Toshiba shutting HD DVD manufacturing facilities: what will early adopters do?
Filed under: Electronics, High Definition | By: Daniel
Posted on: February 17, 2008 | 19 Comments
Two days ago Mark wrote about news breaking of Toshiba’s HD DVD format coming to an end and the company should be pulling the plug soon, but today we have it confirmed that Toshiba is shutting HD DVD manufacturing facilities in Aomori Prefecture, Japan.
This information is coming from an NHK article and Reuters, the official word from Toshiba should be coming within a couple of days.
So what will all the HD-DVD early adopters do now, all those external Xbox 360 HD-DVD drives and other players will be as useful as Beta Max soon.
If you own a HD-DVD player, we want to hear how you feel?
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MC, I guess you did not understand the Question:I’ll put it here so you can see it again :”If you own a HD-DVD player, we want to hear how you feel?” I could not see how your comment relates to that question.
If this is true it will be a shame. I’ve watched both blu-ray and hd dvd movies and see no difference in quality. To enter into the hd relm, I looked at two factors: price and picture quality,(which is what the average consumer cares about, not the extra stuff on the disk) so I purchased a Toshiba HD player for $125.
I’m new to the HD scene and I am confused as to why the $400 - 500 Blu ray players have been so successful with the average consumer.
Has Blu Ray really been that successful? In sales terms aren’t we really taking about Blu Ray and HD DVD fighting over something like 2% of total DVD sales? The PS3 is the trojan horse that one the war. It was a great move by Sony to release a console with zero decent games to play on it for 12 months.
As a HD DVD owner I am saddened by the news of the formats demise, as I thought it was a technically excellent format that outstripped Blu Ray in many areas…bar your 7.1 soundtracks, but who honestly has that kind of speaker set up at home? Give me picture in picture over sound any time!
The worse format has won in my opinion…all it had going for it was disc capacity. If HD DVD was so inferior, it wouldn’t have taken this long (and this many big studio pay offs) to declare victory!
Let’s start with Rick Fowler, bold statements and I don’t see you backing them up there. Seems like we could say you’re all about propaganda.
Second, why does this have to be all about movies? What about the disks as storage devices as well. I mean yes, we have hard drives and such, but what about this as a new storage medium? Why are all of you stuck on movies? ( although they do look fantastic)
Duncan, I have 7.1 in my house so I’m one of “those” people. 7.1 is a bit of a smoke and mirrors setup I’ll give you that, but my amplification is wonderful, and in large rooms it does well. Picture in Picture, can you give me a reason why you even made this statement?
Rickofsen-……….. “price won’t go down”……… Mass manufacturing of the technology, blu-ray diodes have already dropped in price, and well we can see this with the PS3.. Do I need to say anymore?
I guess I would be bitter too if I had an inferior soon to be obsolete investment in my room.. Ha it’s harsh when you come to terms with the fact that assets lose value, and debt doesn’t. Going back to SD really? In the words of MC you are pathetic.
Dear Terance I’ll make the statement again. You also must not have understood what the subject was about for these comments Here it is one more time: “If you own a HD-DVD player, we want to hear how you feel?” What my post was about was how I feel and my name is Ron by the way. Seems like you have a problem with facts as well as instructions. You can’t even get a name right. Now that’s pathetic.
Really I don’t care if your name is Ron, Rick, Rod, or Marty. The fact of the matter RON is that this really could be considered an open forum for discussion for both sides of the table. Naturally conversation will sway from side to side as people discuss the pros and cons of these formats.
Funny though, you seem to be more about talking about nothing and trying to make it into something. Sounds like your a conspiracy theorist to me. I’m in marketing and I understand how people can be persuaded. I get that, and I’ll restate this again. YOU MAKE BOLD STATEMENTS AND DON’T BACK THEM UP. So Ron, would you like to start there, because if you backed up your statements then we would be talking about HD-DVD wouldn’t we. Oh and I believe you still own your worthless player too, so this conversation would back the title of this discussion again if you backed up your statements.
One more thing, If you would like all the blu-ray people to leave, we can. Maybe this should be a closed discussion, about “How could this happen” “Why, why, why” and you can wine and cry all day long. Not really going to stop the stinging from the salt in the wound is it?
Or we could discuss the pro’s and cons of the formats, people could answer my questions that I posed. And maybe, JUST MAYBE we could have a conversation. The only people that I called pathetic were the ones going back to SD.I guess this could be b/c blu-ray players at this point in time are expensive ( and according to RON the prices won’t drop)The way you express yourself, it sounds like a boy leaving a sandlot, mad, and taking his ball too. As if you were going to stick with SD until the next (hopefully not) format war.. 4k and something else most likely.
Terance I guess with people like you to guide us, since you know everything and all already, there is no need to have forums and discussions. Everyone by now should know to except anything you say as the gospel. Of course your lack of maturity in your attacks on people prevent that from happening. I was expecting to see comments that are common to me and my situation based on the criteria for the comments asked for here. Oh, and by the way the criteria does limit the discussion to, I’ll put here for you again: If you own a HD-DVD player, we want to hear how you feel?
Never claimed to be the oracle Ron. I’m not really attacking anyone else but you, because you’re not backing anything up.
Don’t even really know why you should say everyone should follow me, nor do I really want that responsibility. Especially if I have to deal with people like you who make hollow statements. Tell me why you FEEL BDA is a propaganda machine. Tell me what makes you FEEL they have made misleading statements. Tell me why you FEEL HD-DVD is a better media format, and overall better storage device for at least the next 5 years. Give me something to work with Ron. Those are pretty specific questions to the comments you made don’t you think? I’m sorry that I have to spell everything out for you and ask you each question. Guess it goes to show the mentality that was driving HD-DVD in the first place.