Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Toshiba Going After Blu-ray?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the deja-what-now dept.

Swifty Nifty has an adventure submitted a link to a story about Toshiba's new High Def Disc Format. No, I'm not kidding — apparently Blu-ray has a new contender. This seems to be intended as a DVD backwards-compatible format, but there's not a lot of detail.

9 of 532 comments (clear)

  1. This has GOT to be a hoax! by sirwired · · Score: 5, Informative

    After the multi-billion dollar (err... Yen) shellacking that Toshiba just took over HD-DVD, I cannot imagine in their wildest dreams that they would try again. The article notes that this is an unconfirmed rumor, and I fully expect that it is just that, a rumor, and one with absolutely no basis in fact.

    SirWired

    1. Re:This has GOT to be a hoax! by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Informative

      Origin, Looking Glass Studios, Black Isle come immediately to mind. LucasArts also went bankrupt, and laid everyone off. There is a company today called LucasArts, but it is a new company that operates out of ILM. Some companies like Maxis and Sierra are shells of their former selves, with the parent company folded basically, and a large publisher buying the name.

      And talk to any game dev. I used to be a real forum rat for various game development forums. There is a reason that game houses prefer to develop for consoles. Sales on consoles are higher, not because there are more consoles on the market than PCs, but because PC higher is far higher than console piracy.

      Console piracy exists, but is far more difficult.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  2. Is this the same thing..? by Kokuyo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I didn't read TFA, but since heise.de just brought an anouncement that Toshiba is planning to kill Blu-Ray by introducing a normal DVD player with enhanced upscaling... Is this the same thing or are they betting on two horses?

    The heise article is here: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Toshiba-setzt-Kampf-gegen-Blu-ray-Disc-mit-einem-DVD-Player-fort--/meldung/108830

  3. RTFA - I know, I'm wierd.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    But I actually read the article.

    Its just a DVD player with built in upscaling capabilities.

    See where it says

    "One Japanese report appeared to suggest that the new technology would be able produce much higher-resolution images from existing DVDs, but did not address the apparent impossibility of this claim.

    The modified DVD format relies on a newly-developed large scale integrated circuit chip to rapidly convert the stored video, but no technical details were released."

    Not a new format, just HD-DVD/Blu-Ray resolution output

    Basically doing in the DVD Player what many TV's do internally.

  4. Re:What Happened When HD-DVD Gave Up by SputnikPanic · · Score: 5, Informative

    HD-DVD is dead and buried, and if Blu-Ray prices don't go down -- substantially and soon -- Blu-Ray will wither on the vine. I was at Costco this weekend and the two Blu-Ray players for sale there were $379 and $449 for Sony and Panasonic models respectively. At Costco! Not many folks I know going to buy at those prices, especially when the gas station is hitting them for $60 every week...

  5. Re:What Happened When HD-DVD Gave Up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unbelieveable bull.

    Over here in EU what has happened:

    - Player prices have dropped, several manufacturers have come up with new devices and many of them are fast, silent and possess a great upscaler for old movies.
    - BluRay disc sales have multiplied in the past 6 first months of this year.
    - HD gets constant attention, especially in combination with new flat screen tvs, digital television and PS3/X360.
    - I keep getting "Get new BluRay player" and "PS3 with BluRay!" ALL the time from almost every imaginable media from print to TV to radio.

    I don't know where you live in but over here BluRay is doing just fine and things are picking up nicely.

  6. maybe not by poetmatt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wasn't china working on their own High Def format?

    Toshiba's name is not absent this list, so I'm guessing this is the same format.

    1. Re:maybe not by cozziewozzie · · Score: 4, Informative

      China starts lots of projects like this. They serve only to demonstrate to the world how advanced China is, and how they don't need the rest of the world. They spend tons of money to develop far inferior (but domestically developed!) alternatives to easily and cheaply available western technology. It never goes anywhere. Japan started by making inferior knockoffs of Western products, then Taiwan and Korea followed, and they are all high-tech superpowers.

      There are advantages to fostering domestic high-tech development, as you need a lot of experience to play with the big boys. They are educating and employing an army of young scientists end engineer who would otherwise fuck off to the US, Japan and Germany and work for the high-tech companies there. It's a loss in the short-term, but it is the only way to develop a homebrewed high-tech industry.

      You can't expect a Chinese company to catch up with a century of experience that companies like Ford, GM, Toshiba, Matsushita, etc. have. But if you don't try and tread the same path yourself, you will forever be dependent on foreign imports.
  7. Re:Hello? by terjeber · · Score: 4, Informative

    Blu-Ray has horribly bad and spotty compatability with a hack of putting AVCHD encoded files on a standard DVD-5 disc

    And you have tried this? I have authored AVCHD disks for about 4 months now, and my experience is directly opposite of what you are saying. I regularly take authored disks to various places like Circ City and Best Buy to test on a variety of Blu-Ray players, and I have not had a single player not play my menu-based AVCHD disk yet.