BTW, I thought the players are made in China so what HD DVD models were made in Japan? ??? ??? ???
hey if the a35 would sell for $100 id still buy one, it would still make a great upscaling sd-dvd player ;)
It can upscale but then limited to just one region of DVDs.. Only if there is a way to unlock these units..
May firmwares pa ba ilalabas ng Toshiba? If not, then puwede na ipa kalikot sa mga hackers...
Ito daw ang magiging press release ng Toshiba America...Hehehe
"We have long held the belief that HD DVD is the best format for consumers based on quality and value, and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Toshiba make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward."
I guess initially the cost of Blu-ray softwares and hardwares will be expensive but in the long run if these are not selling well, the cost will eventually go down. Just like what happened with DVD discs and DVD players.
I honestly thought hd-dvd was better for the consumer.
actually i think, since theres no longer competition, bluray will even costs more.
actually i think, since theres no longer competition, bluray will even costs more. How do you think sony will get its investment (ie. those payoffs or lagay they made to the studio companies, bestbuy, walmart..etc.) back? though im not a toshiba fan, I honestly thought hd-dvd was better for the consumer.
i really don't have much love for Sony. their TVs are overpriced. so is the PS3. so I don't think they will bring down the cost of blu ray (players or software). its against its nature. hehehe.
i hope i'm wrong though. will blu-ray really be the next big thing? or will it suffer the same fate as the laser disc and mini disc and whatever else have been introduced after the betamax and the dvds? abangan.
errr 17 companies hold BD patents, its not Sony who has the bigger share of the IP, its Panasonic, Sony kinda just became more known coz of its decision to put a BD drive in the PS3
haay. this is sad. :-\ magsasamantala na ang blu ray nyan. kawawa kaming mga mahihirap. hehe.
errr everybody is forgetting that Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, LG etc... are also selling BD drives and in Europe alone, HD discs (including HD-DVD) is outpacing the growth of the DVD since it started
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/international/news/e3if908f8e7990b7157065a14eacddd44ae
"The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced today that they have broken the two million discs sold milestone in Europe, only two months after selling their one millionth disc. According to research done by GfK International, a total of 2.4M Blu-ray discs have been sold across Europe since the format launched. This equates to 79% of the high definition market.
In December alone, a half million Blu-ray discs were sold during the important holiday season. The biggest seller during this time was 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' which sold nearly 100,000 units. Coming in second was 'The Simpsons Movie' followed by 'Casino Royale'. During this time, Blu-ray sold at a 3-to-1 ratio over rival high definition formats.
When comparing this success to DVD, the results are even more impressive. The second year of DVD resulted in 230,000 players and 2M discs sold. For Blu-ray, it has resulted in 3.5M players (3.2M PS3s and 340,000 standalone players) and 2.3M Blu-ray discs sold."
i doubt things will slow down now that the format war is over and again BD is not Sony's format, its Matsus**ta(Panasonic), Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung also
aha you are counting the PS3, mahirap i count who bought this one just for movies or games ^_^ don't forget that was just the 2nd year ^_^
Payoffs? i wonder where you got those sources, even that $500m payoff was just an imagining of some blogger which some news site picked up which has long since corrected them, anyways I'm glad this war is over, oh wait some HD-DVD die hards are even pushing for downloads vs BD @_@
do you really believe that a public company like bestbuy or walmart would publicly admit that they chose the other format because they were offered money? of course all youll hear are rumours because you wouldnt hear a public confirmation from those companies......err you might as well believe too the PNP official explanation that the glorietta explosion was caused by methane gas ;D :D
Let's just see nalang what will happen after hddvd is gone, and the so called baloney "confusion" is gone. I say baloney "confusion" is for one reason only. A lot are arguing about they dont want 2 formats bec daw it causes confusion like playing a hddvd disc on a bluray player or vice versa, or some other reasons. If sa disc lang they are confused, what more for doing FW updates for players. People argue that their kids can do it for them, most people are high tech now (its the so-called computer age). I really dont think so imo. Thats why I dont believe in this confusion two format baloney. If they cant figure out Red cover disc in toshiba and blue case disc in Sony, panasonic etc. To me this is the most simple thing to do, simpler than connecting to net and doing upgrades, restart etc. etc. Imagine pa if they will download it and put it in disc. It gets more complicated for some.
Back to the subject... everything is under the bridge now. HD DVD has lost and will be forgotten with all the other failed technology, a lot of which are Sony products BTW...hehehe.
The most interesting thing that can happen tomorrow is if Toshiba does not announce anything or deny NHK's Saturday night prime news. ;D ;D ;D.
BLu Ray winning the format war is all the more reason to finally get a PS3. ;D
was NHK just blowing hot air?
Come on, that's NHK. It's not as if it was reported on TV Patrol.
;D
For now it looks like Blu-ray won the format war. But in my opinion, the real winner in the future is the SSD (solid state device) and Hard drive manufacturer. I can see that most digital content will resides in a "memory or hard drive". Look what happened to music: from vinyl to cassete tapes to MiniDisc to CDs to MP3 players (iPods,iPhones, Zune, etc). And there are signs that video/movies will follow the same route.
I really dont like hd downloads, I like readily available discs better. Looks better for collection purposes hehe...Our internet speed is too slow for downloads. Hi speed internet here cost too much. Sabagay cheaper than buying discs na yan if you compare the pricing monthly. 3 thou lang ata monthly the 2MB speed?
I really dont like hd downloads, I like readily available discs better. Looks better for collection purposes hehe...Our internet speed is too slow for downloads. Hi speed internet here cost too much. Sabagay cheaper than buying discs na yan if you compare the pricing monthly. 3 thou lang ata monthly the 2MB speed?
and hoping to see less of Bill Hunt's rants and raves..... ;D ;D ;D)
Michael Bay should be very happy by now... ;D
The consumers have spoken!
Finally, time to buy/upgrade to a dedicated BD player! ;D ;D ;D
Panasonic DMP-BD30 or the Panasonic DMP-BD50?
C'MON UNIVERSAL AND PARAMOUNT! ANNOUNCE YOUR CAPITULATION AND GIVE US BLU RAY MOVIES!!!
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., Matsucrapa 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 ($15.7 billion) for two plants in Japan to produce sophisticated chips called NAND flash memory, which are used in portable music players and cell phones. Production there will start in 2010.
When something like this happens....you know what's next???SARS ALERT...SARS ALERT...SARS ALERT!!!
Upgrade to Bluray... ::)
What if our muslim brothers in Quiapo start selling P*** HD DVD disc . Would this signal that war is not yet over here....
Possible ? who knows
What if our muslim brothers in Quiapo start selling P*** HD DVD disc . Would this signal that war is not yet over here....
Possible ? who knows
sad sad news for everyone as i think BD will start imposing its higher prices to everyone.
still stocking on cheap hd dvds for now :)
ill get a BD player when it hits 200$ or so.
i personally think its not in sony's interest to jack up the prices, because now that they are alone as the only disc based hd content provider, their next challenge is how to make people in the u.s. adopt to this tech faster, their main concern now should be how to shift people from buying dvd (players and content) to bluray (players and content). but, we will have to find out what sir howard stringer and his cohorts are thinking....
ps3 is now at 399$, almost all video game insiders are saying it may hit 299$ by november this year. but i think buying now is already a good option. @ 399$ bluray player (firmware upgradeable, with high-def games player pa!)
sonys interest is to make money. with hd dvd out of the picture... price dropping has already been reduced. they are not threatened anymore with hd dvd price drops everywhere. i agree that the ps3 is a good deal at 399 if you like games. but i prefer the games of the xbox 360...which i already have. 399 for a BD player alone is still too high for me.
pakyaw muna ako dirt cheap hd dvds in the meantime :D
too bad its only for the EU market :P
Too bad for EU market, they're paying the equivalent of $598.
sonys interest is to make money. with hd dvd out of the picture... price dropping has already been reduced. they are not threatened anymore with hd dvd price drops everywhere. i agree that the ps3 is a good deal at 399 if you like games. but i prefer the games of the xbox 360...which i already have. 399 for a BD player alone is still too high for me.
pakyaw muna ako dirt cheap hd dvds in the meantime :D
Not unlike Toshiba. What, you think toshiba's a philanthropic corporation? They didn't fight for their format with the consumers' interest in mind. If they did, then they wouldn't have been bull-headed during the talks of merging the BD and HD DVD format. Thinking that only Sony is evil in the capitalist market is living in Lala land. Toshiba's in it for the money, and billions of it, i might add, if ther format had won.
Also, BD is NOT an monopoly, since, it's not one corporation. unless you're willing to acknowledge that Toshiba will monopolize the HD market if the HD DVD was the one who won. For those who would say otherwise, please explain how come DVD came out differently? Let me cut out the work for you: it's because different companies still need to compete with each other in marketing their own DVD players.
Hmm, you say Sony will abuse prices? How did the 3.5 floppy format and the CD format, both of which are Sony-originated formats, fare in that regard?
I'm not a Sony lover, but I don't get blinded by FUD. The fact of the matter is companies will still compete to have their merchandises top the competition, regardless the format. If you find Sony's BD player more costly, then pick up one made by Pioneer, LG, Panasonic, etc. THAT's where the competition is.
Sony jacks up the price of Blu-ray
No competition
By Nick Farrell: Thursday, 13 March 2008, 8:39 AM
SONY appears to have jacked up the price of Blu-ray players now that it has killed off HD-DVD.
Tom's Hardware is reporting that Blu-ray disk players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are the most expensive they have been all year.
According to Pricegrabber.com a few months ago the average price for a Blu-ray player was $300. Now it is $400.
Within just the last two weeks, the average prices for LG's BH200 player and Sharp's BD-HP20U have climbed significantly.
It seems that Sony has decided that punters have no choice and will pay through the nose to be on the next technology bandwagon.
However Sony has cocked up on pricing before, an example is its overpriced PS3 which sat on the shelves for ages and lost ground to the technologically less superior XBOX 360 and the Nintendo Wii gismo before the outfit realised.
Toms Hardware points out that the same thing seems to be happening with Blu-ray players now. Most sales for the technology have come from users who have accidently bought the technology with the PS3.
Even with the format wars over, most punters are looking at Blu-ray like boffins who predict that the world will end in several billion years.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/13/sony-jacks-price-blu-ray (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/13/sony-jacks-price-blu-ray)
Or maybe it's just "disposing of inventory no one would buy, anyway." ;D
Good one Mr. Hankey. Probably this is the main reason.... ;D
actually, i would still buy most of the titles, if the price is right. say, $5 each. ;)