I suppose I should be jubilant with Toshiba's announcement saying the end of the high def DVD format war has come. If you have not yet heard, Toshiba has tossed in the towel on their HD DVD format.

Oddly enough, I am not all that thrilled. It's not that I miss the fist pounding, name calling, and back biting from the combatants, for I don't. My sadness, if it is that, is because both contenders were so well suited for the job they were vying for. It is just unfortunate to me that one had to fail in the public eye. It is, after all, a bit of a public humiliation. Neither candidate deserved that fate, but, then again, the consumers didn't deserve an industry knock down, drag out street fight either! Both formats had elegant-enough technology to support their candidacy. In the end, only the belief that...

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I believe we are all the victors in the long run.

There may be as many as a million of us who do not agree with you, Dale. Sorry about that.

The more I think about it, the more fed up I am with all of the parties involved. I think we were conned. Big time. It's hard not to conclude, for example, that Warner Brothers hadn't decided long before Christmas to get out - but what a great way to clear out that inventory by taking advantage of all those Christmas buyers taking advantage of Toshiba's, Wal Marts and others offers!! And honestly, I'm not so sure that Toshiba didn't see the handwriting on the wall, too....and got rid of a ton of inventory before it became almost totally worthless. Paranoid? Probably but it just doesn't set right. How many businesses in this world would give anything to have a built in market of over a million customers?? No, not right.....

I will not support Sony, nor Warners, nor Disney nor any of the other partners in this fiasco.

There are already solutions that are just as good that don't cost nearly as much.

For example, I can already record hours and hours of HD movies from DishNet by adding an outboard hard drive -which I have done. It has it's drawbacks - so far you can only play back through the DVR that recorded it in the first place. (Of course, and we don't talk about this, but there are already those who have hacked the system and discovered how to download to their computers .) Which also proves once again (if we REALLY needed proof) that copy protection schemes are extremely costly to develop and futile and worthless to implement.

Just think - you can buy a 750 Gb external hard drive for as little as $169. That drive will hold well over 100 movies. That's less that $1.69 per film. Why would I want to pay $30 for a bluray disc??

And of course, there are other solutions, including the internet.

No, If I were a betting person, I'd bet that other than game playing, blu ray ultimately goes no where and will soon be passed up by other solutions - cheaper and much easier to implement. And that IS a bittersweet victory for Sony and followers.......

Jerry

Hi: I think the battle was a triumph of greed and stupidity over (really Uncommon) conman sense and we all lost. But, though I knew of the hard disk plug on my Dish box I hadn't seriously thought of it as a practically free HD library, as cheap really high capacity hard drives have quietly arrived. Great suggestion, and one less HDMI connection to worry about.

There's bound to be "sour grapes" on the part of those who opted for HD DVD. We each had a choice, one of two, or even both if you wanted to edge your bet. But the consumer can hardly be called a winner, even those who opted for Blu-ray, for the competition has been removed and we all know how business reacts when there's no competition to contend with. I chose Blu-ray but I would wait and see what the "victory" brings.

I respect the opinions of everyone on this forum but, holy cow guys, get a grip. It’s just a format. You’d think you’d just lost your best friend. Remember that Blu-ray’s storage capacity is 50 GB as compared to HD DVD’s 30 GB. That fact alone means the price is going to come down because more applications can use the same format, and surely the best format is the one that stands the best chance of being around the longest. And, although I think downloading has its place, it’s still much too slow and complicated to replace a permanent storage medium like Blu-ray in most cases. Most people don’t want to mess with long download times and backups for movies they want to keep. But for movie trailers, game demos and other short, transient material downloads are perfect. One day, perhaps with a faster Internet, that will change, but I don’t believe that day has come for most people. Anyway, I have to go now. I’ve got to buy some flowers for my Laserdisc shrine.

Henry

I think, Henry, that a high percentage of the bluray advocates are interested in things other than movies. No, maybe I should fairly say, in addition to movies. Those of us who so foolishly invested in HD DVD players were interested in just one thing - MOVIES. No one can dispute that becuz that's all they'll do - play movies.

They couldn't care less if the disc holding their movie was 50 Gb or 30 or 500. They got all kinds of extras that you guys mostly didn't get despite their lowly disc being only capable of holding 30 gigs. They're mostly not "techies" - not interested in having to hook their movie player to the Internet to download some new software to make it work with the latest releases. They wanted a good, reliable player capable of HD quality. And they got it.

As to downloads, I wouldn't fool with the internet at the moment either. But using my DishNet DVR to record and save HD content on external drives isn't one of those things you have to sit around waiting for. Well, I spose you might - but, you pick the content you want to record, tell the DVR and it does it for you - while you're at work, or sleeping or just watching it live. You do tie up TV time but not computer time.

Jerry

As President Clinton was often mocked for saying, "I feel your pain." But the purpose of this article was not to further poison the drinking fountain but rather to stitch together the two opposing sides into a conciliatory flag. I want to fly this flag over the benefits we all get from the marvel of high-definition DVD. It seems to me counter productive to rage at a particular company when big companies, the type you point to, are constantly changing manpower and directions. Both Shane and I were shockingly surprised at the new open minded and collaborative attitude we found at the CES Sony booth this year. I attribute it to the strong influence of Sir Howard Stringer, who simply understands the nuances of the Western mind, something that had escaped the old Shogun mentality of the previous leadership in many a Japanese company. But even if you hated the strategies which the rigors of capitalism impose and believed the blogger lies written to inflame you, why not calm yourself with a convenient, transportable little disk that can give you an endless amount of down time enjoyment? Why rage against the windmills? Cervantes gave us that lesson. Will your hatred for Sony (or whom-so-ever you feel wronged the world) lead to your examining every electronic device you use to insure it is "Sony-free" and has no Sony components or licenses? For what it is worth I recommend that you reconcile your differences with as much of the world as you can and enjoy your life as conflict free as you can make it. I am presently staying with my dying mother at her assisted living quarters. I can assure you that living close to death will re-orient your priorities and make such matters as this DVD strife look very trivial against any scale monitoring human problems. You who feel like Jerry reconcile your differences and then give yourself a pat on the back for making your own life better then those dirty rotten scoundrels did by driving us all so damn crazy with formats, formats, formats. _Dale Cripps

If I hear one more HD DVD fanboy say "but there's no more competition" I'll just have to scream.

How can there NOT be competition when we have so many hardware manufacturers? You don't think Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, LG, etc. will compete for blu-ray players? Of COURSE THEY WILL - it's what they do. And that will bring prices down as reasonably as possible. That does not mean we'll see $100 giveaways because they can't afford to do that. But then neither could Toshiba (long term).

And Jerry himself just mentioned HD Satellite - how is that not competition? There wasn't any competition (to speak of) for standard DVDs yet I can buy a player for $19.

Get off the lack of competition bandwagon and just admit that you're either miffed that you lost your investment or you simply don't like the Blu-Ray technology or, the more likely scenario - you just hate Sony. Nothing wrong with any of those positions - just don't try to create reasons that don't exist.

I get DirecTv HD content and my sister who lives 1 mile away gets Comcast HD content. We both agree---NEITHER DirecTv or Comcast HD programs look anywhere near as good as Toshiba HD or Blu Ray. And besides not looking as good, when played through a good surround system they definitely don't sound anywhere near as good.
If you are lucky enough to get reception of a movie in 5.1, it is always in a "lossy" format. There are no great audio codecs in either service, or for that matter on downloads.

Of course, I imagine that most people don't give a rats behind as long as they "think" they are getting great cutting edge performance. Just as most people don't download Apple iTunes in their lossless format I expect the same from people "that just want to watch a movie". I already know quite a few people in my community that have a very good HDTV, but don't even use a surround system. And most of those that do have a surround system have one that costs far less than their HDTV and doesn't do credit to the movie.

I will definitely be getting a new Blu Ray player once format 2.0 is released and a good player is available. I love watching good movies in pristine condition and with a great score and soundtrack.

Greg

First of all, let me acknowledge that this poor old horse has been beat mercilessly to death. I promise all, foremost myself, that I will never pen another word about BD vs. HD-DVD again….after this.

I believe I have read every post on this site (and some others) on this topic, and you know what, you are all right (except the thing about no competition – akirby was right!). It is logical and understandable to be mad at:

Toshiba for not having a more effective marketing machine……
Sony for undoubtedly being guilty of some premeditation here…..
Warner for pulling the trigger too soon and not allowing a win based on genuine technological advantage…..
The “Industry” for allowing such an unnecessary War (both schemes worked well enough) to wage at such a huge expense to consumers (that’s my particular peeve).
And many, I’m sure, are just mad at themselves for not waiting a little longer before writing a check.

Still, the best perspective, I think, was offered by Dale. Should we cut our nose off to spite our face? Why? Be clear about this – Sony and Warner and every other movie studio and every manufacturer of BD hardware will add handsomely to their bottom lines as a result of this white flag, regardless of whether all who post here abstain from BD or not. Why not simply enjoy what happens next?

What won’t happen next, B-T-W, is that player prices will come down as some are predicting. Most all those units sold were subsidized. Ain’t happening any more. What you WILL get that’s different, is players that work, have good build quality, up-convert NTSC discs better than anything you’ve seen so far and will play all versions of BD s/w into the future. Yes, we should have got that in the first round, but isn’t that a good thing to depend on going forward?

Movies in High Definition on a decent (and I have to add calibrated) system, are an immersive, special experience. At a Netflix investment level, it would truly be a shame to not take advantage of this new technology and enjoy the art form we all like so much – MOVIES!

I have to disagree. The player prices will come down for two distinct reasons. One, many manufacturers will be competing now for market share. Two, it is in the nature of technology that once the initial investment in technology is amortized, the race begins to find cheaper and better ways to manufacture the product. There is nothing about this technology to suggest Blu-ray will be an exception.

Also I disagree with the notion that somehow the players in this race resorted to unfair competition. This is the normal way the market works, and, in my view, this time it did work, unlike the Beta versus VHS wars in which the inferior product won.

But I enthusiastically agree with the idea that the public needs to educate themselves to the possibilities of the format. Surround Sound is an important ingredient of the immersive HD experience and the industry has done a great job of making the new standards backwards compatible so that long-time users like myself don't have to throw away their expensive Dolby receivers. And, by the way, don't forget the sub-woofers including the rear one. When that hand grenade explodes behind you, you want to feel the punch in your back.

So, it's all good. Time to sit back and enjoy!

Henry

Sorry Dale, you do not feel our pain; you are not even close. I think I can speak for most of us in saying that we would have no pain if HD DVD simply lost to free market competition. Everyone benefits from free market competition, but if you think what happened to HD DVD is "free market competition" then you have really been drinking Bush's kool aid. What happened was a conspiracy to restrain trade (in the words of the Sherman Antitrust Act), and at an earlier time the Justice Department would have stepped in. When hundreds of millions of dollars get passed under the table in order to prevent consumers from being able to choose the best deal for them, that's Tony Soprano capitalism. That "street fight" that's so upset you is what true competition is all about. And please stop insulting us by lecturing us on the virtues of acceptance and equanimity, we all should be angry. It doesn't matter which technology you personally like better, BR supporters got screwed over almost as much as HD DVD. You will be forever denied the lower disc prices that format competition would have produced (HD disc media itself may fail because BR cannot now price to reach the mass market). But most important, you should be angry at being treated like sheep -- you were denied your right to choose -- you were denied the benefits of free market competition that are supposedly guaranteed to you by our laws. You, of all people, who have fought and worked so hard and so long to bring the benefits of HDTV to the market should be the most incensed.

Phil

by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz -- published in AfterDawn.com


Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida has finally talked out about his company's decision to drop HD DVD and went as far as to say that the format did not "stand a chance" following Warner's decision to drop the format for Blu-ray.

Citing the Warner decision, Nishida said that the format would have only had 20% of the software market share and that Warner's decision sealed the format war's fate.

"One has to take calculated risks in business, but it's also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong," explained Nishida. "We were doing this to win, and if we weren't going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard."

In the wake of the end of the HD format war, Toshiba said it would focus more on upconverting standard-def DVD players and PCs as well as HD digital downloads.

"We've been developing technologies in [the video downloads] area already, but now that we don't have the HD DVD business, I want to put even more energy into that,"added Nishida.

uhh....BD player prices won't come down - tag, you're it.

Let's see. Players announced/shipped since the "war" ended, 1/4/2008

Denon 3800..............$1,999
Denon 2500..............$999
Pioneer BDP94..........$999
Panasonic 30K..........$499
Sony S2000ES..........$1,200
Goldmund.................$16,900

Average Selling Price................................$3,766 and change.
......O.K., throw out the Goldmund.

Adjusted Average Selling price................$1,139.20

I'm pretty sure that's north of what we saw during WWIII.

Henry, you can't even build a decent NTSC player for $300. The chipset in anybody's HD player is more expensive. With any luck and a little help from volume, I hope that we can see a GOOD BD player in the $500 range by Christmas.

A pox on both their houses. They both deserved to lose, actually. How in the world did anyone think the studios were going to support both technologies. Somebody had to lose, nobody knew which side would win, so they should have collaborated. I feel sorry for the employees who will be fired thanks to their idiot executives (who will undoubtedly walk off with huge golden parachutes for being so...what?). Apple TV seem pretty attractive at this point.