by as much as half, effective January 15. But a hoped-for consumer sales surge never materialized; retail point-of-sale data collected by The NPD Group for the week ending January 26 still showed Blu-ray Disc players ahead by a wide margin, 65% to 28%.

Software sales have declined as well. The latest Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales data show the top-selling Blu-ray Disc title for the week, Sony's "Across the Universe," sold more than three times as many copies the week ending February 10 as the top HD DVD seller, Universal's "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." Blu-ray Disc titles also accounted for 81% of all high-def disc sales for the week, with HD DVD at just 19%.

Toshiba had been pitching its discounted HD DVD players toward the standard DVD crowd as well as high-def enthusiasts, noting in its ad message that the new players would make DVDs look a lot better as well. And as a last-ditch effort the company ran an ad during the Super Bowl -- a 30-second spot that reportedly cost $2.7 million.

[Dan Gould]

So let me guess - when our current, non-HD TV gets replaced, all of our regular DVDs will look like shit on a new HD TV?

They better not. We've got way too much invested in current, regular DVD technology.

[Chalupa]

Good question. Some answers here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=301032

and here:

http://www.oppodigital.com/Getting-Most-ou...TV-Display.html

[Dan Gould]

thanks for the links. I'm glad to know that I won't have a problem with existing DVDs on an HDTV.

[GA Russell]

Here's an article from CNet that says that Walmart this morning announced that it will discontinue carrying HD DVD:

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9873029-7.html

Could the viewer tell the difference between the two formats?

Did either format offer much of a selection of classic movies?

[porcy62]

I don't want to derail the thread, but, frankly, I am not really interested in wich format won the war. I think that the future will be in broad band downloading, so all this is a whortless efforts and a waste of money for something that will be wiped off in the next, let's say three, four years?

My two cents.

[marcello]

You're correct porcy.

Sooner or later all home media will be delivered via hi resolution broadband.

But in the meantime, I have a Blu-ray.

[Christiern]

At this year's Grammy awards, one if the performers (Prince, I think) gave the press a strap bracelet from which dangled a small USB flash containing his new album, cover, and all. Bye, bye discs, I thought--perhaps sooner than we expected.

[marcello]

At this year's Grammy awards, one if the performers (Prince, I think) gave the press a strap bracelet from which dangled a small USB flash containing his new album, cover, and all. Bye, bye discs, I thought--perhaps sooner than we expected.

My son has been bringing home flash drives like this from club dates, given out by small independent rock bands, for a couple of years now.

[MagicAlex61]

I don't want to derail the thread, but, frankly, I am not really interested in wich format won the war. I think that the future will be in broad band downloading, so all this is a whortless efforts and a waste of money for something that will be wiped off in the next, let's say three, four years?

My two cents.

Agreed...but...downloads will be in HD. I'm downloading a 1080p rental tonight on my Apple TV as a matter of fact.

However, nothing like watching a Blu-Ray disc! Can't be beat!

[porcy62]

I don't want to derail the thread, but, frankly, I am not really interested in wich format won the war. I think that the future will be in broad band downloading, so all this is a whortless efforts and a waste of money for something that will be wiped off in the next, let's say three, four years?

My two cents.

Agreed...but...downloads will be in HD. I'm downloading a 1080p rental tonight on my Apple TV as a matter of fact.

However, nothing like watching a Blu-Ray disc! Can't be beat!

The fact about movies, compared to music, is that I don't care owning them, just watching them. I mean that you don't watch ten times per year "Citizen Cane" or "La Femme d'à cote ". So I rent DVD's at local store or I go to theaters. As a matter of fact, we will see very few Blue-Ray discs at local video rentals, or Blockbusters, in the meantime the downloading will get the market. Because for the majors will be cheaper to put online HD movies, rather then producing the same title in a new physical format.

I'd love to have all that classic movies of Criterion readily available like iTunes. I don't really need to built a physical collection of movies, unless I want to study some of them shot by shot, in that case a DVD, or even an old VHS, can do the trick.

[kinuta]

From today's Japan Times, further confirmation that the format war is over.

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008

Toshiba may quit HD DVD

Wal-Mart decides to sell only Blu-ray

Kyodo News

Toshiba Corp. is reviewing its HD DVD business and contemplating a complete exit from production as it continues to lose ground in the high-definition format war to rival Sony's Blu-ray disc, industry sources said Saturday.

If Toshiba abandons the business, the Blu-ray format, promoted by a group led by Sony Corp., is certain to prevail as the next-generation standard for DVD players.

The move surfaced after U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday that its 4,000 Wal-Mart outlets and Sam's Clubs would only stock Blu-ray DVDs and players.

That announcement, which hits Toshiba from the retail and distribution side, could prove to be the final blow for HD DVD.

Toshiba will make a final decision on the business after gauging demand for its product line in the United States and other factors, the sources said.

Despite its attempt to offer heavy discounts on its machines, Toshiba has been increasingly put in a difficult position in recent months.

In North America, where play-only models are the mainstream, major Hollywood studio Warner Brothers announced in January that it will offer its movie titles only in Blu-ray beginning in June.

The change at Wal-Mart will take place quickly over the next several months while phasing out HD DVD offerings and reorganizing shelf space, the biggest U.S. retailer said in a press release.

By June, only Blu-ray movies and hardware, as well as standard definition movies and DVD players will be sold through Wal-Mart stores, Sam's Clubs, www.walmart.com and www.samsclub.com, the Bentonville, Ark., company said.

"We've listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases," said Gary Severson, senior vice president in charge of home entertainment, in a statement.

Earlier this month, Best Buy Co. announced a plan to prioritize Blu-ray DVD players and software over those based on the HD DVD format from March.

The largest U.S. consumer electronics retailer's endorsement, combined with Wal-Mart's move, is expected to give the Blu-ray format an additional edge over the HD DVD format.

In the United States, Blu-ray players and software are selling more than twice as fast as their HD DVD counterparts.

[WD45]

I don't want to derail the thread, but, frankly, I am not really interested in wich format won the war. I think that the future will be in broad band downloading, so all this is a whortless efforts and a waste of money for something that will be wiped off in the next, let's say three, four years?

My two cents.

Agreed...but...downloads will be in HD. I'm downloading a 1080p rental tonight on my Apple TV as a matter of fact.

However, nothing like watching a Blu-Ray disc! Can't be beat!

The fact about movies, compared to music, is that I don't care owning them, just watching them. I mean that you don't watch ten times per year "Citizen Cane" or "La Femme d'à cote ". So I rent DVD's at local store or I go to theaters. As a matter of fact, we will see very few Blue-Ray discs at local video rentals, or Blockbusters, in the meantime the downloading will get the market. Because for the majors will be cheaper to put online HD movies, rather then producing the same title in a new physical format.

I'd love to have all that classic movies of Criterion readily available like iTunes. I don't really need to built a physical collection of movies, unless I want to study some of them shot by shot, in that case a DVD, or even an old VHS, can do the trick.

Netflix rents the extended resolution formats, AFAIK. Never done it, since I am only lo-fi regular DVD-compatible here.

[porcy62]

I don't want to derail the thread, but, frankly, I am not really interested in wich format won the war. I think that the future will be in broad band downloading, so all this is a whortless efforts and a waste of money for something that will be wiped off in the next, let's say three, four years?

My two cents.

Agreed...but...downloads will be in HD. I'm downloading a 1080p rental tonight on my Apple TV as a matter of fact.

However, nothing like watching a Blu-Ray disc! Can't be beat!

The fact about movies, compared to music, is that I don't care owning them, just watching them. I mean that you don't watch ten times per year "Citizen Cane" or "La Femme d'à cote ". So I rent DVD's at local store or I go to theaters. As a matter of fact, we will see very few Blue-Ray discs at local video rentals, or Blockbusters, in the meantime the downloading will get the market. Because for the majors will be cheaper to put online HD movies, rather then producing the same title in a new physical format.

I'd love to have all that classic movies of Criterion readily available like iTunes. I don't really need to built a physical collection of movies, unless I want to study some of them shot by shot, in that case a DVD, or even an old VHS, can do the trick.

Netflix rents the extended resolution formats, AFAIK. Never done it, since I am only lo-fi regular DVD-compatible here.

I don't know the market in U.S. about DVD, but, with cables, satellite channels, and the HD downloading coming soon, I doubt that Blu Ray will be a real profitable investment for software and hardware producers. At least over here the biggest sellers are animation movies for children like 'Shrek' or 'Cars'. And I never heard one of my nephews or friend's children complaining about the quality

Edited February 17, 2008 by porcy62

[mgraham333]

TheDigitalBits.com

[GA Russell]

Here's an article that says that Toshiba will announce tomorrow that it will discontinue both hardware and media production of HD DVD next month.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/toshiba...rrow-stop-sale/

[porcy62]

I read that one of the reason of the Blue-Ray's victory is its, supposed, highest copy protection tools. Nice, like SACD I presume.

Go on, take no prisoners. I bet that in five years, Blue-Ray Disc will have the same market of SACD.

[Chalupa]

Web Movies Show Why DVDs Sell

By DAVID POGUE

Ten days ago, Netflix announced that it would abandon HD DVD, Toshiba's entry in the high-definition DVD format war. Six days ago, Wal-Mart dropped HD DVD, too. Then two days ago, Toshiba surrendered, marking the end of the most pointless format war since Betamax-VHS.

Man, if they have Friday beer bashes over at Toshiba, this week's will be a real downer.

Why did so many companies dump HD DVD so fast? Intriguingly, one often-cited reason is the approaching era of Internet movie downloads. The logic goes like this: as long as there's a format war, consumers won't buy DVD players of either type. By settling on a single format - it doesn't really matter which one - the movie and electronics industries can at least start milking the remaining years of the DVD's life.

In fact, though, the Internet movie download era is more distant than pundits think, for four colossal reasons.

First, downloadable movies require high-speed Internet connections - and only about half of American households have them. That number won't change much for years.

Second, downloaded movies don't include the director's commentaries, deleted scenes, alternate endings, alternate language soundtracks or other DVD goodies. It's just not as rich an experience.

Third, movie downloads don't deliver the audio and video quality of DVD discs - even standard-def ones. Internet movies are compressed to download faster, which affects picture quality, and offer older, more compressed audio soundtracks than modern DVDs. (Check out the astounding quality-comparison photos at http://tinyurl.com/3e488m for details.)

Finally, today's movie-download services bear the greasy policy fingerprints of the movie studio executives - and when it comes to the new age of digital movies, these people are not, ahem, known for their vision.

For example, no matter which movie-download service you choose, you'll find yourself facing the same confusing, ridiculous time limits for viewing. You have to start watching the movie you've rented within 30 days, and once you start, you have to finish it within 24 hours.

Where's the logic? They've got your money, so why should they care if you start watching on the 30th day or the 31st?

Then there is the 24-hour limit. Suppose you typically do not start a movie until 7:30 p.m., after dinner and the homework have been put away. If you do not have time to finish the movie in one sitting, you cannot resume at 7:30 tomorrow night; at that point, the download will have self-destructed.

What would the studios lose by offering a 27-hour rental period? Or three days, or even a week? Nothing. In fact, they'd attract millions more customers. (At the very least, instead of just deleting itself, the movie should say: "Would you like another 24-hour period for an additional $1?")

Then there's the fact that to protect their cash cows, most studios don't release their movies on the Internet until a month after they've been available on DVD.

Despite these limitations, plenty of companies are staking out property on the digital-download frontier. Some deliver movies to your computer screen, which will never appeal to anybody but nerds; virtually nobody gathers the family 'round the old Dell on movie night.

Several boxes, however, deliver movies straight to your TV, usually for $3 to $5 each. Here are their report cards.

Apple TV ($230). Thanks to a free software upgrade, Apple's sleek little box has taken on a whole new life. It now connects directly to the iTunes store - no computer needed. Movies are stored on the Apple TV's internal hard drive.

Standard-def movies begin to play only a few seconds after you've selected them; you watch the beginning while the rest is downloading. High-def movies take several minutes to begin playing.

In a couple of years, Apple TV may be the box to beat. The movie store is fun to navigate, picture quality is high and wireless networking is built-in, unlike its rivals. You can buy episodes from any of 650 TV series on demand (usually $2 an episode, no ads), which its competitors can't touch. Finally, of course, the Apple TV does a lot of other stuff; it can display all the music, pictures and movies from your Mac or PC and play podcasts and videos from the Web.

But the Apple TV movie store's shelves look a little bare. Fewer than 1,000 movies are available, and only 100 are in high definition; compare with the 90,000 titles offered by Netflix on DVD, 900 in high-def. (Apple points out that its store's music catalog started out tiny, too - 200,000 songs, compared with 6 million today.) There are some silly bugs in the debut software, too.

Instant gratification: A-. Selection: D. Overall movie joy: B.

TiVo/Amazon Unbox ($100 and up, plus monthly fee). Here's another box whose original purpose was something other than movie downloads. But among its blossoming portfolio of video features, TiVo lets you rent or buy movies downloaded from Amazon.com's Unbox service.

At least you no longer have to order these movies at Amazon.com (although you can, using your Mac or PC, if you prefer to type movie titles with a real keyboard instead of fussing with on-screen alphabets). You can do the whole transaction right from the couch.

Show time is not instantaneous, either; on high-def TiVos, you can't start watching until 10 minutes after you order, and on older models, you have to wait for the whole movie to download (1 to 5 hours). Selection is still slim: 3,200 movies are available to rent; 4,700 available to buy. None are in high definition.

Instant gratification: B-. Selection: C. Overall movie joy: B-.

Xbox 360 ($350 and up). Yet again, here's a box whose movie service isn't the primary attraction (here, it's games). In this case, though, the movie thing isn't just secondary - it's way, way down the list.

You have to watch movies within 14 days, not 30. The remote control isn't designed for video playback. You pay using a confusing system of Microsoft "points," which you must buy in $5 increments. And although there are plenty of TV shows available, only 300 movies are in the catalog at any given time, about half in high definition.

Instant gratification: A-. Selection: D. Overall movie joy: D.

Vudu ($300). This compact black box comes loaded with the beginnings of 5,000 movies. When you rent or buy one, therefore, playback begins instantly. About 20 new movies arrive on the box each week, pushing older ones off the 250-gigabyte hard drive.

Vudu is the only dedicated movie box . The interface is pure and clean, picture quality is tops and the remote has only four buttons (plus a terrific scroll wheel).

On the downside, many of those 5,000 movies are pure direct-to-video dreck (anyone for "San Franpsycho" tonight?). Confusingly, movies on the list come and go according to Vudu's deals with the studios. And you need a pretty fast connection; basic DSL subscribers need not apply.

Instant gratification: A. Selection: B+. Overall movie joy: B+.

When competing with the humble DVD, Internet movie boxes do poorly on price, selection and viewing flexibility (that is, how much time you have to watch). Their sole DVD-smashing feature is the convenience; you get the movie right now.

Meanwhile, other sources of instant movie gratification are emerging. Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV company, offers 1,000 on-demand movies each month, many of them free; by year's end, it intends to increase that number to 6,000 (half in high-def) - and you don't have to buy a special box.

The point is that the whole Internet-movies thing is still in its fumbling, bumbling infancy; someday, we'll look at these limited-selection, limited-time services and laugh.

In the meantime, congratulations to Blu-ray, the winning next-generation DVD format. Clearly, spinning silver discs will remain the dominant movie-delivery method for years to come.

[GA Russell]

Third, movie downloads don't deliver the audio and video quality of DVD discs - even standard-def ones. Internet movies are compressed to download faster, which affects picture quality, and offer older, more compressed audio soundtracks than modern DVDs. (Check out the astounding quality-comparison photos at http://tinyurl.com/3e488m for details.)

Chalupa, it seems to me that there are two different markets.

The first would be the group (probably most people, maybe not) for whom the old DVD is good enough. I can see this group downloading videos when it becomes more convenient and the price is competitive.

The second are the people who want the high def. They spend the money for the high def TV, and will go out to buy the Blu Ray player and discs.

As long as the picture quality of downloads is relatively low def, I don't see the second group moving over to downloading.

[Claude]

So let me guess - when our current, non-HD TV gets replaced, all of our regular DVDs will look like shit on a new HD TV?

They better not. We've got way too much invested in current, regular DVD technology.

HD-ready displays are like good hifi systems. They reveal the quality of the disc. Poor DVDs will look like shit and good DVDs will look great, even if they don't come near the quality of HD material.

DVD quality is good enough to be enjoyed on HD screens. It's mainly standard definition TV signals that show their limitation.

Since I bought a 46" Full-HD Sony LCD a year ago, I've been buying and watching more DVDs than before. Only those that have a lower resolution due to non-anamorphic transfer are disappointing in quality.

I don't plan to buy a Bluray player soon, because there are currently less than 20 movies on Bluray I would want to buy. I hope that now that the format war is over, more non-mainstream movies will be released in HD. It would be great if Criterion would do Bluray discs.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Claude

[Guest bluenote82]

I wouldn't buy an HD DVD or Blue-Ray, but I'm glad that the two formats aren't fighting with each other anymore.

[BruceH]

We hardly knew ya...

[Guest bluenote82]

This is kind of off-topic a little bit, but have any of you heard any information regarding if DVDs are going to be put out the same day as they appear in the theaters? I thought I heard or read something like that a couple of months ago. This would be interesting.

[Guest bluenote82]

I will also add that the war between DVD+R and DVD-R is probably one of the most pointless format wars I've ever seen. Does anyone know if this war is still going on?

Edited February 23, 2008 by bluenote82

[GA Russell]

Here's a new article from a Wall Street website called TheStreet.com that says that Apple TV has a new program that makes the video downloads look fantastic:

http://www.thestreet.com/s/apple-tv-nails-...E&cm_ite=NA