Onkyo pulling the plug on future HD DVD development

The writing was already on the wall, but it looks as if Onkyo actually won't be pursuing the long lost HD DVD format any longer. According to a Japanese report at Yomiuri Online, the firm will be discontinuing production of HD DVD players following Toshiba's own decision to abandon the format, but it will continue to provide service for customers that already snapped up the DV-HD805. Interestingly, there was no mention of Onkyo's plans in regard to Blu-ray, but nevertheless, yet another red supporter has definitely waved its white flag.

[Via Widescreen Review, image courtesy of Bret Philpot]

[Jonhimslf @ Feb 19th 2008 10:15PM]

I guess it's something that probably should be reported, but I think the worst part of the format war being over is having to hear about every company one-by-one that official drops the format.

[Chebwa @ Feb 19th 2008 10:30PM]

I'd love to see one fucking article that just says "everyone is dropping a dead format. Surprise!" and be DONE WITH IT FOR GOD'S SAKE.

[Jordan @ Feb 20th 2008 12:28AM]

Agreed, I think we understand the format war is over. We are assuming that every company is stopping its hddvd support since hddvd lost. It's getting kind of repetitive.

[Victor Conrad @ Feb 20th 2008 12:40AM]

I quickly scanned through the comments on this story and only found a few people who objected to the picture used to highlight the demise of HD-DVD. Well, to me, the picture is more than irrelevant to the story, it's disturbing. To equate something as trivial as the HD controversy to an image of an atomic bomb is highly insensitive to people who had the thing dropped on their country. We should all object to the use of this kind of imagery.

[MEAT! @ Feb 19th 2008 10:22PM]

Am I the only person who decided that HD-DVD was better than Blu-Ray based solely on grammar?

HD-DVD is simple. It makes sense. A DVD that's in HD. It can't be misspelled.

But with Sony's thing, is it Blu-Ray? Blu-ray? blu-ray? BluRay? Bluray? How many people will call it Blue Ray? Blue-Ray? Blue-ray?

[Jonhimslf @ Feb 19th 2008 10:25PM]

Originally, even though I wanted Bluray (blu-ray?) to win, looking at it from someone who's not that tech-saavy, I would think, "Oh, I have an HD tv and I want HD. Hey! There's an HD-DVD which must be a DVD that's HD. What's that bluray thing?"

[Eric M. @ Feb 19th 2008 10:29PM]

Well apparently names that are common sense just don't work anymore. I think it started with Google (what? where did that name come from) then it began to expand to the rest of the web and now the console and format wars. Many people thought the Wii was a terrible name, many still do, but it sells like hotcakes especially compared to the PS3 (PS2 + 1, easy right?..lol)

Personally I like Blu-Ray just because I can say Blllllllluuuuuuuuuuuu! ;-)

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Feb 19th 2008 10:39PM]

You ARE!

[MEAT! @ Feb 19th 2008 10:42PM]

Just to further piss off any other neurotic people who are anal-retentive about English (like me), I looked at the last 133 posts regarding HD-DVD and that other thing, and here's what I found:

Ways to spell HD-DVD:
37 HD-DVD 64%
14 HD DVD 24%
7 HDDVD 12%

Ways to spell "Blu-ray:"
15 Blu-ray 37%
13 Blu-Ray 32%
3 BluRay 7%
3 blu-ray 7%
2 Blu Ray 5%
1 bluray 2%
1 blu ray 2%
1 Blu ray 2%
1 blue-ray 2%
1 blue ray 2%

For the record, I counted only the first instance of a spelling in each post (unless the poster changed spellings within the post, which happened very often with "Blu-ray").

And to answer your next question, yes, I am avoiding doing a paper.

[wrabbit @ Feb 19th 2008 11:14PM]

Relax people. Only thing you need to remember about blu-ray is that there's no "e" like in "blue", nobody cares if you cap one, or two, or none of the letters, and if you put a dash or not. Personally I'll be just writing it as BR and be done with it.

Blough-Reigh = awesome! :D

Let me add my own - Blew-Rey

[ericisshort @ Feb 19th 2008 11:17PM]

Bleu-rai?

[Eric M. @ Feb 19th 2008 11:18PM]

@Meat!

Haha while reading your post I thinking of saying that you have a whole lot of free time on your hands and avioding a paper would do that to someone, I would know..lol.

And Blu-Ray and Blu-ray is spelled the same, they just have different capitalization on the "r". And this most likely has to do with people's lazyness..lol. With that in mind more people spelled Blu-Ray right the first time, 69%, to HD-DVD's 64%.

[Rususeruru @ Feb 19th 2008 11:23PM]

I think I'll just use BD-ROM all the time.

[Lazerface @ Feb 20th 2008 12:40AM]

Try saying HD-DVD vs Blu-ray. HD-DVD just sounds really clunky to me. Blu-ray just rolls off your tongue a lot easier.

[lou @ Feb 20th 2008 12:46AM]

Get a life!!

Who cares what way Blu Ray is spelt in comments or articles. Regarding the name itself, HD DVD is more of a tongue twister than Blu-ray ever was. Besides it is in vogue now to have abstract or aloof brands and trade marks etc. Why have black and white when u can have speckled metallic grey.

[Galley @ Feb 20th 2008 2:00AM]

I'm sorry, but five syllables is about three too many. BD is just right.

[Taylor @ Feb 20th 2008 2:58AM]

When you say "HD-DVD" out loud, it's likely to confuse people
"hd-dvdbdbdbd?"

Blu-Ray has about 3 syllables less

[BTPbros @ Feb 19th 2008 10:29PM]

Hearing anout HD-DVD going down makes me smile every time

[Prey521 @ Feb 19th 2008 11:10PM]

Then you need a life if something like this puts a smile on your face. It's a gadget, whether it lives or dies has no impact on your life. Some of you people take this gadget stuff to passionately pathetic levels.

[Abuzar @ Feb 20th 2008 12:58AM]

I smile because I bought a PS3 and now that Blu Ray has won, it will be useful in the future. Good thing I didn't buy a HD DVD drive for my Xbox.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Feb 19th 2008 10:29PM]

let's take a minute of silence to mourn over the death of this format.

................................

[Stephen Wilson @ Feb 19th 2008 10:32PM]

Let's take a minute of contemplation to realize that the Cubs will never win.

[roach @ Feb 19th 2008 10:40PM]

Let's take a minute of silence to realize that Stephen Wilson will NEVER be funny...

[Prey521 @ Feb 19th 2008 11:11PM]

LMAO @ Wilson, good one.

[Eric M. @ Feb 19th 2008 11:21PM]

Let me take a minute to say that the Red Sox are Champs! =)
d

[m-p{3} @ Feb 19th 2008 11:41PM]

@roach
If he's not funny, then I wonder why his post is higher ranked than yours.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Feb 20th 2008 5:31PM]

go to hell. This is a gadget blog if you didn't notice

[BTPbros @ Feb 19th 2008 10:34PM]

no mourning for this format

[Fernando @ Feb 19th 2008 10:35PM]

I don't exacly get why this picture is relevant... Onkyo is the second to drop HD-DVD?

[DarkLightConnection @ Feb 19th 2008 10:59PM]

Yeah, not a relevant picture.... but cool nonetheless

[Osman @ Feb 19th 2008 11:30PM]

HA HA!.......not relevent

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Feb 20th 2008 5:11AM]

format WAR. Onkyo surrenders along with the all the other Toshiba AXIS powers.


Peace through Superior Firepower.

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Feb 19th 2008 10:38PM]

Google came from Googleplex which is a One (1) with 29 Zero's(0) after it. It's basically infinity. HD dvd, hell my folks can't even say it, they never heard of hd dvd until this month. That's what went wrong with hd dvd. people hear of it but they're not really interested. My folks new what Blu Ray is though, mainly because of the PS3. Go figure????.....

[Myrmidon @ Feb 19th 2008 10:43PM]

Actually, google is named after a 'googol', which is 1 with 100 zeroes after it.

[siberdog @ Feb 19th 2008 10:57PM]

A googol is 10^100. A googolplex is 10^googol. Neither is any closer to infinity than 1 is.

[Prey521 @ Feb 19th 2008 11:13PM]

How old are your parents...100 with no teeth?

[mac @ Feb 20th 2008 1:14AM]

Thank you, siberdog. Exactly what I was going to post.

[Chris @ Feb 19th 2008 10:44PM]

Onkyo never even made players themselves, so this isn't a shock. All of Onkyo's players were rebranded HD A2s that they tried selling for $600.

[Reader @ Feb 19th 2008 10:50PM]

Can we just find every company that ever mentioned HD-DVD in a press release and post a story on how they're no longer supporting it? That would be great, because I want to know for sure that HD-DVD is, in fact, dead.

[EdgeOne @ Feb 19th 2008 10:51PM]

Screw the article, thats a freakin' awesome picture! Can I get that on a T-shirt?

[insertAlias @ Feb 19th 2008 10:57PM]

I have another version of that pic, but its just the middle finger. More appropriate for an explosion, I think.

[DarkLightConnection @ Feb 19th 2008 11:02PM]

@insertAlias: Post it

[Peter @ Feb 19th 2008 11:10PM]

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y292/krunkpb1/middle_finger_flame.jpg

[RikF @ Feb 19th 2008 11:15PM]

Pic works fine if you're British

[EdgeOne @ Feb 19th 2008 11:21PM]

Actually the I think the peace sign is perfect. Its like the ultimate irony. Peace (or I'll incinerate you ass) Brother.

[EdgeOne @ Feb 19th 2008 11:36PM]

Ohh, just saw the middle finger pic. Thats awesome too. The perfect Tee is one on the front, the other on the back!

Speaking of ironic, I just received my once-broken-now-fixed 360 HD DVD player back from Microsoft on THE DAY Toshiba announces they are abandoning format.

This just in: Engadget Announces HD DVD format dead! Um... again.

[Hammond X @ Feb 19th 2008 11:10PM]

.001%= Blough-Reigh

[shawnmos @ Feb 19th 2008 11:27PM]

Can't we condense all these HD DVD news posts into one?

[Matz @ Feb 19th 2008 11:28PM]

WOW! This is certainly unexpected news. Gee, I hope there is more riveting HD-DVD content tomorrow!

Seriousy, you've been beating a dead horse since the whole NetFlix thing. I'm so tired of this that I almost pulled Engadget from my RSS reader. Think you've covered this enough?

[mcatrage @ Feb 19th 2008 11:33PM]

I'd welcome some pro apple news right now or even a post bashing vista, I'd take anything.