Great news! The War is over.
No… not that war…
Not that we weren’t expecting this to happen, but Toshiba has finally bowed out of HD DVD. This makes Blu Ray Disc the undisputed winner of the next generation dvd format war. Toshiba formally conceded defeat Tuesday morning, confirming that Toshiba will cease making and shipping players in the HD DVD format by March 31st.
Engadget is also reporting that the lone (contractual) holdouts Paramount and Universal, will now make the obvious choice and publish their films on Blu-ray. This is great news for consumers.
Discuss: Will consumers adopt Blu Ray? Or will on demand and digital rental services win out?
February 19th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
ALL HAIL BLU-RAY
btw buy a ps3 for a player, no really , it has software updates , and the others don’t. read consumerist, trust me.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I just had to get a 360. Still, 360 is better than ps3 even if it has blu ray inside
February 19th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I was sitting this one out for the obvious, that much like the Highlander there can by only one next-gen DVD format. The other deciding factor for me was LoTR … I was going to go with whomever landed that franchise, Blu-ray won that prize handily.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Actually, Universal is Blu now: http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Universal/Breaking:_Universal__Studios_Goes_Blu/1483
February 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I will smash my HD DVD player with my Betamax.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I think it’s only a matter of time before on-demand and downloaded movies will render the physical format of movies (DVD, Blu-Ray, and whatever else on a disc) obsolete. The premise of being able to buy and watch movies with the click of a button is too great to ignore. Apple’s already in on the act, as is Netflix. Vudu and XStreamHD are a couple of relative unknowns but will become major players in the years ahead. For now, Blu-Ray will be the popular format, but it’ll be short-lived once an ideal compression format is devised to be able to transmit HD movies across the internet. Something else to keep in mind, most downloaded movies are available only in 720p resolution. So, along with compression concerns, maybe the biggest issue regarding on-demand/downloaded movies is the bandwidth. With ever-increasing speeds and increasing availability of fiber optics, bandwidth problems will be all but resolved within the next 10-15 years, I think.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
HD DVD was region free Blu-ray isnt :(
February 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
@Gabe: Some folks just like to have a collection of something they can stand back and look at (me), so we’ll see if it goes that way. I’m curious. I can’t help it, I just love bookshelves full of stuff. And by stuff I mean books, movies and music. I’m a fuckin’ wierdo luddite. I don’t even like to have copied stuff, not because it is stealing or whatever, but because I want the packaging. For the shelf. LOL!
February 19th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
the only folks that win are the the big companies. consumers lose in most every way with the loss of hd-dvd as an inexpensive hi-def media format.
mark my words, blu-ray will stay too expensive for the average consumer and end up being an “elite” product. just like laser disc…
February 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Daaaamnnn.. I have a bad feeling about Blu-ray
February 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Sony is genius. Did then NOT call this like 2 years ago?
I’ll get a PS3 now. Already have a 360, but PS3 has all the great games I like, and now has the new format.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
everyone keep your eye for HD DVD deals. I can’t wait until they are at the bargin bin of Walmart, err Blockbuster, err Best Buy… hmmmmm. Where will I pick up HD DVDs??
February 19th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Thank God,
I finally bought a PS3 at Christmas for the Blu-Ray player and couldn’t be happier and this news is even better… Cant wait for more titles to come out by Paramount and Universal plus, other studios will create better Blu disc (looking at your WB) since they do not have to worry about HD-DVD…
February 19th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Toshiba’s decision was the right one, with WalMart, Best Buy and NetFlix bowing out the writing was on the wall. Microsoft killed HD-DVD when they decided not to wait and released the 360 a year ahead without a player inside. Sony, who at the time was lambasted for taking so long with the PS3, now look like geniuses for waiting. Both formats were fine, I’ve experienced them both, but we all needed a winner because the market simply cannot move forward with two formats. It simply isn’t good for anyone.
And digital downloads, while a very interesting concept, will be a decade away from becoming a serious format. This isn’t anything against the concept, I use it myself from time to time. It is simply a technical issue, bandwidth, etc. But the biggest issue is going to be storage for all those downloaded movies. No one seems to think of this issue, where are you going to store all those movies you’ve downloaded? My guess is we’ll be burning them to Blu-Ray discs. It is one thing to rent a download, and I love the new Apple renting system through iTunes, but OWNING is a different story. The barrier to the average consumer is tremendous. Believe me, it took ten years for Cable to convince the average Joe to use their DVR for goodness sake.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
@Robert
Yeah, there’ll be people like you who like to have something physical in their hands and to be able to browse across a shelf of movies and pick one out. There’s definitely something to be said for being able to browse a wall of DVDs as opposed to scrolling down a screen, I’ll give you that. Still, though, the immense revenue potential for offering downloaded movies is much too tempting to ignore, especially for a company that can capitalize on it first (read: Apple). Also, given the American propensity for instant gratification, people are going to want to be able to watch a movie anytime they feel like it instead of going down the local video store (which is disappearing everywhere) or waiting for a flick to arrive in their mailbox.
As Giantman and myself said earlier, the issue concerning downloading movies is bandwidth and storage. As I said in my previous post, it’s just a matter of time before someone finds the ideal compression and is able to retain the HD quality. As for storage, hard drives measured in terabytes aren’t too far off. That, along with whatever compression that will be used, will solve the storage problem.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Im still not totally convinced that DVD is dead yet.
If you ask me Blu-Ray will never surpass DVD’s in sales
February 20th, 2008 at 3:46 am
While I agree with Gabe that on demand and digital downloads are where its at, I just don’t see the infrastructure in place to support such dense files. I don’t think it will surpass physical media as quickly as we might like. The services are there and are growing, which I think is great, but IMO there’s a lack of inexpensive, fast internet connections in order for everyone to leverage the benefits.
Ex: it took over 12 hours for me to download Superman Returns at 720p over the XBOX Live service. That’s just completely unacceptable.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:45 am
I don’t know that anyone believes BR disc sales will surpass DVD sales any time soon, if ever. BR is a special format and it faces some challenging barriers to widespread adoption, price (although that should continue to moderate), but perception is probably the biggest challenge. The average consumer has a lot invested in the DVD format, an investment that took nearly ten years to establish if we all remember. Fear of replacement is huge right now, even though it is easy enough to adopt a BR scheme that doesn’t need to include replacement of anything. BR and Sony have their challenges, but at least now they can focus on telling that story instead of the really confusing one regarding two formats.
I don’t believe that unification is the future as much as divergence will be, not necessarily a multi-format future, but a multi-delivery future - DVD, BR, Digital will have to work together. I believe it is certainly possible we’ll start to see that increasingly.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Unless they somehow come out with a Blu Ray device for XBOX I don’t care. I will not buy a ps3… way inferior in comparison to game titles and online support and everything.
I also agree with the LaserDisc comment. My dad bought one when they came out and he bought 3 LaserDiscs… while it was really cool….. it was stupid. And I think Blu Ray will die will UMD… another cool idea just won’t take off… I think all that will happen is DVD’s will get amped up more than anything.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:16 am
The difference between opinion and informed opinion.