Official: HD DVD dead and buried, format war is over
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Feb 19th 2008 2:59AM
posted Feb 19th 2008 2:59AM
It's official. Toshiba just made a statement saying, " it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." Cessation of the player and recorders are targeted for March 2008. Volume production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs and games will end in the same time frame. However, Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation did say that Toshiba will, "continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives." That's it folks, the format war is over, Blu-ray has won. Full press release after the break.
Update: Besides stating "no plans" to go Blu-ray during the Q&A, Toshiba committed to stockpiling HD DVD recording media for those who own HD DVD recorders. These will be sold on-line. As for future HD DVD software releases, Mr. Nishida could only say, "it was not our business, we cannot predict their business." Oh really? Is the lack of new titles on a dead platform really so hard to predict?
Update: Besides stating "no plans" to go Blu-ray during the Q&A, Toshiba committed to stockpiling HD DVD recording media for those who own HD DVD recorders. These will be sold on-line. As for future HD DVD software releases, Mr. Nishida could only say, "it was not our business, we cannot predict their business." Oh really? Is the lack of new titles on a dead platform really so hard to predict?
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
19 February, 2008
Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content
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. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.
"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."
Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.
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. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.
Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.
FINALLY!
So FINAL Final nail in the coffin + 6 feet under?
100% sure war is over?
They're retreating! We've won!
no, its the FINAL final FINAL final final nail in the coffin. You know what, they just like blew up the coffin. It doesn't even exist anymore.
'Tis but a scratch!
Black Knight: "It's only a flesh wound"
Arthur: "Your arm's off!"
Come back you "blu" bastard!
HD DVD : "I'll kick your ass Blu Ray"
Blu Ray : "You don't have any feet"
HD DVD still fighting till the end
R.I.P. HD DVD 2006-2008
Good riddance HD-DVD. Toshiba go start pumping out those BluRay machines now.
Yeah, Toshiba, start making BD players so you can kick Sony's a$$ in sales, ha-ha!!
'Hip hip, Blu-Ray!' to quote the BBC's coverage of this story. Now we can comfortably start to give a damn about the optical platform for HD delivery, and its about bloody time I think we can all agree.
If my understanding of horror films is correct, at some point in the next couple of days, the corpse of HD-DVD, laid on out a mortuary slab, will suddenly sit up, grab a scalpel and escape into the night, whilst the theme tune from Halloween plays....
It was only two years old! You monsters! What have you done?!?!
Glad that somebody won though... this back and forth was getting ridiculous.
aww man, that means now we don't get HDi and we have to use some other piece of crap developed fom java. Boo, this sucks.
Final nail in the coffin?
The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! C'mon, then!
hahaha!
Oh please. It's the internet.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
Every group has assholes in it, especially on the internet. If that's enough reason to condemn a group, then you will never approve of any group, including the ones you count yourself in.
@Engadget
'As for future HD DVD software releases, Mr. Nishida could only say, "it was not our business, we cannot predict their business." Oh really? Is the lack of new titles on a dead platform really so hard to predict?'
If it's so easy to predict, why ask him in the first place? Isn't that simply a stupid way of making him tell something just to criticise him?
About time. Go Blu!
Best pic ever!
Bye, my love!
It never loved you, it's been eying your wallet since day one.
Hopefully we'll see them work with the Blu-ray guys to make the best disc possible.
finally I don't have to hear about this format war anymore. R.I.P. HD DVD.
Now we wait for Universal news...
Universal already switched to Blu-Ray
http://ps3.qj.net/Universal-Studios-switches-from-HD-DVD-to-Blu-ray/pg/49/aid/114058
time to buy an hd-dvd player now!
Still not going with blue-ray. I will download my movies.
Exactly. Legally or illegally, I'm all digital download from here on out.
Have fun with your sub standard HD downloads that don't even know what 1080P and lossless audio are.
have fun then.
I think I rather have crisp 1080p picture with lossless sound thankuverymuch, all in a nice disc package.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for digital downloads, but with the way broadband penetration is, and how unreliable ISPs are - it will be a long way in the future before I ditch physical media.
same, i know i've previously stated that not everyone has the bandwidth for movie downloads.. fortunately that someone is not me..
simply in spite of blu-ray i will be downloading my movies.
I want to see you download even 3 Blu-ray rips in a month. Your ISP will "fair access policy" you in a heartbeat, maybe even cancel your service for "abuse". Not that I agree with that, just saying how bad ISPs are..well in the USA at least..
@ cheese head, etc. increasingly downloads are 720p and even 1080p. Get yourself some decent broadband.
Toshiba will focus on NAND flash, it says, and rightly so: show me a 64GB SD flash card for under $50 and I'll show you the end of Blu-Ray. Anyone want to guess how long that will take?
Further, high definition disks, whatever the format, are a limited market. It is completely unlike the move from tape to disk (VHS to DVD). The adoption will be less pronounced, so the switch to a new format will be easier and faster as DVD owners leapfrog Blue-Ray and invest in consumer-friendly HDD storage, Flash card players, and movie download services with their related (cheap) boxes.
@ScooterDe
I don't know where you live but almost everywhere I know in the UK its not an easy case of "just getting decent broadband" everyone has to live with what you can receive which is average of a pathetic 4Mb/s even if you can receive better its doubtful you will ever get more than a 1-2GB of a download at full speed then you will be dropped because of fair usage. Also at this rate of broadband its going to take a hell of a long time before or some sort of miracle on ISP behalf before disc quality movies are made available. Take the movie downloads on Xbox Live HD movies seem on average around 4-6GB big most SD movies on DVD are about this size while HD movies on Blu Ray are about 20GB and up, the reason for this well its easy the quality is a shit load better. Most 1080p movie downloads Ive seen still contain some pixlation in the picture which is just wrong for HD also they generally look like upscaled SD movies, again wrong for HD if I want upscaled picture Ill watch a DVD. Digital distribution is a bit of a way off yet from being a realistic replacement to discs, theres DRM which is a problem also no physical item means you cant trade should you want to (although this may apply to games more).
who honestly cares about lossless audio? why do you think DVD-A and SACD both lost? as for 1080p, just look at the iTunes HD vs Blu Ray comparison. While iTunes HD movies are lower in quality compared to BD, they're nearly equal, and both are true high definition.
I think my dad said it best. Who cares about high def, he just wants to be able to watch a movie. Blu Ray will continue to be a niche market for many years.
No, I think your dad said it best when he said "Son, are you done with the computer? I'm going to upgrade it to a Pentium II so we can play some Commander Keen in hi-def. Also, have you seen my abacus.........I need to calculate how much these sweet pair of thick-rimmed tinted glasses are going to cost me.
"While iTunes HD movies are lower in quality compared to BD, they're nearly equal..."
While your IQ is much lower than everyone else's, they're obviously not nearly equal.
whadaya think buy bluray now?
I wont,Ill wait for a bluray to get cheap, cuz I am
Well, this Death Watch didn't really drag out too long.
Now we only have to wait for that Tivo Deathwatch prediction to come true and engadget will have nailed it.
That's 'cause Engadget waited till HD-DVD was basically already dead before it started the death watch. It was kinda pointless...
wow I told the guy that called first to GTFO and he actually did
man I'm good
lets see if it works again
GTFO!
this time I mean it
wow it works
Will hd-dvd blend?
might as well see since their useless now! get your players out, your hd-dvd discs, etc
"production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs and games will end in the same time frame"
games?
Here come all the desperate ads on Craigslist.
Seriously guys, how long ago did you make that graphic? You've just been itching to post if for days (read: 2 years) haven't you? Finally, we can all waste our money on Blu Ray before Super Hi Vision attacks.
Though we all know we will be "wasting" our money on BR media...I am quite sure it won't be because of the UHDV release. Japan is "aiming" for 2015 on this "potential" standard. Anyone else gonna hold their breath? ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definition_Video
Fidel Castro resigns! Meh, this news is bigger, LOL!
Perhaps the two stories are related..? Hmm...
FIDEL
"If Blu-Ray wins, I will resign as El Presidente of Cuba."
RAUL
"This is a bad bet, mi hermano. Did you not hear Warner Bros. has gone Blu-Ray exclusive?"
FIDEL
"Ay Dios mio!"
*Note- I do not speak Spanish very well. Forgive my errors, if any.
Yeah, and Kosovo declared its independence. So what? This is a Engadget, not Enpolitics.
Awesome, now all the BluRay Circle Jerk can end and we can hopefully get some low cost BD players out on the market.
hahahahah bluray circle jerk!
classic!
To: Prey 521 -> Am i the only one who thinks your picture looks a bit like the Angry Video Game Nerd?
lmao @ Mic. I had to google that to see what you were talkin about!
HD-DVD is dead! Long live HD-DVD!
yes! ;(
Does this mean no Blu-ray laptop for me?
I reply because your avatar kicks a$$.
I chalk up the failure of HD-DVD to too many syllables. Who liked saying aitchdee-deeveedee?
Does this mean no Blu-ray laptop for me?
What do you expect to see a HD DVD laptop?
There are a couple of VAIOs notebooks with Blu-Ray built into them. Not too expensive either.
Um. HD-DVD died, not BluRay. It's only a matter of time for them to get the technology small enough to build it into a laptop sized drive.
@ A**HOLES
To A**HOLES who lowered my ratings. You guys might have misunderstood my post. I was saying no Toshiba Blu-ray laptops anytime soon, since Toshiba stated that currently they would not support Blu-ray. And I was looking forward to getting a new laptop with Blu-ray, but I wanted a Toshiba laptop. BTW look before you speak, I have 160 BD titles; I am a Blu-ray supporter.
hddvd lives!
Still can't help but think that it would have been a different story had Toshiba included HD-DVD players standard with the Xbox 360... they would have taken an obvious initial loss on the cost of the hardware, but the format would probably have won the war.
Anyways... back to downloading movies from Apple TV... I'm done with disks.
There's an economical choice...pay apple $4 to rent a movie for 24 hours.
If MS had waited for HD-DVD to be any where near affordable for a console, 360 would have come out at the same time as PS3 and might have just been buried completely.
Besides, it's already clear PS3 will win 2 of the 3 major markets (JPN and EU), so it's unclear HD-DVD could have won even in a best-case version of it being included in 360. But perhaps it might not have lost...
Believe it or not, some people don't BUY their movies-- They only rent them. For those people, the choice is renting regular DVDs, renting Blu-Ray discs, or renting digital downloads in some manner (whether it be On Demand, PPV, XBox Live Marketplace, or Apple TV).
I buy the rare movie. I rent the rest. I might want to WATCH the newest Will Farrell movie, but I'm not going to want it in my library. For that, spending $4 to rent it is a better option than spending $24 to buy it.
On the other hand, I'll buy the Blu-Ray copy of "V for Vendetta" because I happen to want that movie to watch over and over again.
Some people, however, don't EVER buy movies. They only rent them, and only watch them once.
Apple TV is perfectly fine for them. I'll be using it too, for about 85% of my movies.
You COULD save yourself some money and get a real media center PC / Myth Box, and use Netflix to rent through the net...
But either way, I have to agree with your sentiment. At least my HD Library won't use as much space as my standard def library, because San Francisco will be postcard Republican before I EVER purchase anything Sony...
this kind of blows -- my investment is kind of small -- a used rca hdv5000 for about $90, the prestige japanese hd dvd for about $45, la haine french hd dvd for about $40, and terminator 2 uk hd dvd for about $25. but i'm still out about $200. i'm still going to get good use out of my hd dvd player for the next year or so through netflix and/or blockbuster. american gangster hd dvd is short wait at netflix right now -- i expect to have it in about a week, though, as i have created a profile with only american gangster and beowulf hd dvd's in it -- i actually hope i can't get AG in time because i want to see BeoW.
Oh God, right now, I'm thinking of those poor, non-tech savvy people having an HD DVD machine pushed on them by salespeople desperate to get rid of their machines.
Yea that sucks. But at the same time, people need to learn to do some basic research before purchasing anything more than a donut. Google takes 5 mins and can save much heartache.
As much as I loved HD DVD's quality, it did not last, RIP HD DVD, it looks like sony wanted revenge.
Very witty and appropriate image Thomas. Pretty much sums up the events over the last few weeks.
Finally.. Now, where's Transformers?? Let's get those libraries switched over!
Haha awesome snapshot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
At least we can now get on with our lives and have a standard.
Unfortunate. HD DVD was better in many ways, and the 51 GB disc would have shut up all the people who think that storage was a major issue.
Oh well. I have both.
The 51GB disc was a fantasy.
More FUD. your format lost. just let it be and move on.
the 51GB disc may or may not have happened, and it may or may not have been compatible with existing players. On the other hand, quad-layer 100GB and 200GB Blu-Ray disc prototypes have been shown and were said to most likely be backwards compatible with existing readers. Because of the density of the Blu-ray disc and the precise optical unit in the players, Blu was ALWAYS going to have a much greater theoretical capacity than HD-DVD. But that was hardly the only advantage:
1) Blu-ray not only offers a much greater capacity of 25GB per layer compared to 15GB per layer for HD-DVD, but even more importantly, Blu-ray has a much higher total audio+video bandwidth of 48mbps vs HD-DVD's 30mbps which allows for a greater video bitrate. All other things the same, the higher the bitrate of the film transfer, the better quality the picture is with better color and contrast, and less compression artifacts. This is especially relevant for possible future additions, such as Blu-ray video that runs at 1080P/60fps, or even higher digital cinema 2K/4K resolution monitors/projectors.
2) On the computer and data side, Blu-ray disc already has readers and soon to be released writers at 6X. 4X writers are widely available. HD-DVD has been stuck at 2X for both read and write since it's beginning. Obviously with the amount of data being stored on these discs, it is crucial to have a fast rate at which to move data both to and from the disc.
LEAVE HDDVD ALONE!
I don't believe the 100GB or 200GB BDs will be compatible with existing players either.
I can't see those formats coming into play until the PS4 comes out. I'll likely have a 100GB (or 200GB) certified optical drive, and will be able to use those discs as game discs, which skirts the issue a 100GB movie disc would have, which is that it wouldn't work in existing players.
its just a flesh wound!
This is excellent news, because now it means there is no reason for the fucktards over at blu-ray.com to bang on about their shitty, unfinished format like it was the second coming.
Dear Blu-ray fanboys. Shut the hell up, we don't give a shit about anything you say.
Oh, and Bay, you can fuck off too.
Someone's got issues. Here have a candy.
bitter are we? You should go relax at a Sony Style store. :)
amen.
Oh, Hai there fanboys :p
I will take that candy though.
How true! i hated those commercial, kinda like the apple commercials for the air and iphone. Now we can buy disk's and players from the company that put rootkits on music Cd's. "Backing up" blu-ray disk up will be much more difficult. and im sure they will put things in the hardware
oh great.
Dear HD-DVD,
I never got to meet you, but farewell good fellow. Rest In Peace. Your blue laser diode will go to good use. Cheers.
About time aswell. At last one format to rule them all. I will finally be able to buy all my films on Blu-ray :D
wow, it's over! i can't believe it. anyone need a nice xbox add on? does anyone think toshiba will build a blu ray player now? or are there too many hurt feelings.
Holy Crap--Castro just quit. maybe i can sell my stuff to someone in Cuba. do they know hddvd's dead yet?
no they havnt had electricity since before the cuban missile crisis.
Like I said in the other post, I'm so glad it's over! =)
Oh, and I sense that Michal Bay is going to say something... soon.