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HD DVD CES Press Event canceled

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HD DVD CES Press Event canceled

Postby Wesociety on Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:47 am

I received an email from the HD DVD Promotions group stating that the HD DVD Press Event has been canceled.

http://wesleytech.com/ces-hd-dvd-event- ... ement/483/

Notice of CES Press Conference Cancellation by North American HD DVD Promotion Group

“Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference scheduled for Sunday, January 6th at 8:30 p.m. in the Wynn Hotel. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps. We believe the consumer continues to benefit from HD DVD’s commitment to quality and affordability – a bar that is critical for the mainstream success of any format.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on new developments around HD DVD.”
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Postby Ian on Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:00 am

Damn, that announcement really threw a monkey wrench in their plans.
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Postby CowboySlim on Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:31 am

Will they layoff the Booth Babes? :(
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Postby oslik3 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:37 am

CowboySlim wrote:Will they layoff the Booth Babes? :(


:D :D =D>
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:47 am

Makes you wonder if maybe Universal is planning on going neutral now or maybe HD DVD has no more real positive news they can whip together in a hurry?

No matter how you look at it, I'd say Toshiba is in serious panic mode right now with their Hi-def format!
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Postby Ian on Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:53 pm

Toshiba should have kept the press event, said that things will be fine and give the press a bunch of free beer and HD DVD players.
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Postby RJW on Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:32 pm

That wouldn't work after quite some press trashed last year CES with a report that Toshiba and the HDVD came with a poor presentation which said nothing !
Now quite some press (specially the euro-press) had very low expectations and were not that positive at first hand.
So Toshiba and MS started hyping stuff the last weeks of december and last week and now this happens.
Also there is the problem that if you use Hary Potter in your speech to suggest how good your format is selling compared to the competition then it looks really bad if the same companny just decided to no longer support your format. It wouldn't do that much.
After Warners jump a everything will be allright and we have not much to show compared to the earlier news would be screwed. Next the questions round could have been devestating enough to just give it enough negative press to kill the format even faster.
So best option is to delay it and get together something that works and still looks ok or think of actually something bigger to overshadow this. (But I don't think they can do the last.)
The problem is MS and toshiba have put the spotlight to much on there show and now Warner decision screwed it up so much that if they slightly fuck up then they are in problems.
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Postby RJW on Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:52 am

Looks that MS announcement was the fact that they secured a lot of content for there xbox live download service including stuff from MGM and Disney.
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Postby vinnie97 on Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:16 am

I'm not excited, Bill. =;
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:20 am

HD DVD press conference cancelled by Toshiba. Warner is now Blu-Ray exclusive. MS's big news was about XBox Live and is saying nothing about HD DVD. Paramount is "supporting HD DVD" and yet not announcing any new titles.

But don't worry, I hear that Toshiba's showing off those same HD DVD-R burners for the third CES in a row... so I'm *SURE* they're just about ready to launch them finally :lol:

I mean, thank god that Toshiba is still optomistic about HD DVD.... SOMEBODY has to be... right? :wink:
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Postby vinnie97 on Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:00 am

There's little to be optimistic about Blu-Ray either. :-#
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:06 am

vinnie97 wrote:There's little to be optimistic about Blu-Ray either. :-#


Care to elaborate on that at all? Most people consider the end of the format war to be a GOOD thing, even if their preferred format didn't win.
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Postby Wesociety on Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:46 pm

dolphinius_rex wrote:But don't worry, I hear that Toshiba's showing off those same HD DVD-R burners for the third CES in a row... so I'm *SURE* they're just about ready to launch them finally :lol:

To address your comment here, I would like to state that I spoke with someone directly in the Toshiba storage division at their CES booth. Toshiba has no plans to bring desktop (half-height) HD DVD burners to the market under their own brand name. The Toshiba rep stressed that this is an OEM product only and that it will only be available to PC builders or to other companies to rebrand as their own.

So the real question is, why won't Toshiba sell these drives under their own name to help advance the HD DVD format? Is the performance so bad that it can not warrant a retail product and manufacturer support? Possibly...
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Postby Ian on Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:55 pm

Wesociety wrote:So the real question is, why won't Toshiba sell these drives under their own name to help advance the HD DVD format? Is the performance so bad that it can not warrant a retail product and manufacturer support? Possibly...


They really don't have a retail PC drive business anymore. Even when they did, you really didn't see their drives in many places.

I'm guessing that the price of these drives is VERY high as they're not even being sold in Japan by companies like Buffalo and I-O Data.
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Postby vinnie97 on Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:26 am

dolphinius_rex wrote:
vinnie97 wrote:There's little to be optimistic about Blu-Ray either. :-#


Care to elaborate on that at all? Most people consider the end of the format war to be a GOOD thing, even if their preferred format didn't win.

Two words namely, price and JAVA (I'd add a third by mentioning Sony who are generally self-defeating when launching new formats but I'll restrain m'self this time ;)).
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:44 pm

vinnie97 wrote:
dolphinius_rex wrote:
vinnie97 wrote:There's little to be optimistic about Blu-Ray either. :-#


Care to elaborate on that at all? Most people consider the end of the format war to be a GOOD thing, even if their preferred format didn't win.

Two words namely, price and JAVA (I'd add a third by mentioning Sony who are generally self-defeating when launching new formats but I'll restrain m'self this time ;)).


Well, to each their own I suppose. Personally I consider JAVA to be a selling feature, and not a drawback. Also, I have no problem paying for the value of a product, and don't expect companies to constantly be selling things below cost to get my business. As for Sony, even my dislike of MS is not so strong as to make me immediately rule out using their products. And I dislike MS a heck of a lot more then Sony. I could also disprove the whole Sony->new format launch myth, but I'll restrain myself also :wink:
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Postby RJW on Sat Jan 19, 2008 1:00 pm

Wesociety wrote:
dolphinius_rex wrote:But don't worry, I hear that Toshiba's showing off those same HD DVD-R burners for the third CES in a row... so I'm *SURE* they're just about ready to launch them finally :lol:

To address your comment here, I would like to state that I spoke with someone directly in the Toshiba storage division at their CES booth. Toshiba has no plans to bring desktop (half-height) HD DVD burners to the market under their own brand name. The Toshiba rep stressed that this is an OEM product only and that it will only be available to PC builders or to other companies to rebrand as their own.

Then it's over.
Which companny is going to OEM these if the parent companny doesn't dare to release them under it's own name ??

So the real question is, why won't Toshiba sell these drives under their own name to help advance the HD DVD format? Is the performance so bad that it can not warrant a retail product and manufacturer support? Possibly...


They really don't have a retail PC drive business anymore. Even when they did, you really didn't see their drives in many places

They do in asia and europe. Which is were they did launch that HD-DVD rom drive.
And I haven't seen much positive stuff about it !

No the point here is.
Non of the OEM's are going to spend there money on some overpriced, terrible working format (because the recording part of HD-DVD sucks !) which the parent compannies does not even dare to release.

The fact that NEC decided to only release a rom drive on a very small scale and then allready left the sinking ship quietly should suggest enough.
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Postby Ian on Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:41 pm

RJW wrote:They do in asia and europe. Which is were they did launch that HD-DVD rom drive.
And I haven't seen much positive stuff about it !


lol.. the drive must have been really crappy if I didn't hear about it.
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Postby RJW on Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:09 pm

Well it wasn't released in the USA.
From what I heard it's slow and has very long seek times.
Can read DVD's/CD's and HD-DVD's (Doesn't say if some combo disc's do not fall under this one. :lol: )

http://www.alternate.nl/html/shop/produ ... l2=HD-DVD&

79 euro's for the oem toshiba version
also available the asus boxed HD-DVD drive (139 euro's) which has a whopping 2.4x HD-DVD read speed (0.4x faster as the toshiba !)
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Postby vinnie97 on Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:08 pm

dolphinius_rex wrote:
vinnie97 wrote:
dolphinius_rex wrote:
vinnie97 wrote:There's little to be optimistic about Blu-Ray either. :-#


Care to elaborate on that at all? Most people consider the end of the format war to be a GOOD thing, even if their preferred format didn't win.

Two words namely, price and JAVA (I'd add a third by mentioning Sony who are generally self-defeating when launching new formats but I'll restrain m'self this time ;)).


Well, to each their own I suppose. Personally I consider JAVA to be a selling feature, and not a drawback. Also, I have no problem paying for the value of a product, and don't expect companies to constantly be selling things below cost to get my business. As for Sony, even my dislike of MS is not so strong as to make me immediately rule out using their products. And I dislike MS a heck of a lot more then Sony. I could also disprove the whole Sony->new format launch myth, but I'll restrain myself also :wink:

The only widespread successful one has been CD and you know that was a joint effort with Phillips. And I even like their MD format (only took them a decade plus to get it right!). UMD? lol Memory stick? Shove that proprietary BS back to the labs please.

Java is, and has always been, clunky. HDi is more streamlined and less resource-intensive.
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Sun Jan 20, 2008 6:14 am

vinnie97 wrote:The only widespread successful one has been CD

Yeah you're right, the floppy disk totally bombed. It's not like it's the single longest running digital recording format or anything :wink:

vinnie97 wrote:and you know that was a joint effort with Phillips.


Don't forget Pioneer and Panasonic also had a lot of involvement in the CD format. Wouldn't it be nice to see those same 4 companies take a leading role in a new recordable format? They could make a disc association.... like say, the Blu-Ray Disc Association.... hey wait a minute... #-o

vinnie97 wrote:And I even like their MD format (only took them a decade plus to get it right!).

The problem with MiniDisc is that people though it was supposed to be a replacement for CDs... when actually it was supposed to be a compact high quality recording medium. It was great for what it was meant for, but most people in North America didn't really have a need for it really I don't think. Personally, I never much cared for it.

vinnie97 wrote:UMD? lol

I know, UMD is a joke, just like all those cartridge formats that Nintendo and Sega used on their game consoles way back when. Why game consoles like to use their own media formats to attempt to prevent game piracy is beyond me. And goodness knows that we don't see people buying popular TV shows on SNES cartridges to play on their SNES cartridge player for their home theatre system. Those formats were dead from day 1!! So lame.

vinnie97 wrote:Memory stick? Shove that proprietary BS back to the labs please.

I gotta admit, I do hate it when a single hardware supplier tries to shove proprietary technology down our throats *coughtoshibacough*, I have to deal with it myself with Fuji's XD format (which is significantly worse then Memory Stick in my opinion). The only bright thing I can say about Memory Stick, is that Sony has the hardware support to at least make Memory Stick compatible in many areas, including cameras, MP3 players, cell phones, DVD players, PS3's, PSP's, laptops, and even some TV's I believe now come with card readers. Still, I don't disagree with you on this one at all, SD and CompactFlash were more then adequate for most needs.

vinnie97 wrote:Java is, and has always been, clunky. HDi is more streamlined and less resource-intensive.

Can't really disagree here. But again, Java is more versatile. It's a trade off basically. I don't mind the loading times, but I can understand those who do. I don't have any personal problem with HDi though. Even though it comes from a company I thouroughly detest.
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Postby Ian on Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:26 am

lol.. another Sony hater. This seems to be a popular trend, even if you've never owned a Sony product.

Blaming Sony for Blu-ray is one of my biggest pet peeves. You never see TDK, Pioneer, Philips or Panasonic getting smacked around for their involvement in the development of the format.

Also, Sony played a big part in the development of DVD+R. While we really didn't need another recordable DVD format at the time, you don't see any Sony haters mentioning this.
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:22 am

Ian wrote:Also, Sony played a big part in the development of DVD+R. While we really didn't need another recordable DVD format at the time, you don't see any Sony haters mentioning this.


I blame HP a lot for DVD+R.... but that's just me :wink:
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Postby Wesociety on Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:20 pm

RJW wrote:The fact that NEC decided to only release a rom drive on a very small scale and then allready left the sinking ship quietly should suggest enough.

My assumption has always been that NEC ducked out of developing HD DVD drives once the Optiarc joint venture (Sony + NEC) was formed. And since Sony owned 51% of the joint venture, they had slightly more say in the direction of the company, hence no more HD DVD drives from NEC/Optiarc. It's kinda funny because NEC was displaying HD DVD burners at CES 2006 and supposedly, they were fully functional. I'm sure they were much better than Toshiba's own HD DVD burners...
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Postby vinnie97 on Mon Jan 21, 2008 3:45 am

dolphinius_rex wrote:
vinnie97 wrote:The only widespread successful one has been CD

Yeah you're right, the floppy disk totally bombed. It's not like it's the single longest running digital recording format or anything :wink:

Oh, FFS, floppy was indeed vital at one time but it's hardly more than a footnote today.

dolphinius_rex wrote:Don't forget Pioneer and Panasonic also had a lot of involvement in the CD format. Wouldn't it be nice to see those same 4 companies take a leading role in a new recordable format? They could make a disc association.... like say, the Blu-Ray Disc Association.... hey wait a minute... #-o

lol, I admit they have done their part in getting the recordable part down pat, leaving Toshiba in the dust. With Sony hardware accounting for the majority of all Blu-ray sales, however, it's difficult to acknowledge those other CEs' more hidden roles in the format.

The problem with MiniDisc is that people though it was supposed to be a replacement for CDs... when actually it was supposed to be a compact high quality recording medium. It was great for what it was meant for, but most people in North America didn't really have a need for it really I don't think. Personally, I never much cared for it.

Can't believe I'm about to say this....but what's there not to care for, especially today? PCM recording, on-the-fly editing and lossless transfers back and forth from a computer, not to mention encased discs with 1GB capacity. Granted, it was much more crippled through the 90s when it mattered the most but I am fiending a new portable (too bad about the price) since the death of my old Sharp.

I know, UMD is a joke, just like all those cartridge formats that Nintendo and Sega used on their game consoles way back when. Why game consoles like to use their own media formats to attempt to prevent game piracy is beyond me. And goodness knows that we don't see people buying popular TV shows on SNES cartridges to play on their SNES cartridge player for their home theatre system. Those formats were dead from day 1!! So lame.

I think you're being sarcastic here...but UMD being pushed as a movie format is where the real joke is, when one can simply convert a DVD and put it on the PSP itself or an appropriate memory card.

I gotta admit, I do hate it when a single hardware supplier tries to shove proprietary technology down our throats *coughtoshibacough*, I have to deal with it myself with Fuji's XD format (which is significantly worse then Memory Stick in my opinion). The only bright thing I can say about Memory Stick, is that Sony has the hardware support to at least make Memory Stick compatible in many areas, including cameras, MP3 players, cell phones, DVD players, PS3's, PSP's, laptops, and even some TV's I believe now come with card readers. Still, I don't disagree with you on this one at all, SD and CompactFlash were more then adequate for most needs.

I disagree with the Toshiba dig...those combo discs play in all DVD players, imagine that. It would seem Toshiba did back the right horse in 1993, with Pioneer, Hitachi, Matsushita, Mitsubishi and even Time Warner (HD DVD is built upon this technology after all)...I suppose I should even give Sony credit for backing away from their own competing proprietary format (a first) and compromising with the rest of the clan. Toshiba had earned bragging rights with the ultimate success of DVD, so I can understand their pride and singular push of HD DVD. I have no doubt Sony would have behaved similarly in the pre DVD era had Betamax been a resounding mass market success.

Can't really disagree here. But again, Java is more versatile. It's a trade off basically. I don't mind the loading times, but I can understand those who do. I don't have any personal problem with HDi though. Even though it comes from a company I thouroughly detest.

Just like the king of the Blu-ray format is a CO I thoroughly detest. Now that they have a vertical market advantage in every aspect of next gen motion picture entertainment (from the IP rights down to disc replication), we'll see just how much of a pariah they can be.
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