Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

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Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by popley »

Toshiba Corporation has decided to withdraw from next generation high-definition DVD production.

The company said it will continue to sell HD-DVD products for a while but will stop further development of HD DVD. Meanwhile, it said its DVD factories in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan, would be closed.

Market observers said that Toshiba could suffer a loss of hundreds of millions of US dollars.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by |darc| »

As much as I hate Sony and have previously denied that I would buy Blu-ray products, I'm really glad this format war is finally over. Hopefully we'll start to see affordable Blu-ray writers and writable media... that's what I'm most interested in.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Juan »

And a US Marine raped some jap huh.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by az_bont »

|darc| wrote:As much as I hate Sony and have previously denied that I would buy Blu-ray products, I'm really glad this format war is finally over. Hopefully we'll start to see affordable Blu-ray writers and writable media... that's what I'm most interested in.
I'm personally quite pleased with the price of Blu-Ray writers at the moment. For about £180, I can get a 6x Blu-Ray writer that also reads HD-DVDs, which is less than the cost of my first CD-RW and DVD-RW drives.

However, the media is still ridiculously expensive, with one single-layer BD-R costing more than a spindle of 25 DVD-Rs. :|

I wonder, with this announcement, if there are any other people now looking to pick up a HD-DVD player? At the bargain-bucket prices they'll have to knock them down to, they'll easily be the best performing upscaling DVD players in their price range, with the option of grabbing a few cheap high-definition films at the same time. Plus, with some HD-DVD authoring software, you should be able to burn those 720p/1080p H264 movies straight to ordinary DVD media and play them back in the machine, if you don't fancy paying tuck-up prices for region-locked Blu-Rays.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Veggita2099 »

I would just like to see the price of HD movies to go down. I can't bring myself to spend 30+ dollars for a movie when the DVD version is $15. Then again I just rent movies on the net anyways, but still blu-ray movies are more often then enough on long wait.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by S. Thompson »

I'm still not ready to change formats... ah, well. I'm glad we at least know what we'll be getting into in the next few years.

I feel bad for everyone who bought an HD DVD player.

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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Nico0020 »

Yea I read this at xbox-scene the other day. Hate to see HD DVD go, but oh well. I can build myself a really cheap HD movie collection whenever stores start to clearance this stuff. I preferred HD DVD over BluRay, but I am glad to see the format war over. All I had though was the 360 Player and got a lot of free movies with that. And apparently M$ is going to have a Bluray360 player in the works as early as May.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Veggita2099 »

Nico0020 wrote:Yea I read this at xbox-scene the other day. Hate to see HD DVD go, but oh well. I can build myself a really cheap HD movie collection whenever stores start to clearance this stuff. I preferred HD DVD over BluRay, but I am glad to see the format war over. All I had though was the 360 Player and got a lot of free movies with that. And apparently M$ is going to have a Bluray360 player in the works as early as May.

Hopefully they reduce the price of that player drastically. I wouldn't mind buying one if it goes cheap enough.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Nico0020 »

I'd expect to see em really cheap on ebay reallllll soon
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Lunchbox »

Son of a bitch. $150 well spent :roll:

On another note, I finally have a valid excuse to buy a PS3 and I got one on Saturday :mrgreen:
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by gamedudex2 »

im glad to see the better format one for once. now hopes for some higher quality 1080p transfers down the line since bluray has a higher bit rate and more space.

also now hopes mitsubishi an samsung hurries up and get those 3d bluray players out this year when they go pofile 2.0, and or for sony to hurry up wit the firmware update for 3d support (mitsubishi is working with sony on that)


no need to hate sony, sony isnt the only company behind bluray they aren't even the top one, just the strongest one right now publicly with the ps3.

if i see anythig id want on hddvd i could always just grab a cheap one with a crap load of discs during the even bigger fire sales than previous ones during the holiday last year for hddvd.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by az_bont »

Amazon UK are now selling the Toshiba HD-EP30 HD DVD player for £77.99, which includes 300 and The Bourne Supremacy in the box. Seems quite the bargain, but according to this review, it struggles to match the performance of the more expensive models when it comes to video processing.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Dreamcast4life »

High Definition for movies is so over rated it makes me sick. Thank god for torrents and not spending money on something that isn't worth the price.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

I'll be rocking DVD for at least another 5 years.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by |darc| »

Jeeba Jabba wrote:I'll be rocking DVD for at least another 5 years.
I dunno. At this point I'm definitely going to be using DVDRs for quite a while, but I don't think I'll bother to buy anything until Blu-ray comes down in price. I don't want to have to rebuy anything.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Roofus »

gamedudex2 wrote:im glad to see the better format one for once. now hopes for some higher quality 1080p transfers down the line since bluray has a higher bit rate and more space.
Bluray has more space, but nearly every feature is optional, meaning there's no guarantee that a given disc will play on your player. If you're lucky, all you need is a firmware update. Unfortunately, since most Bluray players lack an Ethernet port (it's in the spec, but it's optional) you have to download the firmware on your computer and burn a disc.

For HDDVD, the entire spec was required, meaning that every player could play every disc. And they all had Ethernet, so no disc burning.

One could argue that having an all-optional spec is better because it opens the door for future expandability, but those people are wrong.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by mankrip »

Roofus wrote:Bluray has more space, but nearly every feature is optional, meaning there's no guarantee that a given disc will play on your player. If you're lucky, all you need is a firmware update. Unfortunately, since most Bluray players lack an Ethernet port (it's in the spec, but it's optional) you have to download the firmware on your computer and burn a disc.

For HDDVD, the entire spec was required, meaning that every player could play every disc. And they all had Ethernet, so no disc burning.

One could argue that having an all-optional spec is better because it opens the door for future expandability, but those people are wrong.
Oh crap. I foresee dozens of thousands of Blu-Ray players getting frustrated after buying shitty players. And my mom will almost certainly be one of them :?.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Ex-Cyber »

Roofus wrote:Bluray has more space, but nearly every feature is optional, meaning there's no guarantee that a given disc will play on your player.
AFAIK, that's not how it works. The only optional parts I've heard of are all Java-related stuff, and discs for the highest profile (which seems to be just a thinly-veiled way of saying "for the PS3, and maybe PCs someday") are already out, even though player support isn't (PS3 hasn't gotten the FW update yet) and play fine in existing players.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by az_bont »

You can now get the
Toshiba HD-EP30 HD DVD player with the usual two free films (300 and Bourne Supremacy) for £49.99 at Amazon and Play, or for £69.99 you can get the same player with the following five films on top of the other two at Play:

- Knocked Up
- Van Helsing
- Pitch Black
- The Thing
- The Chronicles of Riddick: The Director's Cut

I've just ordered that one and am quite pleased--a half-decent upscaling DVD player is about the same price, and even though this particular model didn't score as well for its image enhancement as previous models, it should still outperform other DVD players in its price range.

You can also get the Xbox 360 HD DVD player for £39.99 at Amazon, but that doesn't appear to include any free films.
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Re: Toshiba Pulls the Plug on HD DVD - Ends Format War

Post by Lunchbox »

I'm still wondering why I'm not seeing any price drops on hd dvds in my area yet. HMV is still selling them at full price right beside the blu-ray discs.
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