Toshiba Has Staggering $$ HD DVD Losses

Now that Toshiba has left the HD DVD format in the past, you might be wondering to yourself: what kind of financial motivation might have been behind this move? While it is hard to speculate exactly how this played into the final equation, we can tell you the Japanese consumer electronics giant took a huge hit in this area.

A recent Bloomberg story tells us exactly how bad Toshiba got slapped. The company reported it would take "a  45 billion yen charge to write down the value of its HD DVD assets, forcing Toshiba to face its first annual profit drop in six years." That works out to nearly $454 million American.

Taken into further analysis, Toshiba said specific losses in the HD DVD group almost doubled "to 65 billion yen this fiscal year, compared with the 50 billion yen deficit forecast earlier." That is $656 million American, give or take.

How ever you look at it, that's an ugly ending folks.

Toshiba Conducts HD DVD Exit Interview with WSJ

Much like a fired employee might do on his way out the door, Toshiba did an exit interview of sorts in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about its HD DVD trials and tribulations. The interview was conducted with Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida.

Nishida told the WSJ, in summary, that Toshiba realized the time was near when Warner Bros. threw in the towel and switched to Blu-ray at CES. It seriously hurt HD DVD market share and made Toshiba see the battle could not be won. The company did not, however, throw its support behind Blu-ray, but instead promised to develop standard DVD players which improve upon the "upconverting feature" as a way to remain competitive.

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."

HD DVD Ad Runs During Super Bowl

If you happened to miss the HD DVD Super Bowl ad which aired yesterday, we got word someone had put it up on YouTube to view. You can see it above. Dealerscope reports the ad reportedly cost $2.7 million dollars.

Toshiba Dropping HD DVD Player Prices

Toshiba revealed some new HD DVD marketing initiatives today to help bolster sales of the HD DVD format. These moves come as the company declares "record-breaking unit sales in the fourth quarter of 2007."

Toshiba says it had "#1 sales volume in the next generation DVD category with an approximately 50 percent market share in 2007" as well as having an 80 percent plus market share in next generation DVD notebook computers.

In order to entice consumers more into HD DVD, Toshiba dropped prices on some of its players. The entry-model HD-A3 will be $149.99, the HD-A30, with 1080p output, $199.99, and the high-end HD-A35, $299.99. The company will also be conducting "an extended advertising campaign" across multiple media channels.

Toshiba Pushes Ahead with New HD DVD Players

Toshiba is proceeding with the roll out of its next generation of HD DVD players even as it struggles to deal with the news of Warner Bros. fazing out production of HD DVD videos. The CE manufacturer unveiled at CES four new third generation HD DVD players, all available now and ranging in price from around $300 to around $800.

Toshiba said its third generation family "starts with the entry level HD-A3 player featuring 1080i output capability. The other two new models, Toshiba's HD-A30 and HD-A35, output 1080p resolution (1920 x 1080p), the highest HD signal currently available. Both models are capable of outputting signals at 1080p/24 frames per second so consumers can enjoy movies in their native frame rate. The HD-A30 and HD-A35 models also feature "REGZA® Link" (HDMI™-CEC), allowing two-way control between the HD DVD player and a TV through an HDMI connection.

All Toshiba HD DVD players also feature twin video processors and advanced audio to deliver an immersive home theater experience with features such as picture-in-picture video and audio commentary. Thanks to the Ethernet port and flash memory built into every Toshiba HD DVD player, movie lovers also can enjoy the benefits of Web-enabled network connectivity. Plus, Toshiba's third generation players have a new slim design cabinet that is approximately ¼-inch slimmer than second generation models."

Catch the full Toshiba press release after the jump.

New Toshiba Notebook Offers HD DVD-R/RW Drive

Toshiba is getting ready to unleash in the United States its first notebook to feature an HD DVD-R/RW optical drive. Announced at CES, it's called the Qosmio G45-AV690 and you can expect to be a pretty penny for this high end notebook PC: around $3,200.

The Qosmio G45-AV690, with its HD DVD-R/RW optical drive, will let you burn, erase and re-burn data, including home-videos, entire photo albums and music libraries onto a single HD DVD rewritable disc. The laptop is built around a 17-inch widescreen display which offers 1080p resolution. This is truly meant to serve as a desktop replacement model given its size and functions.

Other features of the G45-AV690 will include HDMI output, an Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 processor, NVIDIA’s GeForce 8600M GT GPU3 and Microsoft’s DirectX 10 technology. You also get a bunch of nice add-ins like four Harman Kardon Bass Reflex stereo speakers with a built-in subwoofer, a 1-bit Digital Amplifier, Dolby Home Theater technology and a built-in Web cam. You'll find this all pales though to the HD DVD burner.

Toshiba Release 3rd Generation of HD DVD Players

Toshiba officially release their 3^rd generation HD DVD player lineup at Cedia. The new models, the HD-A3, HD-A30 and HD-A35 are bit thinner than their predecessors and support 1080p24, except for the A3 that is limited to 1080i.

The A30 and A35 will also support CE-Link (HDMI-CEC), allowing two-way control between the HD DVD player and a TV using a simple HDMI connection.

The A3 ($299.99) and A35 ($499.99) are expected in October and the A30 ($399.99) is expected this month.

Source

New HD DVD Recorder From Toshiba

It looks like Toshiba is full of energy when it's time to think about new HD DVD products. The company just unleashed a new VARDIA hybrid HD DVD / HDD recorder in Japan. The new 600GB RD-A600 and 300GB RD-A300 feature a pair of digital hi-vision HD tuners, Firewire, and HDMI and can write to HD DVD-R and DVD-RAM/R/RW media in addition to their respective hard disks. Impressive? Sony, Panasonic and Samsung should be looking at this product.

How much would you be ready to pay for a product like this? What about ¥200,000 (about $1,643) for the RD-A600? That sounds like a reasonable price for a first generation recorder like this one. The North American model will probably be even lower. The RD-A300 costs $199 less and the only difference is the hard disk size.

Availabilty: Later this year…

Buy a HD DVD Player Now for Less Than $200

The HD DVD group has a nice offer for people who want to buy a HD DVD Player from Toshiba. From now to the end of July, if you buy a Toshiba HD DVD player, you will receive 5 HD DVD movies for free, a $100 value at amazon prices.

You can buy he HD-D1 (first generation) at $290.41 right now and the HD-A2 (second generation) is available for $329.99 [affiliate links]. This is still over $200 you would say but if you claim you free movies, your HD DVD player will have cost you only $190 or $229.99 depending on the model you choose. Interested? I am!

I didn't thought we could break the $200 mark so soon! What is the trick? There is no trick but the choice of movies is limited to the following titles:

Apollo 13, Casablanca, Four Brothers, The Rundownm U-571, Seabiscuit, Constantine, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Blazing Saddles, The Perfect Storm, The Chronicles of Riddick, Dukes of Hazard, Sky Captain and the Wolrd of Tomorrow, U2: Rattle and Hum and We Were Soldiers.

Here's also the list of HD DVD players from Toshiba you can buy to be eligible to the offer: HD-A1, HD-XA1, HD-D1, HD-A2, HD-A2W, HD-XA2, HD-D2, HD-A20. This is pretty much all the Toshiba HD DVD players available right now…

This is beating the hell out of the Blu-ray camp who still have a hard time catching up HD DVD on player prices.