HD DVD camp issues sad little response to Netflix, Best Buy snubs
By Evan Blass 
posted Feb 12th 2008 10:52AM
posted Feb 12th 2008 10:52AM
"We have long held the belief that HD DVD is the best format for consumers based on quality and value, and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Netflix make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward. While the Best Buy announcement says they will recommend Blu-ray, at least they will continue to carry HD DVD and offer consumers a choice at retail."
Doesn't sound like there's too much fight left there, does it? If the best you can do to support your dying format is to rehash the same canned argument and celebrate your remaining shelf space, well, there would seem to be a bigger problem than you're willing to admit. At this point, we're just curious to see how it will all end: after investing so much time, energy, money, and vitriol on this bitter format war, how does Toshiba move forward in a world almost completely dominated by its rival in blue?
[Via High-Def Digest]
Yet another nail in the coffin!
Wait, I thought the final nail in the coffin was hammered home a few days ago?
Hmm, must not be quite so dead, yet.
well, there's nothing wrong with kick a dog when it's down, is there?
A few nails already in there, but it won't stop more nails from going in. After all, it's too much fun watching Toshiba formulate their weak response.
For the last year it's been the last nail in the coffin...
Owning a PS3 and an A30 and now an equal amount of movies on both formats (18 on each), I have to say that I think this is about it for HD DVD. Like I said before, I think it's too bad that the cheaper, complete format won out over the more expensive, incomplete format, but kudos to Sony for finally getting a format right by buying up studio support. Toshiba could have handled this so much better, like by putting the player in the 360. I want a sub-$200 2.0 standalone player to replace my PS3 to watch Blu-rays on. When can I get one of those? Until that time, I'll be watching them on Sony's little trojan horse that (most likely) won them the war.
how many nails do you need? Those nails have been popping out the coffin for the last year... "Nail in the coffin" POP "Nail in the coffin" POP "Nail in the coffin" POP...
Every engadget blog entry has one dumb ass that either says FIRST or "Nail in the Coffin"....... POP
I'm not a coffin expert here, but I don't think they still use nails to seal coffins. Seems like they would have some sort of latch or something.
So when does the next round of price-slashing take place? At this rate they'll be paying people to take a HD-DVD player with 6 additional movies....
XD
behold for the coffin made out of nails!!
This coffin's been nailed more than Paris Hilton.
The coffin was already nailed shut some time ago, now they are just pounding stakes in the body to be 100% sure.
Carbonize Hard Drives will be big enough and cheap enough when you can get a 4tb hard drive for around 80 bucks. And thats still pushing it, 10 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray's are about 300 to 350gigs a 4tb drive would hold roughly 100 Movies, so that would be about the sweet spot for normal users and cheap enough for avid fans to purchase multiple drives. This of course is not taking in account internet bandwidth, currently ISP's couldn't handle everyone downloading instead of purchasing and as we have discussed before its definitely not fast enough. Physical distribution will be faster for years to come. Thats not to say AI wont welcome digital downloads when they become feasible. Like when I have about 30tb of space im my media center pc.
@anon
"Like I said before, I think it's too bad that the cheaper, complete format won out over the more expensive, incomplete format.."
Why is that too bad? Cheaper and more complete sounds like a good thing to me...
it was fun while the war lasted
i was sort of cheered on HD DVD for a while too...
Toshiba are you into S & M?
Burn Baby Burn!!!
Disco Inferno!!
Burn this motha' down...
Josh... you went too far with it!
"Doesn't sound like there's too much fight left there, does it? If the best you can do to support your dying format is to rehash the same canned argument and celebrate your remaining shelf space, well, there would seem to be a bigger problem than you're willing to admit."
Exactly. Stop with all these press releases, the HD DVD Group. It's making a fool of yourself.
How about a simple "no comment?" Don't they feel a little bit ridiculous having to defend themselves like this all the time?
They still have "Blades of Fury!"
"how does Toshiba move forward in a world almost completely dominated by its rival in blue?"
By manufacturing Blu-Ray players, of course!
is it more honerable to fight until the end or cut your losses and run?
well, it depends: are you a democrat or republican?
haha, or it depends on how you word it:
"Fight to the end? or cut and run?"
sounds very different than:
"Keep kicking and screaming? or bow out gracefully?"
Are they still producing new items? This fight might just be their way of trying to get as much liquidated as possible before that final nail (or latch as it were) seals the coffin for good.
Might not be a bad strategy, even if it does tick off the people that go into a store and buy without knowledge.
OK, here's a question:
If you were a Democrat, what format would you support?
And if you were a Republican, what format would it be?
And if you were an independent or a Green-party minority, what would you choose?
Blu-ray? HD-DVD? Or that other third format (VMD) mentioned in Engadget?
Green Party supports Charades. Its eco-friendly. Boo on you tv watchers.
They have fallen and cant get up
What's funny is that both formats are dead. The day of tangible media
is gone. Downloads are the way to go. Apple TV, Netflix, all starting
to offer downloadable service.
Your 400 dollar blu-ray players are just as dead as the 150 dollar
HD-DVD players.
Don't deny it!
Hurray for the sacrifice of quality for the sake of convenience!
"Your 400 dollar blu-ray players are just as dead as the 150 dollar
HD-DVD players."
True story friend, true story... It doesnt matter which side of the war youre on... BOTH sides are screwed... HD because we may not have anything left to get, Blu cuz their overpriced players wont be "compatible" by Xmas...
Kudos for you!
Those downloads are in lesser quality than DVD. Why would someone want to go backwards in quality?
I want your 1Gbit/s internet connection.
Unfortunately streaming over 25GB of content over the internet won't happen any time soon. Not until telecom companies start upgrading their infrastructure, which looks unlikely at the moment.
Hasn't America been sacrificing quality for convenience throughout the past century? Fast food, automatic carwashes, etc... This isn't anything different. Besides, the more you push digital downloads, and the more popularity it gets, the higher the quality will get.
No matter how you slice it, it's just a matter of time before digital downloads are the norm.
I'm sure PlayStation 3 owners would beg to differ. And there are a lot of those.
Nearly every movie I've watched in the past few years has clocked in at 700 or 1400 MB, and has been watched on a PC, PMP, or PC connected to a TV. The difference of quality between what I'm watching and what's coming on 4-50 GB optical discs is not worth having a seperate box, storage space filled with DVDs, etc.
I think you'll find that most people could care less about the quality vs the convenience of a download (look at mp3, for example - if people cared THAT much about quality, mp3 would have never taken off).
Sure, there's a few people out there that will repurchase all of their film catalog in Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or whatever physical format promises 1000 more pixels of awesome, but not that many.
right no one cares for quality, those sky rocketing HDTV sales are just a fluke.
It's called novelty you dweeb. Nobody cared about the quality of DVD until HD came along and showed them it could be better.
As to those going on that downloads will never replace HD because you can't stream that fast. No I can't stream that fast but I can sure as hell download the whole file and then watch it. What's the difference between downloading a complete HD movie in say WMV and buying/renting the disc? Still quicker and more convinient to download it.
I like owned the DVD. I like being able to take it to a friend's house and watching it there.
Maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years...
What people need to realize is that HD downloads won't be reaching any sort of meaningful market penetration for a while now. Most countries do not have the bandwidth to support that kind of infrastructure; in fact if all the people in the US that bought B;u-ray and HD-DVD suddenly started downloading them, I'm pretty sure ISP's would be filing for bankruptcy on a daily basis.
HD downloads ARE the future, its just not coming as soon as you think. Think about what it requires to do.
1. An HTPC
2. Uber fast internet connection
3. the infrastructure to support said service
4. A whole new round of studio and provider disputes
I don't see mainstream HD downloading in the near future.
So you are saying no one cared about DVD quality when they were replacing VHS wow Carbonize just wow. People don't spend those amounts of money on novelty. The hard fact is that Digital Downloads wont catch on until hard drives are large enough and cheap enough to support ownership of such distributed files. As for the actual act of downloading an entire 25 to 40gig file in the time it could take me to rent buy a disk is preposterous. I can run to the store and back in 30 to 40 mins, and bring back anywhere from 1 to 100 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray's, Can your connection download one file in that amount of time? BTW Bravo on the "Dweeb" remark really gives a firm foundation to your argument.
Hard drives are big enough and cheap enough. And no people did not care about the quality of VHS until DVD came out and showed them it could be better. Same applies here. But then we have seen that HD is already in line to be made obsolete by about 2020.
People are buying HD NOT because they suddenly want HD (although some do. I did for my 360) but because they are being forced to buy a new TV due to the analogue signal turned off so rather than just buy a TV with built in digital receiver they buy a HD one so they are ready for the next step since some stations are already broadcasting it. That and the fact HD tv's and equipment outnumbers non-HD equipment in most shops now.
You're an idiot if you actually believe that. Lotsa stupid "Physical Media Is Dead" pundits on Engadget, so I'm not surprised.
THJ please. Dont say a 700 mb file, which is sub 480p most of the time, will look ok compared to a 720p signal or a 1080p signal. Please.
I think the itunes rentals are pretty good, some people may go for that. You don't need an HTPC to watch downloaded movies, people can just watch it from their computer.
Internet connections are getting faster and better all the time, Verizon is rolling out FiOS and AT&T has Uverse.
Lets not forget Pay per view and VOD.
I think you're seriously delusional if you believe Blu Ray will take over DVD anytime soon. First off price comes before quality. HDTV's didn't sell when they first came out, they're now only selling because their prices are pretty low. DVD's still will have the market for many years, even though Blu ray is the undeniable winner. Also don't forget that the economy will decide who can buy what. The economy is getting worse all the time, so who can afford paying for Blu?
I'd rather have a 50GB flash card that plays full 1080p than scratch vulnerable disc media or low-quality downloads.
my 55" plasma is a good reason i shouldn't download
It's really amazing how everyone in the world has massive download speeds and a very good way to archive these 25GB video files to say that these HD formats are dead.
Have you actually watched a movie with uncompressed audio with a good 7.1 system? I guess you're just content with "youtube video quality", or just happy with watching videos on your phone or portable media player.
The physical media isn't dead yet. Just when you think that 50GB is good enough, someone will come up with an even higher definition, multiple-screen support for surround video, etc, then 50GB may not be good enough but maybe 150 GB. Try downloading that. Try archiving that.
Oh wait. You just wanted to watch that video on your phone, and think that the physical media is dead.
Carbonize Hard Drives will be big enough and cheap enough when you can get a 4tb hard drive for around 80 bucks. And thats still pushing it, 10 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray's are about 300 to 350gigs a 4tb drive would hold roughly 100 Movies, so that would be about the sweet spot for normal users and cheap enough for avid fans to purchase multiple drives. This of course is not taking in account internet bandwidth, currently ISP's couldn't handle everyone downloading instead of purchasing and as we have discussed before its definitely not fast enough. Physical distribution will be faster for years to come. Thats not to say AI wont welcome digital downloads when they become feasible. Like when I have about 30tb of space im my media center pc.
Both of these formats are doomed. I mean, hello! the MacBook Air doesn't even have a disk drive.
I mean really? How does the Macbook Air exclusively matter in your example? I mean if you said none of the Mac line up carries a HD-DVD or Blue-ray I'd give it to you. A macbook Air reference that is incorrect and thrown in there for the sake of it is just sad.
I mean really? How does the Macbook Air exclusively matter in your example? I mean if you said none of the Mac line up carries a HD-DVD or Blue-ray I'd give it to you. A macbook Air reference that is incorrect and thrown in there for the sake of it is just sad.
Before I rank you... was the sarcasm???
And where on your Macbook Air are you going to store your huge downloaded HD Movie content? Not a lot of room for movies on that poky hard drive at 25GB a pop.
Long live the optical disc!
Awww, man. I thought that was really funny. Instead, I came across as a fanboy. I'll have to learn to be a little less subtle :)
Nothing better than killing the humor with an explanation.
That was a really sad press release. I wonder how much longer this is gonna perpetuate.
Please put the thesaurus away. That is not the way to use perpetuate. You could say continue but not perpetuate. Perpetuate is used to describe someone or something that is causing something else to continue. Such as 'they are perpetuating the misery', 'Apple still perpetuates the myth that they are better'.
Put the dictionary away. Yes your analysis is correct but nitpicking is annoying. ;)
They're way behind, but this fight is far from over. Most people (including me) still don't own an HD player or even plan to purchase one real soon. Blue-ray got a tremendous boost by being in the PS3, but history has proven that these format wars are won on price. If HD-DVD can seriously undercut the price of Blue-ray players, they could still win.
Actually, I think it is over... pretty much safe now to buy Blu.
My suggestion, if you really want to get over on the studios: Buy a combo player and snag HD-DVD titles when they're at clearance prices. Then, you won't get burnt on the inevitable double (or triple) dip. It is high-def quality, after all. They aren't completely useless.
Its pretty much over. Content is king and they control only 30% of the content. However Toshiba will do the exact same thing Sony did with the Betamax. They will drag it out forever hoping for some supernatural miracle.
superfresh:
Combo players cost about $1000, while a BluRay player is only $400.
It's gonna be tough to make your $600 extra investment back no matter how cheap you get those HD-DVD movies.
"...they could still win."
Stop. Just... STOP.
You're probably right. I'm just saying it's early days yet. HD players have just recently dropped to $400. Imagine Toshiba introducing a $99 HD-DVD player at Walmart. Not that it will happen, but it's their only hope now. Of course, Sony would have to drop price too. It's in the consumer's best interest that the war continue for at least a little while longer, or Sony will have a monopoly too soon and prices will be very slow to drop.
"history has shown these wars are won on price"
No, history has shown these wars are won on *content*. There's no point paying *any* price for a player that doesn't have any content. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are, at this moment, at around 500 titles - compared to 70,000 or so for DVD. Eventually, Blu-Ray will be at 70,000 titles too - while HD-DVD will never be much above 500.
The reason why VHS won over Beta wasn't that VHS VCR's were cheaper, it was that they had more Hollywood studio support (largely due to the fact that Beta tapes initially didn't support 2 hour run times). Not to mention pr0n.
In this war, it's Blu-Ray with 5 of the 7 studios supporting it *exclusively*. Not just "putting more titles out" on Blu-Ray, they're *only* putting titles out on Blu-Ray.
Blu-Ray disc software and hardware sales (standalone or not) have been ahead of HD-DVD for a long time now, even before all these recent announcements.
At a certain point, you call it. Some people just can't seem to let it go, but when the score of a football game is 62-7 and there are 35 seconds left in the fourth quarter, you're just going to look like an idiot going around making fun of people saying the last score was another "nail in the coffin". It was probably the "final nail in the coffin" when the score was 35-7 with a whole quarter left - all those other nails have just been piling it on and running up the score.
Yeah, I know that's a crazy mixed metaphor there but the point is, Blu-Ray at this point is just running up the score. The game/war/whatever was over as soon as Warner flipped and since then, we've all just been waiting for the clock to run out. Meanwhile, Blu-Ray just keeps scoring touchdown after unnecessary touchdown. Really, it was for all intents and purposes over when Sony announced PS3 Blu-Ray support and MS did *not* do the equivalent for the 360. Some people somehow did not realize how important that was, but that gave a huge early advantage to Blu-Ray, and they've only built off that. It was like starting the aforementioned football game already up 21-0 before kickoff.
You can safely buy a Blu-Ray player right now. I say that with 100% confidence. Not 99%, not 99.9%. 100%.
"...and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Netflix make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward."
And there are over 9 million PS3s out there...
lmao, show me the article... 9 million? are you serious? maybe worldwide... but definilty not 9 million in the US...
That is worldwide. But there is no way all 9 million ae being used to watch blu-rays. I'll say 3-4 million, but not all 9 million. How many BD discs have been sold? 2-3 mill range, right?
well they were stating how many players were on the market and i was stating how many PS3s there were out there.
http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps3_sale_e.html
"lmao, show me the article... 9 million? are you serious? maybe worldwide... but definilty not 9 million in the US..."
Yes laugh your ass off. Because the US is the only country in your world and those other landmasses where people live are irrelevant. Sony isn't even an American company, how smug must you be to assume any market stats you see represent the US only.
This is the best response EVER!
Might as well said...Our bad!
thats what blu-ray said... TWICE!! profile 1.0... oops my bad... Profile, 1.1... oops, my bad... Profile 2.0 ahhh there we go... we got it... (4 months later) ahhhh shit, oops, by bad...
@ andyg8180
But at least a Profile 2.0 will run in a Profile 1.0 player (minus added features). Can't say that about any Dead in the water HD-DVDs when they don't manufacture the players anymore!
dude, thats cuz all you needed was a firmware update in the HD players... no need to go out and buy a whole new player to enjoy the experience...
@ andyg8180
You're obviously not following what I am saying...let me put it into simpler terms:
When HD-DVD is dead and no one produces HD-DVD players, you have to buy a new format to play them or keep your Novelty device for playback.
Needless to say, all companies should have decided on a Standard Format (Like DVD) prior to bringing it to the consumers.
Kiwi616 - There WAS a unified standard, they wanted to have a single format, so that the customer would not have another Beta vs VHS war.
Then Sony decided to go and make a seperate format. They jumped off of he HD-DVD bandwagon to make their own format. They only spent a few months on the format (that would explain all the updates).
But there you go! We HAD just one format, than Sony did it again and made a second format.
I have personally refused to participate in the format war. I did not want to get stuck with abunch of "BETA" with no player to play it on... (Or having to spend a FORTUNE to continue to play "BETA" when my player dies.)
The only reason I even have an HD-DVD Player is becase it came in my Toshiba laptop! I have 5 HD-DVD movies comming for free. That is the extent of my "NextGen" DVD support.
I hate Sony for breaking away for what is best for te customer, and making a 2nd HD format.
Duly noted, but I remember reading somewhere that Toshiba was supposed to change something in their format (Java maybe)and Sony would have jumped on HD-DVD, but they didn't and so we have 2.
Everyone should have just got along and help consumer confusion and reluctance. This always reminded me of the DVD-R and DVD+R issues in the beginning.
@andyg8180
I love your response. Your totally right. All these people that ranked you down are just sad because they supported a format that ripped early adopters off and will continue to rip them off because the disks and players are overpriced (gotta pay that royalty to Sony).
Go ahead rank me down too - just shows how pittfully sad you guys are for supporting the format that ripped you and and will keep ripping you off for years to come. GOOD JOB GUYS!
Any chance to get a bluray DVD RW by the end of the year for 150 USD?
I should spell check. I should have said "the cheaper, complete format LOST to the more expensive, incompleter format"
I should spell check. I should have said "the cheaper, complete format LOST to the more expensive, incompleter format"
Wow... ignore me today....
On it!
Thanks! That did make me laugh though.
Toshiba, if you have any credibility left END THIS WAR NOW!!!!!
correction end this War now should be...
end this slaughter of pro HD-DEADers NOW.
This is no longer a War, this is a slaughter that is quickly approaching genocidal status.
Truth?
Nfinity?
TT & N minions?
Response please?
Quickly now, I am going to the Chicago Auto Show but a few laughs b4 I go would brighten my day further.
Toshiba, if you have any credibility left END THIS WAR NOW!!!!!
correction end this War now should be...
end this slaughter of pro HD-DEADers NOW.
This is no longer a War, this is a slaughter that is quickly approaching genocidal status.
Truth?
Nfinity?
TT & N minions?
Response please?
Quickly now, I am going to the Chicago Auto Show but a few laughs b4 I go would brighten my day further.
cubs suck
bears suck
white socks suck
there... i got my "few laughs" before you left...
Andy, Ken doesn't want facts. He likes 3rd grade rhetoric.
So to you and your crapanese products, I say "Nah nah nah nah nah nah! You will never get this!"
Fact PS3 worldwide sales 10m+
Fact since November of 2007 STAND-ALONE Blu-ray players (that means NOT including the PS3) have out-sold HD_DEAD (Toshiba is so low that they do not deserve a hyphen)
Fact BD software outsold HD_dead every week in 2007 and so far in 2008
Fact BD software in Japan is 9-1
Fact BD software in Australia/New Zealand is 4-1
FAct BD software in the EU and GB is 3+-1
Fact BD software in NA is about 3-1 and climbing
So, how is it that you pro HD_DEAD'ers say Sony is NOT letting the consumer decide?
To me, and I am back here on planet Earth so my vision might be skewed a bit, but to me it sure looks like the CONSUMER has decided what format they want.
Now...put that on your vibrator and spin it please.
Wow. that press release reminded me of when i talked to my ex fiance for the first time after i dumped her.
[HDDVD posted on Cindy's wall:
"best buy dumped us, but we're still kinda friends...i guess. I mean, he didn't kick me out, but whatever. netflix is a bitch tho. I don't like netflix." - HDDVD ]
Is there any way to get a link to the press statement. The "CNET" source is actually from a blog on CNET. I'm not familiar with the writer of it, for all I know she may be cousins with Toshiba's president, but she still does not provide a link to the source of the statement.
I'm not saying it's a false a statement, I'd just like to see a link to the original. The very last sentence, "...at least they will continue..." just doesn't sound like something a PR group would say.
Again, I'm not claiming it's false out of a knee-jerk reaction; it's just so hard to believe that a PR agency in any major corporation would release a statement like that. If it's true, I'd like to see for myself.
"The very last sentence, '...at least they will continue...' just doesn't sound like something a PR group would say."
That struck me as well.
I think the best thing Toshiba can do is continue to produce HD-DVD players as long as they can sell at a profit, AND buy the rights to build BLU-RAY players.
That way they can phase out the HD-DVD players when (not if) they become unprofitable, and will be able to fall back on their hopefully profitable BLU-RAY. Question is: Can they swallow their pride and get it done?
They need to get in before the third party el-cheapo guys do (hello Apex).
How much cheaper can they sell them for? They've gone down as much as $89, with free movies. Even if you take the movies out of the equation, Toshiba can't afford to sell these players at such low prices. Trojan horse or not, they can't continue this nonsense much longer. If Toshiba was to start selling these players with the intent to make a profit, or even go as low as breaking even, they may have to run them in the $175 for the cheapest, and close to $300 for their top of the line. But, once Blu-ray takes over, or the studios go Blu either exclusive or partial, there won't be a need for Toshiba to subsidize the players anymore. At least not to the degree they've done it in the last few days.
They haven't been profitable for some time. Why do you think no one else makes HD-DEAD players and everyone makes BluRay, because Toshiba has been desparately selling at a loss to try to turn around the format war. I can see a CEO losing his job or facing a shareholder lawsuit on this one.
It's over now, they are pretty much paying people to take this crap home and still more people are buy BluRay.
Yes, yes, consumer choice. THAT's what the format war is about! Here I was thinking it was just slowing HD adoption, confusing consumers, greed, and DRM conflicts that kept the war going.
Sheesh, HD-DVD... Either die or fight back... This limping around crying is not becoming.
So let me think, a more expensive Sony who gave us Betamax, Minidisc and a spyware in some of their album releases, or Toshiba? Tough choice...
Holy cow your insights will singlehandedly save HD-DVD! Surely, comparing Sony to Toshiba is what will win the format war!
Quick! Call up the HD DVD Promotional Group and tell them you hold the key to their victory!
Uh...
Pay no attention to the anti consumer company behind the curtain, Aussie! We all love you in the land of Blu! Look, we have all your favorite movies! Don't let those poor misguided rebels lead you astray. DRM IS consumer friendly, don't you see? We just want what's best for you, even if that means protecting you from yourself! Here, have another glass of Kool Aid and you'll feel a lot better about the whole thing...