Investors cheer as Toshiba nears HD DVD surrender

Investors applaud an impending end to a format war for next-generation DVDs, pushing up shares of both Toshiba, on the verge of abandoning its HD DVD discs, and Sony, the leader of the rival Blu-ray camp.

The story "Investors cheer as Toshiba nears HD DVD surrender" published February 17, 2008 at 6:35 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[tbmccann]

Bad news for consumers

It's sad that the industry made the choice between the two formats instead of the consumer. HD DVD has a much better price point and only 2% of the population could care less about Blu-Ray discs having higher storage capacity. This should have been settle the same way Beta vs VHS was, the studios should have supported both formats and let the consumer decide who wins. The studios chose Blu-Ray for the profit margin. I don't see the market for this taking off until the prices fall in line with DVD. Ask anyone that sells electronics, the everyday consumer will not pay twice the price for a movie thats "HD" when the regular DVD still looks pretty good and even better on upscaling players.

[durango4]

Misinformed comment

In case you haven't realized this is the case with most new
technologies. Early adopters pay more for a number of basic well-
understood market reasons.

[ldhoover1]

Beta and VHS

The consumer didn't decide whether to buy BetaMax or VHS tape
players - BetaMax was obviously the better format by far - it
was when the movie studios bought up rights to the largest
percentage of movies and put them out in VHS - EXACTLY as is
happening now
I have a Beta movie camera and until the DV cameras came out
it took better pictures than anything else on the market even
though it was 20 yrs old - I had to buy a convertor to get the
movies into my computer and the convertor I bought was a
mini-DV camera It has audio and video inputs and could be
hooked to my computer by firewire
all my old beta tapes are now on my hard drives and will be
saved to Blu-Ray disks as soon as the price comes down a little,
which it will now that there is only one format to support - til
the next BIG thing comes along anyway - The only reason HD-
DVD had any support was because Microsoft wanted it for their
xbox and didn't want to pay royalties to Sony so they bought a
piee of Toshiba and started the competing format

[jrm125]

Consumers really did schoose

Considering the sales figures it would appear the consumers did choose.

And I think the thing everyone misses is, it was the inclusion of DRM that was appealing to the studios. I realize no one likes it, but that's what swayed decisions.

[devnull01]

Good news for the consumers

It is good that we, as consumers, for once was not short changed in a format war. Too many times we have seen the less capable format win just because they were backed by the right market owners. Now it looks like we will get a format witch is better than it's compeditor.

When it comes to price I'm convinced that we will see a price fall with BlueRay now that the war is over.

I can only sympathize with "tbmccann" who obviously just spent some of his/her money on a HD-DVD player.

[sommer182]

Blu-Ray will have short life-span

In the end it probably doesn't matter who won this war. VHS was around as the dominant format for what, 25 years? DVD didn't become a bigger seller until 2003, and now the tech companies expect us to purchase ALL NEW EQUIPMENT AND DISCS only five years later? The future doesn't look much better for us consumers. Technology continues to evolve at a fast pace, which is good for us geeks like myself who want the newest and the best, no matter what the spouse says. Blu-Ray will have less time to live than DVD did, IF IT CAN EVEN CATCH THE NUMBERS DVD HAVE SUPPORTED. High Def DVD format has a long way to go--no portable players, no players available for under $100 bucks (the price point before it will be viewed as needed by most people) and movies that cost WAY to much. And it will be five years or less before something better comes along and we all are forced to shell out money all over again for the same movies we have purchased a six times in the past 20 years!

[marcp662]

Blu-Ray

It may be a victory for Sony Blu-Ray but it is not for the consumer, Keep in mind before you buy that Blu-Ray DVD Player the movies are written in deffernt code then regular DVD?S so you will have to keep your old DVD player next to the new in order to see your old movies. At least with the HD DVD you could play both formats. Again the consumer looses.

[Neo Con]

Whatchu Talkin' Bout, Marcp?

Could you please point me to a single BD player that ISN'T backwards compatible with DVD? I can't seem to find one, dude.

Check it out:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=abcat0102003&type=category

I don't see one that doesn't say BD & DVD compatible. In fact, most of them "upconvert" DVD's to 1080p. Get a clue. :P

[couchpotato99]

The domino effect when Warners bailed

Without a shadow of a doubt, the bottom fell out on HD-DVD only after Warners Home Video withdrew support in January and went exclusively Blu-Ray. Undeniably, they have the largest video library of current and classic titles. It's a virtual gold mine!

Up until January, everything looked very positive for HD-DVD. Holiday sales were great on both the players and the discs. Technical and user reviews were extremely enthusiastic. All signs pointed to a bright future for HD-DVD.

The consumers exercised their freedom of choice, and they chose BOTH FORMATS! There is really absolutely nothing wrong with that. Except maybe for greedy retailers!

But then, for no LOGICAL reason, Warners gave up on HD-DVD. The dominoes immediately started to fall. To the nearly 1 million owners of HD-DVD players around the globe, it was a double-cross of massive proportions. One of the reasons they bought into HD-DVD in the first place was the availability of Warners titles, and the promise of many more to come from its huge library.

An investigation should be launched into what REALLY went into Warners "decision".

I suspect it will be an eye-opener.

[samkass]

HD DVD was dead 6 months ago...

"Up until January, everything looked very positive for HD-DVD. Holiday sales were great on both the players and the discs. Technical and user reviews were extremely enthusiastic. All signs pointed to a bright future for HD-DVD."

Actually, in the fourth quarter of last year Blu-ray media outsold HD DVD by 2-to-1 in the US, 3-to-1 in Europe, and 5-to-1 in Japan. Rentals were even worse. Blu-ray players outsold HD DVD by 9-to-1.

You have it backwards. Warner bailed BECAUSE of HD DVD's slow sales.

[sprockin]

lame

Who wrote that article for reuters, the president of Sony ?