Toshiba to enlist laptops to push HD DVD

The company is looking to land a knock-out blow against the Sony-led Blu-ray camp, but higher prices could hurt sales.

The story "Toshiba to enlist laptops to push HD DVD" published June 5, 2007 at 8:37 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[bobby_brady]

People want to watch HD on the road?

Will they even be able to tell the difference on a 14" LCD notebook monitor?

All the HD/Blueray dicussions are meaningless as IMO this format will never come to fruition in any meaningful way.

[paulsecic]

Retro

I don't even own a plain DVD player yet.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Once the price is right...

Once the price of hd dvd players get down to the price of a regular dvd player, then sales will take off as people who are first time buyers, or people who are looking for a replacement dvd player would be foolish not to purchase an hd dvd player over a regular dvd player. Considering an hd dvd player will support cd, dvd and hd dvd at the same price a person would be pretty dumb to buy the old tech.
Anyone who says HD DVD and Blue-Ray will both go nowhere has not seen HD side by side with normal NTSC.
The difference is like night and day.

[TaeSeung Yoo]

Yes, you can tell the difference.

Because you sit very close on labtop, you can tell difference between HD and SD. I think you can see difference as long as you are sitting within ~ 6 times of the height of screen (depending on eye). Which is true for notebook, not for small TV.

[Vidpath]

Blu-ray laptops have been around for a year!

Last time I checked, you could buy Blu-ray laptops from Sony, Dell and others. They have been available since the format launch.
Blu-ray drives for desktops have been around since launch as well. All of those drives are burners as well, so not just playback, but hefty data storage too.
I don't see this development changing much.
What people don't seem to realize is that adoption rate of Blu-ray is going faster in terms of units in homes and software (movie titles) than DVD.
People who actually buy this stuff like it. People who comment generally don't seem to actually purchase anything that's more than $20 off a pallet at Wal-Mart.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Good for Toshiba

Since Toshiba sells way more laptops than Sony does, this could very much be a blow to Sony.

Of course Toshiba's first HD DVD drive will likely actually play HD DVD movies, unlike Sony's first Blue-Ray drive.

Wonder which suckers got stuck with THAT drive?