IndiesHD » HD DVD

HD-DVD is dead officially

gbalaji — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:51:10 +0000

Toshiba press release to discontinue HD-DVD business via Gizamodo,
19 February, 2008

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.

End of HD-DVD!

gbalaji — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:35:08 +0000

It’s inevitable that HD-DVD camp is surrendering their defeat clean and out. Engadget is reporting that Toshiba, the sole saviour of HD-DVD with price reduction in all forms for last few months is reevaluating market and was reported to be on development of Blu-ray players on their labs.

From the words of Toshiba via Engadget,

“Jodi Sally, VP of marketing for Toshiba America Consumer Products, was quoted as saying that “given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of its recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.”People hold on before purchasing any cheap HD-DVD players with free contents.

The end of HD-DVD is inevitable by above reports.

HD-DVD authoring links

gbalaji — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:22:26 +0000

Microsoft has created a website where you can know all the information about HD-DVD authoring and also provided tools which can be used to author HD-DVD.

While the technology used to author HD DVD interactivity support far more advanced capabilities, the production process and workflow is similar to that for authoring standard DVDs.HD DVDs use HDi™ technology to provide advanced interactivity. HDi™is based on widely adopted Web technologies, such as HTML, XML, CSS, SMIL, and ECMAScript (JavaScript), therefore authoring in HDi™ is an easy transition for Web developers.

List of contents in the website are as follows:

An introduction to HD-DVD authoring
HD DVD interactivity jumpstart package
HDi interactive sample code
HD DVD interactive Authoring forum
HDi related blogs from microsoft

HP Desktop with Blu-ray & HD-DVD combo writer

gbalaji — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 06:03:33 +0000

via Engadget,

Regrettably, there’s not a lot to go on just yet, but DigiTimes has it that HP will soon be launching “next-generation PCs with a Blu-ray / HD DVD dual-format burner.” The announcement was reportedly issued at a product presentation held in Singapore, and while no model numbers were doled out, we can purportedly expect the two-faced machines to land in Europe and America sometime next month.

Balaji Note: Hp is taking a great initiative to promote HD-DVD and Blu-ray to end user than the original creators of both side.

LG Blu-ray & HD-DVD combo Player for $999

gbalaji — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:10:46 +0000

Via EngadgetHD,

LG has shown in CEDIA booth , their new combo player playing both HD-DVD and Blu-ray for the price tag of $999. Cool.

Will samsung and LG take HD-DVD and Blu-ray players and media to the masses?

Post your thoughts?

India still in Standard Definition world!

gbalaji — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:15:26 +0000

Are we really part of digital Revolution?

U.S, Europe and Japan are talking about HD Broadcast / HD-DVD & Blu-Ray disc wars. We in India not able to find HD-DVD & Blu-Ray Blank Discs / Recorders / Players to begin with. It seems that, there is non-availbility of HD-DVD media as well as HD-DVD writer from joint developers of this format NEC & Toshiba in India. Infact both the company staffs in india dont even have the idea of what it is while contacted through Email and Phone.

Major DVD-Authoring studios in india are finding it difficult to source HD-DVD & Blu-Ray Discs (Blank Media), Recorders and Players.

Come on China, India needs more HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Blank Discs / Recorders & Players to flood our market. More indian houses are buying LCD TV’s from Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Sony and we dont have the content both in inform of HD Broadcast channels or HD-DVD / Blu-Ray. We dont even have the clear cut announcement from Government when will we the HD broadcast policy be formulated.

Are by anychance, India in race for HD-DVD / Blu-Ray / HD-Broadcast?
Post back your comments and feedback what do you think about HD-DVD / Blu-Ray / HD Broadcast in India.

HD DVD Web features

gbalaji — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:51:26 +0000

Via Engadget

There is no doubt that both Hi-Def disc formats are a work in progress, and the latest update (for second-generation HD DVD players only) from Toshiba keeps HD DVD’s interactive content at least one step ahead of Blu-ray. This latest update will help HD DVD fans enjoy web-enabled content included on a few titles like Warner’s Blood Diamond, which hits the streets tomorrow; the update also resolves a few other issues such as the dreaded chroma bug. Like previous updates, you can download it directly to the player, (if it’s connected to the Internet) or request a free update disc from Toshiba.

Read — Blood Diamond’s web-content
Read — HD DVD chroma bug
Read — Firmware download

Microsoft not so interested on HD Optical Disc support

gbalaji — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 08:30:10 +0000

EngadgetHD reports that Microsoft is not so keen on supporting HD Optical Discs both HD DVD and Blu-ray.Richard Doherty of Microsoft says that they are not ready to deliver HD content on an optical disc in five to ten years time period and further dug his hole by suggesting that his company would “rather the content not be on a disc” at all. Of course, he wasn’t truly stating that HD DVD and Blu-ray discs would be obsolete in under a decade, as he explained that digital downloads were simply the wave of the future. Further said that Microsoft is not backing HD DVD Game in near future and threw in one last cheap shot by saying that “Blu-ray had not delivered the interactive content like HD DVD”.