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Toshiba To Halt HD-DVD Production
Multiple users have written to tell us that Toshiba is planning to halt production of devices related to HD-DVD. According to Japanese broadcasting network NHK, Toshiba will lose "hundreds of millions of dollars" as the format war finally draws to a close. Regardless, investors are pleased that Toshiba has made the decision to cut its losses. This comes after a last-ditch price cut was unable to prevent Wal-mart from throwing their lot in with Blu-ray, although some sources suggest that Wal-mart was already aware of Toshiba's plans to withdraw from fight.
Blu-Ray is so much easier on the tongue than a mouthful of acronym(s).
This is of course great news (that the war is over - nothing to do with who won), but having forked out for a Blu-Ray disc lately (running around $50 over here) I can honestly say that I wish I had not fallen for the blandishments of that sales guy who told me I should buy a smaller, but much higher definition, TV.
If I had my buying decision over I would say after the initial technogasm brought on by seeing every hair on the actor's heads, you very quickly forget about the quality and just wish your screen was bigger. (Apparently this is a common effect.)
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Exactly. When will huge multinational corporations stop forcing competition down people's throats and realize that what consumers want is monopolies, lack of choice and the resulting high prices!
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And in other news, satan is ice skating to work today.
1) Clever Sig 2) ????? 3) Profit!
The real competition is DVD. HD media isn't doing terrible by any means, numbers wise it is doing better than DVD was at this time in its life cycle. However DVD sales are dominating both HD formats. And thanks to this competition prices should continue to be reasonable as HD adoption hasn't taken over yet. Thus this lone single format should be good for HD business, and for consumers.
Insert something witty here...
I was kind of hoping HD DVD would win this one, now we'll be stuck with region locked movies for another decade till the next thing comes along.
They mean the same thing to a complex mind when the formats in question are both proprietary and do about the same thing.
In this case there was competition between the formats not only in which format was "better" in terms of storage quality (not to mention archival, access speed and other properties) but also even if one format was clearly superior which was better in terms of price and availability.
I don't think having both formats around was hurting anything as both are still in early adoption phases, most users don't have Blu-Ray or HD DVD yet and a large portion perhaps even a majority don't have the capabilities to use such formats (at least in the new abilities they provide) yet over the older standard.
I still see this as a bad thing and perhaps the "wars" are not over at all as Hard Drives, Flash drives and other storage options are coming down in price and are able to offer similar amounts of storage. The real contender in these "wars" as I see it could be download bandwidth rather than delivery of a physical piece of media.
In the end these media wars are good for the consumer. Take CDs for example, a format that won with relatively little competition. The way things are sold to consumers is that the new format is more expensive at first but as it takes hold and becomes dominant is prices drop to match the old cost with a margin determined by the cost of production. Music CDs are still fairly expensive and have not come down (as I believe) to a price comparable to that of Cassettes even though the older format has been more-or-less out of the market for several years now.
For Formats it is difficult to raise prices on consumers as there is an expectation that the prices will fall over time and consumers will need a reason to pay more with the information on the format primarily being a luxury good. However that expectation works both ways as consumers expect that two items of the same format will cost about the same on average.
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Like the PS2 was one of the biggest DVD players in the beginning, the PS3 will be the biggest Blu-ray player... that is untill in 1 1/2 year a $100 Samsung / LG profile 2.0 Blu-ray comes on the market.
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So there should be two formats or even more out in the world to give a choice for consumers? A choice to not buy either until one format wins so they don't get left with obsolete hardware where nothing new is going to be released on?
How about this, every studio comes up with their own format! That way, there's tons of choices for the consumer! Want to watch a Univeral or Paramount movie? You have to buy a special player to play their formats. Think of the possibilities! Think of the competition! Think of the illegal downloads because no one would want to put up with that bullshit!
I think your analogy needs work.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.
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