не будет больше HD DVD, Blu-ray выиграли битву

Слава богу теперь не надо будет какого формата диск покупать … :slight_smile:

С другой стороны - Blu-ray получаются монополисты…

Blu-ray wins format battle, Toshiba quits HD DVD business

TOKYO - Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

“We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company’s Tokyo offices.

The move would make Blu-ray — backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios — the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago.

Nishida said last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

“That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox in that move.

Nishida said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs.

HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity.

Only one video format has been expected to emerge as the victor, much like VHS trumped Sony’s Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.

Nishida said it was still uncertain what will happen with the Hollywood studios that signed to produce HD DVD movies, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation.

Toshiba’s pulling the plug on the technology is expected to reduce the number of new high-definition movies that people will be able to watch on HD DVD machines. Toshiba Corp. said shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers will be reduced and will stop by end of March.

Sales in Blu-ray gadgets are now likely to pick up as consumers had held off in investing in the latest recorders and players because they didn’t know which format would emerge dominant.

Despite being a possible blow to Toshiba’s pride, the exit will probably lessen the potential damage in losses in HD DVD operations. Goldman Sachs has said pulling out would improve Toshiba’s profitability between 40 billion yen and 50 billion yen ($370 million-$460 million) a year.

The reasons behind Blu-ray’s triumph over HD DVD are complex, as marketing, management maneuvers and other factors are believed to have played into the shift to Blu-ray’s favor that became more decisive during the critical holiday shopping season.

Once the balance starts tilting in favor of one in a format battle, then the domination tends to grow and become final, said Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo.

“The trend became decisive I think this year,” he said. “When Warner made its decision, it was basically over.”

With movie studios increasingly lining up behind Blu-ray, retailers also began to stock more Blu-ray products.

Friday’s decision by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. retailer, to sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware appeared to deal a final blow to the Toshiba format. Just five days earlier, Netflix Inc. said it will cease carrying rentals in HD DVD.

Several major American retailers had already made similar decisions, including Target Corp. and Blockbuster Inc.

Also adding to Blu-ray’s momentum was the gradual increase in sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 home video-game console, which also works as a Blu-ray player. Sony has sold 10.5 million PS3 machines worldwide since the machine went on sale late 2006.

HD DVD supporters included Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp. and Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game machine can play HD DVD movies, but the drive had to be bought separately, and Nishida said about 300,000 people have those.

Worldwide sales of personal computers with HD DVD drives total about 300,000 worldwide, including 140,000 in North America and 130,000 in Europe, he said.

Recently, the Blu-ray disc format has been gaining market share, especially in Japan. A study on fourth quarter sales last year by market researcher BCN Inc. found that by unit volume, Blu-ray made up 96 percent of Japanese sales.

Sony said it did not have numbers on how many Blu-ray players had been sold globally.

Toshiba’s stock slipped 0.6 percent Tuesday to 824 yen after jumping 5.7 percent Monday amid reports that a decision was imminent. Sony shares climbed 2.2 percent to 5,010 yen after rising 1 percent Monday.

Also Tuesday, Toshiba said it plans to spend more than 1.7 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) for two plants in Japan to produce sophisticated chips called NAND flash memory, which are used in portable music players and cell phones. Production there will start in 2010.

Да уж, сони теперь оторвется. Какое-то времени цены на BD players застынут (хорошо если вверх не пойдут).
Но в целом это хорошо что война закончилась де-юре. Дефакто это произошло в начале января.
По крайней мере голова не будет болеть какие диски покупать.

p.s. Но их серьезный конкурент все еще остался в строю. Media streamers формата mk (h.264) и контент из интернета.
Вот тут война мне кажется возможна.

Жалко. HD таки лучше в технологическом плане. Да и плееры в большинстве своём дешевле. Посмотрим, может Тошиба в Европе останется с HD.

:slight_smile:

TOKYO - Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

где вы тут про Европу нашли…

Недавно по TV показывали разницу в качестве этих форматов. Впечатлило…Разница в пользу Blu-ray однозначно.
И вообще, я сторонница Сони :slight_smile:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/report-from-jap.html

а вообще, это было предположение. и надежда :slight_smile:

сторонников и в наших рядах предостаточно. вопрос в том, что с отутствием конкуренции со стороны тошибы, соня становится монополистом, что не скажется положительно на конечном потребителе.

Давайте проголосуем, может это скажется на конечном результате :slight_smile: Ведь в действительности “сеть” пока осталась за hdtv, хоть и официальный результат предполагает только одно решение – bd.

По моему единственная разница между HD-DVD и BD это наличие у последнего регионов, глючной защиты от копирования (Java based) и большей вместимости болванок (15 Gb vs 25Gb для однослойных)

По телевизору наверное показывали разницу между обычным DVD и HighDefinition

Чтобы смотреть BD хорошо бы купить HDTV
HD-DVD можно смотреть на том же HDTV

купить hdtv действительно было бы замечательно… Такой маленький, а уже есть стандарт телевидения :wink: Вообще всё это можно смотреть на унивирсальных проигрователях типа tvix или popcorn, просто по сети более распространены оригинальные hd и hd рипы…

Не, я смотреть могу только на экране, на проигрывателе смотреть скучно, картинки нету :slight_smile:

В этом я с Вами солидарен на все 100%… :slight_smile:

Чего и следовало ожидать , у покупателей HD DVD player возник вопрос: сели Тошиба больше не выпускает этот формат , как насчёт refund или return. Но представители Тошибы отказались возмещать что-либо

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/12764/blu-ray-trumps-hd-dvd-the-aftermath

Blu-ray Trumps HD DVD: The Aftermath

Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:11AM EST

Want a refund from Toshiba now that it’s pulled the plug on its own format? Good luck. Also: HD DVD prices plummet, Universal and Amazon go Blu-ray, and more.

Toshiba nixes refunds: So, HD DVD early adopters - think you deserve a refund now that Toshiba has killed the format? Think again. Valleywag reports that the company (and big-time HD DVD backer) won’t be accepting refund requests (although it will continue to support existing HD DVD players). Here’s the quote: “There is nothing wrong with the products so we aren’t accepting returns from customers … [Customers] understood that there were two competing formats and understood that one of them would probably prevail …” Good point, actually. In my case, I bought the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive knowing full well that I was taking a gamble. I lost. End of story.

Universal goes Blu-ray: Not a shock, but Universal went ahead and made it official: The studio (the only one to exclusively support HD DVD from the beginning) announced that it will start churning out Blu-ray versions of its new releases and catalog titles. No word on how long it will continue to press HD DVD discs. The move leaves Paramount and Dreamworks as the final HD DVD-only studios. Neither movie house has made any official announcements, but expect that to change shortly.

Onkyo drops HD DVD: Confirming pretty much a foregone conclusion, Engadget HD reports that Onkyo, one of the few manufacturers besides Toshiba to make HD DVD players, has followed suit and dropped the format.

LG stays with HD DVD: Or at least with dual-format Blu-ray/HD DVD decks, according to High-Def Digest. The manufacturer, which was the first to release a Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player, said that “at this present moment in time, it is necessary to provide a player which supports both formats and therefore create simplicity and convenience for the existing HD DVD consumer.” Very true, although it’s not clear whether LG will produce more combo players, or will simply continue to support its existing players (its latest, the BH200, arrived in stores late last year).

Amazon hearts Blu-ray: The giant online retailer just went the way of Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Netflix, announcing that it will now “more prominently promote Blu-ray hardware and software products on its Web site.” Amazon will continue to sell HD DVD products, however. Indeed, I’m waiting for a mega HD DVD fire sale in the wake of the 50 percent discount offer that began last week.

HD DVD prices plummet: Sharp-eyed readers at Engadget HD found Toshiba’s HD-A3 HD DVD player on sale at Circuit City for $99, including 7 free movies. Of course, it’s just the beginning of sharp price cuts across the board for HD DVD. Taking a quick look at eBay, I found HD DVD players going for well under $100, with the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on selling for about $50.

http://www.cepro.com/article/paramount_universal_offically_line_up_with_blu_ray/

02.21.2008 — The two studios that were exclusively backing HD DVD, Universal and Paramount, have both announced that they will be publishing their titles on Blu-ray.