Toshiba 'Officially' Drops HD-DVD

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Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:49PM1 comment ›

Tue Feb 19, 2008 — by Chris Ullrich

Toshiba 'Officially' Drops HD-DVD

So Long, HD-DVD.

Remember that format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD? Well, you can forget about it now because the final battle is over and Blu-ray is the winner -- which ComicMix Chief Mike Gold called on Sunday.

Today, Variety is reporting Toshiba has officially thrown in the towel and will no longer build or ship players and recorders using the HD-DVD format -- with the final end coming March 31st.

According to the article, Toshiba President and CEO Atsutoshi Nishida made the annoiuncement today from its company headquartes in Tokyo.

“We realized that if we were to continue in this business on such a small scale, we would only inconvenience our customers and partners,” Nishida explained. “We also saw that, from a competitive standpoint, there was no way we could win.”

In addition to the reasons Nishida outlined above, Warner Bros.’ decision to stop selling HD-DVD discs last month and support only Blu-Ray had, according to the article, "a major impact” on the situation. “After that we had to make a decision quickly," Nishida admitted.

Toshiba’s decision clears the way for Blu-Ray, which is championed by Sony and has been battling Toshiba and its HD-DVD allies, including Intel and Microsoft, for nearly six years, to finally dominate the market. Of course, this also comes at a time when downloading content via devices such as Microsoft's XBox 360 or the Apple TV, instead of using physical media such as Blu-Ray disks, is becoming more and more popular.

Will Blu-Ray's victory be short-lived as consumers switch, instead, to other ways of getting their content, leaving their unwanted disks gathering dust in a closet somewhere? With the state of our current infrastructure and the country's lack of internet bandwidth when compared to others, it seems unlikely that downloads will completely replace physical product any time soon.

However, technology often advances very quickly so the switch to downloadable content may end up happening sooner rather than later, especially with the very important younger consumers who already downloading most, if not all, of their content anyway.

In the end, Blu-ray’s victory may be a hollow one and its dominance fleeting. I hope they enjoy it while it lasts. Hey, anyone want to buy a slightly used XBox 360 HD-DVD drive?

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Bob Pinaha (10:30 PM on Tue Feb 19, 2008)

And here I was thinking Blu Ray was the newest super-hero to join the Justice League (or the newest member of the Blue Man Group)! Just kidding.
But seriously, I find myself downloading more and more content, and what with my working 4:00 p.m. to midnight, catching up with the shows I missed online rather than recording to VHS or buying a DVR/TiVo. It's easier, more convenient and really reduces juggling tapes and DVD's!

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Anonymous (2:02 PM on Fri Nov 21, 2008)

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Jon Sable: Tuesday! »

« Government Recalls Spider-Man Cups

Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:49PM1 comment ›

Tue Feb 19, 2008 — by Chris Ullrich