Toshiba just announced it..
Quote:Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.
Unbelievable how quickly the high def war was won... This definitely didn't play out like the protracted battle between Betamax and VHS..
the PS3 just went up in value :P
I've been waiting for them to officially announce it!
I have noticed over the past couple months all the HD-DVD players on sale for $150 or less, and they throw in 5-7 free HD-DVDs as well.. I knew it was coming just from seeing that. Not to mention the xbox 360 HD-DVD players all selling for about $100 plus some free movies.
Time to start saving for blu-ray! Wife just bought a 32" HDTV yesterday, so at least we can view them properly whenever we decide its time for a player.
Get a PS3 while you still can.
They might sell out now that the "war" is over, LoL.
My 40GB PS3 will soon be flooding with free space when I drop a 250Gb drive in it... :P
Thats until I fill it up with my music and XviD movies ;)
You see, I've had my PS3 for a month and a half now. Somehow, I knew (read:hoped) that blu-ray would be the chosen format for HD media.
Time to get myself that BD burner with my next Dell order ;)
Gravter,Feb 19 2008, 09:47 AM Wrote:Get a PS3 while you still can.
They might sell out now that the "war" is over, LoL.
My 40GB PS3 will soon be flooding with free space when I drop a 250Gb drive in it... :P
Thats until I fill it up with my music and XviD movies ;)
You see, I've had my PS3 for a month and a half now. Somehow, I knew (read:hoped) that blu-ray would be the chosen format for HD media.
Time to get myself that BD burner with my next Dell order ;)
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I've got a 250gb drive in the PS3 and a 320gb external attached. What space problem? lol
Glad I went with Blu-ray.
just have to find a blu ray player in my area, but a PS3 would do nicely as well.
Makes me happy we got a PS3.
HD-DVD was an idea that might have worked out better for consumers had it not been going against the BDA led by Sony, who were willing to throw bucketfuls of cash at studios and lose money on the hardware at the same time.
HD-DVD players, out of the box for the most part worked the way that they were designed to, Blu Ray players to date still are not at their final specs, the only Blu Ray players capable of meeting those specs is the Sony PS3.
Toshiba didn't do enough to make people understand and appreciate this and because of that they find themselves on the losing end of the war.
NefCanuck
actually, HD DVD did throw money at the studios.
I think there's 2 things that ultimately hurt HD DVD
- too open a format (studios don't want to support a regionless format or otherwise that could lose them money down the road)
- brand name didn't separate it far enough from DVD -- people know the clear difference between BD and DVD, but not necessary HD DVD and DVD
in a format war based soley on content, you really need the studios on board, and I think that sony eventually was able to win them over by providing a stronger brand separation, possiblity of increased profits and a pre-existing user base (PS3 owners).
I heard three weeks ago that bluray had 80-85% of the market, know surprise there. I would say getting a PS3 would be the best bet. The graphics are crazy.
so does this mean ps3 prices will go up?
naz,Feb 19 2008, 04:19 PM Wrote:so does this mean ps3 prices will go up?
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no, it means that the xbox360 BD add-on will cost as much as a PS3...
darkpuppet,Feb 19 2008, 03:35 PM Wrote:naz,Feb 19 2008, 04:19 PM Wrote:so does this mean ps3 prices will go up?
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no, it means that the xbox360 BD add-on will cost as much as a PS3...
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I don't see any benefit to that. The benefit of having the BR in the PS3 is that it functions as a BR player AND can use the 50+GB player for data storage (ie games). The xBox HD drive is for movies only, so xBox games are still limited to the capacity of a normal 9GB DVD.
Why someone would have spent over $100 for an add-on drive on an xBox when they could have got a stand-alone for under $200 is beyond me, but it's their money...
I wonder how much Sony paid to have this format pushed! lol And to boot, all this happens while I'm debating on getting the HD add-on for my 360.
And one advantage to the add-on I've read over and over is the fact that once the drive's lasers burn out, the system isn't rendered useless, just the add-on player. Something to the tune of that.
euro_zx5,Feb 19 2008, 06:36 PM Wrote:And one advantage to the add-on I've read over and over is the fact that once the drive's lasers burn out, the system isn't rendered useless, just the add-on player. Something to the tune of that.
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Is that any different than watching a DVD on an xBox with no add-on drive? Do xBox owners not watch DVDs to "save" their drives? Apparently Sony fixes PS3s out of warranty for $150. I personally don't watch Bluray movies enough hours to make an overall impact on drive life so personally I'm not concerned.
That's true, I think it was just a last minute decision for Microshaft. Although I still like the gameplay way better on a 360 and Wii than I do the PS3. But if the dvd hd format goes in this direction, I wouldn't think twice to get a PS3... once I get a home theatre set up. I mean honestly, as said above... the format still isn't 'complete', and with the price of BR Players, why waste the money on a generic player over a PS3 that I have the option to play games... like Sony only titles. (none that I care for are coming to mind as of yet of course... lol)
OAC_Sparky,Feb 19 2008, 07:46 PM Wrote:euro_zx5,Feb 19 2008, 06:36 PM Wrote:And one advantage to the add-on I've read over and over is the fact that once the drive's lasers burn out, the system isn't rendered useless, just the add-on player. Something to the tune of that.
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Is that any different than watching a DVD on an xBox with no add-on drive? Do xBox owners not watch DVDs to "save" their drives? Apparently Sony fixes PS3s out of warranty for $150. I personally don't watch Bluray movies enough hours to make an overall impact on drive life so personally I'm not concerned.
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euro_zx5,Feb 19 2008, 07:36 PM Wrote:I wonder how much Sony paid to have this format pushed! lol And to boot, all this happens while I'm debating on getting the HD add-on for my 360.
And one advantage to the add-on I've read over and over is the fact that once the drive's lasers burn out, the system isn't rendered useless, just the add-on player. Something to the tune of that.
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Sony didn't exactly pay out to push the format.. definitely not in the vein of the $150 million given to paramount to go HD DVD.
And I can't say I've ever heard of a DVD laser burning out.. the MTF of many diode lasers is at least 50,000 hours... which means you'd have to watch 25,000 movies and then only half are expected to fail.
And that means just under 6 years of non-stop playback. I personally sleep about 1/3rd of the time, so I will get a good 7.5 years before I have to worry about the laser burning out. I had my PS2 for 7 years... and DVD playback is the one thing that never went on it.
So I just don't get the $120 add-on for the xbox drive when I could buy a standalone on sale for $120-$150.
I think HD DVD would have been better had they used the HD DVD/DVD spec. They had the option to release with DVD on one side and HD DVD on the other. So you could sell the same movie to both parties and when they upgraded they could still use their movies. And when they went to a friends house, they could still use their movies etc..
It was in the specification... they just never used it.
darkpuppet,Feb 20 2008, 02:50 PM Wrote:And that means just under 6 years of non-stop playback. I personally sleep about 1/3rd of the time, so I will get a good 7.5 years before I have to worry about the laser burning out. I had my PS2 for 7 years... and DVD playback is the one thing that never went on it.
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i think a heat related failure (RRoD anyone? :ph34r: ) is more likely than the diode failing