HD DVD is Dead. The Format War is Over.

Just like predicted, Toshiba officially pulled the plug on HD DVD. The format was is officially over. Toshiba just made the official announcement in Tokyo.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements.

After a Q&A period, Toshiba said they had no plan to join Blu-ray. That could have been predicted as well. But let's give these folks a break.

Read the complete press release after the jump.

HD DVD Nearing End?

Could it be game over for HD DVD? We here at HDDVDFreak feel like of late it has been nothing but negative news to report. Now comes word from industry sources Toshiba could be killing the format altogether some time shortly.

The Hollywood Reporter, citing sources, said Toshiba is "widely expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format sometime in the coming weeks...after a rash of retail defections that followed Warner Home Video's announcement in early January that it would support only the rival Blu-ray Disc format after May."

Speculation suggests substantial losses related to HD DVD hardware production, dips in HD DVD disc sales and defects from the HD DVD camp may have made Toshiba finally cash in its chips. Toshiba denied it was planning to end HD DVD, but did say it is continuing  "to study the market impact."

Wal-Mart Dropping HD DVDs From Shelves

Scratch another location where you can purchase HD DVDs: Wal-Mart announced today it will be dropping the HD DVD format from its shelves shortly in favor of carrying Blu-ray only.

Wal-Mart said this change "will take place quickly over the next several months whereby the retailer will phase out HD DVD offerings and reorganize shelf space." It expects to have this phase out done in its physical locations and online shopping sites by June.

"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, Home Entertainment, Wal-Mart, U.S. "With the customers best interest in all we do, we wanted to share our decision and timeline with them as soon as possible, knowing it will help simplify their purchase decision, increase selection, and increase adoption long term."

This announcement follows recent word of related changes coming from Netflix and Best Buy.

HD DVD Suffers Some Bad Blows Today

Even as Toshiba marches bravely forward with very low HD DVD player prices, rival Blu-ray scored some more coups today as the post-Warner departure continues to impact the format war:

• Best Buy will begin pushing Blu-ray to consumers over HD DVD, though HD DVD fans will not be out of luck as the retailer will continue selling HD DVD products.
• Netflix is getting out of the HD DVD online rental business all together. It said by year's end it will phase out its existing HD DVD stock. Perhaps that will mean some nice HD DVD disc fire sales?

HD DVD Sales Regain Ground

HD DVD continues to see a slow rebound in the public spotlight as new sales figures from NPD Group show a rebound in sales following a bad week immediately after CES. This is according to a news report published in Video Business.

The report shows HD DVD hardware sales totals accounted for around a third of HD set-top unit sales for the week ending Jan. 19, according to Video Business. This is a sharp upkick from the previous week, when HD DVD player sales only amounted to seven percent.

An NPD analyst told Video Business he felt the change in position was likely due to "sensitivity to pricing". This would tie in with a recent move Toshiba made to cut prices of its HD DVD players.

Toshiba HD DVD Players Leading Hardware Pack

Toshiba, despite struggles the HD DVD format has had of late, did quite well in HD DVD player sales last year. The reason for this seems to be its aggressive pricing, which is reflected in more recent price cuts the manufacturer made.

Research firm DisplaySearch recently unveiled a report in which it stated, among other next generation DVD information, that Toshiba "was the leading vendor of standalone devices worldwide during the Q1-Q3’07 period, cumulatively accounting for nearly 64% more standalone units than all Blu-ray brands combined."

Toshiba was also in the top three for cumulative sales of next generation DVD hardware when game console hardware was factored in. It, Microsoft and Sony combined for a 98 percent share of the world's hardware shipments.

Interview Reveals Interesting HD DVD Thoughts

A recent interview published by BetaNews focuses in on thoughts of executive vice president for Universal Studios and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group Ken Graffeo about the recent turbulence in the HD DVD camp. It provides HD DVD fans some interesting insights into how things are looking for the disc format.

Graffeo talks openly about how Warner's abrupt move to jump ship impacted the planned flow of the annual HD DVD CES press event, resulting in its cancellation. He also states firmly that Universal continues to back HD DVD, backing up earlier statements, and, perhaps most interestingly, the door is never closed to the possibility of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc coming together to unify under one standard.

[via High-Def Digest]

Universal, Paramount: We Are Staying Put

A post we put up earlier today over at BluRayFreak reported how the last two major studios backing HD DVD, Universal and Paramount, might be thinking about departing for the Blu-ray camp. Breaking news and further digging has in fact revealed those two studios will not be departing the HD DVD side anytime soon:

• Paramount told Bloomberg its current plan is "to continue to support the HD DVD format."
• Universal just issued a statement as well saying "contrary to unsubstantiated rumors from unnamed sources, Universal's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format."

There you have it - no more defections from the HD DVD camp. Those cries of happiness in Japan just got louder.

Samsung Reveals New Dual Format Player

Samsung is betting not everyone is ready to go one next generation optical disc format over the other yet so it is showing off at CES a new dual format disc player called the BD-UP5500. It is slated to be available sometime in the latter part of the year.

This disc player is noted by Samsung for its ability to support "the latest BD-Java and HD DVD interactivity available." You'll find the BD-UP5500 is HDMI 1.3 compliant, looks pretty sharp and is quite slim (2.3 inches).

Get more details on this dual format playback Samsung player after the jump.

Microsoft Reaffirms HD DVD Love

Toshiba must surely have a headache by this time today. First Warner Brothers announces plans to end HD DVD support. Microsoft next comes along and indicates it might begin offering Blu-ray Disc support. Things smoothed out later however for the HD DVD camp as Microsoft backpedaled on the comments.

A Reuters interview earlier this week quoted a Microsoft marketing manager as saying his company would consider a Blu-ray option for the Xbox 360 if there was consumer demand for it. The company changed its tune quickly though after these comments were published, indicating that "HD DVD remains the only format to deliver quality experiences at affordable prices."

You can hear the sighs of relief right now coming from Japan.

HD DVD Group Puts Out Good News

The HD DVD Promotional Group has been busy this week at CES doing damage control after the abrupt departure of Warner Bros. It has released some new data about the success of the format in 2007.

There are now apparently close to one million dedicated HD DVD players floating around out there in North America now, according to the trade group. It also said that "during the key five week holiday selling period, HD DVD software sales grew at nearly twice the rate of Blu-ray, which was consistent with increased player growth."

Other factoids of note: there are now more than 400 titles available in the US and more than 1,000 titles available worldwide, HD DVD-enabled PCs represent more than 80% of all high definition-capable PCs, HD DVD is supported by 41 studios and 65 distributors worldwide.

Want more HD DVD good news? Check out the full press release after the jump.

Warner Brothers Drops HD DVD

2008 finds things not so well for the HD DVD camp. Warner Brothers Entertainment, the last major studio to produce movies in both next generation optical disc formats, announced yesterday it was walking away from HD DVD to favor Blu-ray Disc only.

Warner Bros. seemed unfortunately to find Blu-ray only as "the most direct way to give consumers what they want" and that "consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience." The movie studio will continue to release videos in the HD DVD format until the end of May.

As was expected, the HD DVD group did not take well to this major blow. The HD DVD Group canceled its scheduled Consumer Electronics Show press conference for Sunday evening and is "currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps." 

100 000 HD DVD Players Sold

The North American HD-DVD Promotional Group is now claiming that sales of set-top HD DVD players have finally hit the 100k mark. The number may not sound that impressive at first but when you look closely, the number does not count the HD DVD drive add-on for the Xbox-360 nor any HD DVD drive or burner. 100 000 stand alone HD DVD players is very surprising and certainly unexpected.

We almost believe Sony when they said they have won the war. With this great news, HD DVD is back in the race. Let’s see if they can catch up on the movie releases and sales again!

Source

Matrix Trilogy on HD DVD discs on May 22

The Matrix Trilogy is probably in my top ten of movies I’ve been waiting to see in high definition. Warner is going to release the Complete Matrix collection on Blu-ray as well but no date has been announced yet.

The reason why Warner did not used their TotalHD technology is probably because they will use all the space and layers they can to fit the movies and the bonus materials. This may show the limitations of the TotalHD discs. In the long term, they will have to choose one of the two competing formats.

The Ultimate Matrix Collection ($119) and The Complete Matrix Trilogy ($99) will be on 8 discs and include 35 hours of bonus features and HD DVD's In-Movie Experience (IME).

Source

3X DVD: HD DVD Camp Secret Weapon?

All the hype goes around the Blu-ray camp these days, but HD DVD supporters may hold a secret weapon against their enemy!

The 3X DVD spec is part of the HD DVD format and is apparently only compatible with HD DVD players. But the HD DVD discs themselves are physically exactly the same as standard red-laser DVDs.

Throw in a software upgrade to support high definition content, HD DVD's UDF 2.5 file structure and AACS and you have a way to deliver HDTV content on a 9.4 GB DVD. By using newer encoding technologies like MPEG-4 and VC-1 and/or lowering the resolution to say, 720p, full length movies easily fit on a standard DVD.

HD DVD Ships 1.5 Million Movie Titles

HD DVD showed continued momentum in the next generation DVD race, with the format's backers announcing Thursday that they had shipped more than 1.5 million discs since launch. The HD DVD Promotion Group also touted the number of titles available, now 110, with at least another three dozen more expected before the end of the year.

This is good news for HD DVD. But 110 titles are clearly not enough. Just a few months ago, HD DVD group was claiming they had a lot more content than Blu-ray disc, but the gap as been reduced a lot since Blu-ray has almost 100 titles available now.

via betanews

Apple to support HD DVD and Blu-ray

Apple joined the Blu-ray Disc Association in March 2005 but has kept largely mum on its support and adoption of the next-generation disc technology. At the time, Apple's decision to put its weight behind Blu-ray was seen as a coup for Blu-ray and blow to the competing HD-DVD format, but documents recently obtained by Think Secret indicate that Apple may in fact be planning to support both formats equally.

While members of the Blu-ray camp, which include Dell, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Sony, have kept their distance from HD-DVD, which is backed by Microsoft, Toshiba, and Intel, among others, Apple would not be the first vendor to side with both formats: Hewlett Packard actively supports both formats.

Read

Dual Format Chip Available from NEC

NEC just announced the dual-format chip that can playback both Blu-ray and HD DVD. Although there is not yet an optical lens capable of reading both formats, the release of this chip could signal an end to the format war.

Available at the same price as the current single-format chips, manufacturers don’t have a price argument for not developing Blu-ray – HD DVD equipment. NEC has promised that 300,000 units will be shipped by next April. Read

Can Toshiba Drop the HD DVD Format?

According to Reuters, Toshiba said it aims to ship a total of 500,000 HD DVD players and recorders worldwide in the next 7 months.

U.S. and Japan. We plan to ship another 300,000 by the end of the year," Yoshihide Fujii, the head of Toshiba's digital consumer business, told Reuters in an interview on Saturday. Toshiba believes it can ship 200,000 units in the first quarter of 2007.

HD DVD vs Blu-ray war and if studios are dropping the format, Toshiba could probably do so as well.

Shortage in the Blue diodes may slow down the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray war

Manufacturers of blue laser diodes are unable to improve yield rates and this may result in slowing down the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray war because of a lack of diodes.

Many vendors already announced BD or HD-DVD drives but only Pioneer and Plextor are currently able to maintain actual shipments. Toshiba should be able to join them with volume shipments planned to kick off in September.

Only Nichia, Sharp and Sanyo are shipping the diodes. Nichia holds 80% of the global blue laser diode supply and had reported that its yield rate for blue laser diodes had reached 30%. However, the actual output still falls behind the demand.

According to Michael Gong of Lite-On IT's optical disc drive business unit, demand visibility for BD and HD-DVD drives remains impressive, but availability of new models may be postponed due to the shortage of blue laser diodes. By the first quarter of next year, the tight supply is expected to ease according to Gong.

Source: www.digitimes.com

Can DVD win over High Definition?

Paramount Home Entertainment plans to launch their hit movie “Mission: Impossible III” on three DVD formats.

The company plans to release the movie on HD DVD, Blu-Ray and regular DVD discs on the same day. The launch is currently schedule to take place on October 30 this year. That reminds us that the war is not about "HD DVD vs. Blu-ray" but "HD DVD and Blu-ray vs. DVD". Serveys shows that consumers will be confused with the two new formats but in fact they will probably be even more confused when it's time to decide if they stay with the DVD format or one of the two high definition formats. Especially since the DVD format will be around format many years from now.

Can HD DVD vs. Blu-ray War Kill Sony or Toshiba

The battle between two hyped formats for high-definition DVD will confuse shoppers and turn many of them off the whole technology, a London-based research firm predicted on Friday.

Market research analyst Screen Digest forecast that only $11 billion of the total $39 billion expected to be spent on video discs by 2010 will be generated by the competing high-definition formats.

The battle between two hyped formats for high-definition DVD will confuse shoppers and turn many of them off the whole technology, a London-based research firm predicted on Friday.

Market research analyst Screen Digest forecast that only $11 billion of the total $39 billion expected to be spent on video discs by 2010 will be generated by the competing high-definition formats.

Who is going to make money with Blu-ray and HD DVD?

The battle between Sony and Toshiba for the next HD DVD or Blu-ray players and the battle between Sony and Microsoft for the next HD DVD or Blu-ray game player is one of the biggest technology war since Betamax and VHS 25 years ago. But there is not only three or four companies involved, there is nearly 300 companies directly involved in HD DVD and Blu-ray (see partial list here and here) Can they all be wrong? Of course not! We’re not going to see the winners on one side of the battle.  There going to be winners and losers on both sides.  So it’s not only HD DVD vs. Blu-ray.  With a market of 28 billion by 2010, the winners are going to win big.