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Toshiba Officially Announces End Of HD DVD

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:02 am
by Ian
It is finally over...

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/ir/en/ne ... 219_03.htm

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content


Tokyo—Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

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.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:23 am
by oslik3
I guess it now makes it easier for BestBuy employees to recommend BluRay... At least now they don't have to explain the difference between the two formats 8)

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:23 pm
by CowboySlim
oslik3 wrote:I guess it now makes it easier for BestBuy employees to recommend BluRay... At least now they don't have to explain the difference between the two formats 8)

Can you handle that, Hox?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:31 pm
by Grain
And that was that.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:59 pm
by Wesociety
Time to change the forum name to "Blu-ray Disc". :P

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:11 pm
by hoxlund
well explaining the differences will still be there

shit customers still ask me what are the differences between + and - blank dvds

PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:18 pm
by Grain
I for one am stockpiling the hardware :lol: . Bot a Toshiba XA2 for cheap off ebay, and a 360 add-on drive also from ebay for $50, which is the brick and mortar price now too #-o . Anyone looking to dump their HD-DVD collection, give me a PM.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:43 am
by Grain
:lol:

PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 7:55 pm
by Wesociety
I was able to sell most of my HD DVD's for about $10 each (via Craigslist), right before most of the online retailers started clearancing them out. I had very good timing. 8)

PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:44 am
by vinnie97
I've been buying more HD DVDs at said clearance prices. 8) Combo discs are twice as useful as HD DVD single format discs and in some cases both types of discs are more affordable than the DVD counterparts themselves.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:45 pm
by Grain
I've been buying up too, I'd rather have a $5-10 HD DVD than a $20-30 BD. Numerous Warner and Paramount HD DVD's are better than their BD counterparts too.

PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:40 pm
by dolphinius_rex
vinnie97 wrote:I've been buying more HD DVDs at said clearance prices. 8) Combo discs are twice as useful as HD DVD single format discs and in some cases both types of discs are more affordable than the DVD counterparts themselves.


What can I say, that's a pretty darn good point :wink:

PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:18 pm
by Dartman
Me as well. They keep dropping prices on movies I want or like I'm going to buy them. When it's all gone I'll still burn hdtv shows to regular dvd's to watch on the A2 so it will continues to have some HD duties.
Still haven't bought any blu movies yet, and wont as long as they're mostly 30 bucks each with almost no BOGO sales anymore or anything to tempt me.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:56 am
by vinnie97
^^ Head over to Wal-Mart...locally, they're $25 on average (while most of the HDs are $30 :eek:). ;)