Company responds to frenzy of press speculation.
Over the weekend, rumors that Toshiba would soon be dropping HD DVD spread across the internet like a plague (or virus?), and many declared this end of HD DVD. Who can blame them? It looks like Blu-ray does have a greater list of victories.
However, Toshiba released a statement this morning in a valiant effort to end the media frenzy:
"The media reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment."
Regardless, there is still speculation that the company will come out with a decision as soon as tomorrow, and their choice will be Blu-ray despite the above statement. HD DVD already lost a major battle when Warner Bro. decided to support its rival format; at the time, Toshiba even expressed disappointment and surprise over the media declaring HD DVD dead.
With the way things are going in the hi-def war, it's no wonder hardly anyone still has faith in HD DVD.
Keep on truckin', Microsoft.
forums
higher storage capacity
laminative protective polymer coating, that is extremely difficult to scratch
superior bandwidth speed
HD-DVD:
No support other than Toshiba, making prices skyrocket eventually. Less everything that I mentioned with Blu-Ray.
Toshiba, ignorance is bliss. /bitespieceofsteak
I'd rather slightly lower capacity using x.264 as a standard to make up for the change instead of losing consumer flexibility. I would have liked to see the polymer though not only on HD-DVD but on DVD and CD as well >_< bad enough when you get discs from retail that have some markings.
So long HD-DVD!!!
Slightly lower capacity? You know HD-DVD tops out at 35GB? BR starts at 50 and has 200GB discs already made by TDK. BR has the potential for much higher definition with the blue and violet lasers.
Consumer backlash hasn't stopped BD+ from being enabled already, the thing to remember is consumer fear had them hold back BD+ in the start, they enabled it after the AACS outbreak. They have no reason to disable it with no competition to offer an alternative to consumers.
It's interesting how this always ends up turning into "well for the home" for people, when it comes to the independent author it becomes a case of "well I'm not one so I don't give a damn so they shouldn't either"
DVD at this point is still the most overall friendly format on the market, at this rate it will be for quite a few years.
Blu-ray is getting its momentum right now and in the next two or three years, it will overtake half of DVD's Markets according to some expert analysts.
True, DVD is the ubiquitous format at the moment, nevertheless, by 2030, DVDs can only be found in the Libraries!!!
But Bruce. Vegitax has a point. unless they are using raw formats and not compressing anything, well, something IS wrong. Besides, I have yet to see anything, be it movie, or game, that if Properly and professionally compressed, won't work beautifully on DVD or HD-DVD.
Chances are you'd hit it before that, regardless film peaks at 6k lines in raw form. HD cameras aren't recording at that high of a rate yet and would still go through upscaling in the lab given the slow progression of technology for motion versus the established foothold of film stock.
"more content in movies"
lol, right. It's the video format that restricts movies from being x length. The studios, the MPAA, critics and audiences in general as well as the quality of the script determine what you get in a final product. Try to keep fantasy and reality seperated, you could have 500GB for films and all they'd do is lazily run the movie in the most uncompressed form they could do and rub out another step in the mastering process.
"more movies per disc"
And you've seen this where? For the rare value movie by wal-mart you might see a double feature, don't get your hopes up for a trilogy on a single disc at this point though especially if they're not dropping any form of compression system.
"and don't get me started with video games"
I never started with them and I don't recall HD-DVD being a video game format, so I guess you don't need to get started, further you really don't need to bother given that HDD transfer rates > fixed speed optical media. On top of that gaming is still fixed at 2048x2048 texturing which means you're hitting yet another wall there as well.
Unless your point is that Blu-Ray suddenly fixes all these items and defies the logic of our mortal minds.
Blu-Ray wins. Now everybody who said Blu would go the way of Betamax, time to admit BD tech has "BALLS OF STEEL".