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Blu-ray Wins!: Toshiba Officially Turfs HD DVD
courtesy Toshiba
Sony's Blu-ray format has officially won the hi-def war after Toshiba ended days of speculation by announcing it will "no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders," following recent major changes in the high definition market. They will, however, continue to provide support and service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products. Toshiba will begin by reducing shipments of HD DVD players, with final shipments planned for next month.
What got us here? HD DVD, the first HD format to be released, had been locked in a hi-def war with Blu-ray since Sony's product was introduced in June, 2006. Each format had studios supporting it exclusively, with Warner Bros. and Paramount releasing on both formats. That changed in August 2007, when Paramount surprised the industry by announcing it was dropping Blu-ray and releasing only on HD DVD, effective immediately; Blu-ray titles planned for release the next week were canceled.
It looked like the industry was headed for a stalemate, unless it could convince Warner Bros go exclusive to one format. In January, just days before Consumer Electronics Show, Warner Bros. announced it would end its relationship with HD DVD in May 2008, and only release in Blu-ray. That gave the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) the exclusive support of Sony Pictures, MGM, Disney, Fox, Lionsgate and Warner Bros., while HD DVD had Paramount/Dreamworks and Universal Studios. (According to Home Media Magazine, Universal will begin releasing movies on Blu-ray.)
Three companies delivered crushing blows to the HD DVD format: Netflix, a popular online rental outlet, announced it would only stock Blu-ray movies going forward, while still renting current HD DVD releases until product ran out (Blockbuster put its weight behind Blu-ray last year); Best Buy announced it was going to recommend consumers purchase Blu-ray in its stores, though it would continue to stock HD DVD players and discs; and Walmart delivered the death blow on Friday, announcing it will no longer carry HD DVD disc and players as of June 2008. The Hollywood Reporter cited sources who claimed Toshiba was going to drop HD DVD, though the company publicly said that no decision had been made, and echoed those comments early Monday morning.
This news leaves Paramount/Dreamworks without any hardware support for their HD DVD movies. While statements announcing that they were switching to Blu-ray weren't available alongside the Toshiba statement, it's expected that such announcements will be coming soon.
Any thoughts on the demise of HD DVD? Does the news impact your chances of buying a Blu-ray player in the near future? Share your thoughts with us. — Gord Lacey
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Feb 19, 2008 3:15 AM
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I'm going to have to wait awhile. It's still too expensive for my budget. I can think of other things to spend $400 on.
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Feb 19, 2008 6:53 AM
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It makes me feel even better about my choice of a PS3 over an X-box 360. 
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Feb 19, 2008 8:30 AM
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Aargh! This is so typical. I finally started getting into the whole DVD phenom and soon my DVDs will collect dust after my DVD player starts to break down and I can't get it repaired any more because it will be obsolete! That's it - I'm done! ![]<img border=](http://community.tvguide.com/images/emoticons/devil.gif) "> I will buy no more movies or tv shows. Downloading is the only way to go from now on.
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Feb 19, 2008 9:09 AM
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Well it irritates me since we have an Xbox 360 and the HD DVD player. I'm pretty surprised that HD lost the battle. In my mind, Microsoft is a bigger company and since it has such a stronghold over the computer industry, am surprised they didn't go after this with as much gusto.
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Feb 19, 2008 9:13 AM
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I'm glad we finally have a winner, it was just so ridiculous. Its also nice to see Microsoft take a blow like this, the almighty Bill Gates, haha!
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Feb 19, 2008 9:27 AM
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I'm just glad it's over.
Aargh! This is so typical. I finally started getting into the whole DVD phenom and soon my DVDs will collect dust after my DVD player starts to break down and I can't get it repaired any more because it will be obsolete!
I'm pretty sure all HD players also play regular dvds. They won't be obsolete. (I say all because there is a 3rd, much smaller hd format called vmd, I believe)
I just checked, I'm right. This is from the bluray website:
Will Blu-ray Disc products play my existing DVDs and CDs?
The Blu-ray Disc system uses the same 12 cm and 8 cm disc sizes to support backward compatibility with your CDs and DVDs and other optical disc formats. Therefore, it is anticipated that most Blu-ray Disc hardware products will play your existing DVDs and CDs.
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Feb 19, 2008 10:01 AM
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Yes, all high-def formats will play both DVDs and CDs.
Blu-ray, HD DVD and HD VMD units will not play EACH OTHER'S formats, but they'll each play those older formats just fine.
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Feb 19, 2008 10:13 AM
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Thanks, Leah!
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Feb 19, 2008 10:21 AM
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Believe it or not, sales of the PS3 didn't really help Blu-Ray's victory (didn't hurt, but didn't really help either). What helped more than anything is the overwhelming support its gotten in the past few months (and the porn industry's acceptance of the Blu-Ray format).
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Feb 19, 2008 10:46 AM
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I knew BluRay would emerge the victor.
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Feb 19, 2008 10:47 AM
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SuperSage21: Contrary to popular belief, porn industry support does not assist in sales of packaged media any more. Not since the VHS days, anyway.
There's too much free material on the internet these days for adult entertainment to make a dent in sales figures of the packaged media formats.
HD DVD has been FAR ahead of Blu-ray in terms of that kind of support, for every year of the hi-def format war. It didn't make a difference. Recent support for Blu-ray from that side of the industry amounted to just more small, independent studio support for a format that - as you point out - truly benefited from support of the majority of the majors. Warner made the real difference.
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Feb 19, 2008 10:55 AM
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So Dave, do you think that since bluray won out that they'll lower the price or keep it the same since they don't have real competition?
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Feb 19, 2008 11:12 AM
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There are many possibilities, and even more opinions on that, of course.
Some think Sony will keep the prices high since there is no real competition now, and that any price reductions done up til this point were only to compete with Toshiba.
While that has some truth to it, I also believe there will be an effort to keep the prices low enough that consumers will want to make the jump.
What you'll probably see is an effort to improve the production methods on the backside, so they can lower costs on the back end and be able to further reduce the price of players, while still remaining profitable. Sony has gone this route with their PlayStation systems, and that's a good model to look at for what will happen with Blu-ray going forward.
If there are any major cost breakthroughs like that, then they will happen on an ad hoc basis. Other than that, the price reductions would happen at strategic times, like right before Christmas and so forth.
On the software side, it's entirely up to the studios putting out the discs. I think Fox (and MGM, who Fox distributes for) has the lowest value-per-dollar on Blu-ray titles: $30-35-ish street price for a relatively bare-bones title that only offers the hi-def picture as an enhancement over the DVD version. It really chaps my buns to buy these, so I often wait for a better deal on them.
Just one man's opinion.
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Feb 19, 2008 11:22 AM
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While that has some truth to it, I also believe there will be an effort to keep the prices low enough that consumers will want to make the jump.
When you consider the cost of movies, tv show sets, etc on Blu-ray (or HD-DVD for that matter) is significantly more then the DVD cost it will be a while until there's mass market penetration of Blu-ray on the level of DVDs.
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Feb 19, 2008 11:54 AM
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