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Toshiba Officially Drops HD DVD, to End Shipments in March
The company held a press conference in Japan this morning, announcing that it will aim to stop shipping HD DVD products by the end of March 2008.
"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, Toshiba president and CEO.
"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."
According to Engadget, Toshiba has "no plans" to adopt Blu-ray, only supporting SD DVD for now.
With the format war officially over, Paramount and Universal -- the only two major studios still supporting HD DVD -- have been freed from their contracts, according to a Wall Street Journal report, as has Warner Bros., which was committed to the format until May.
A number of custom-friendly manufacturers, including Kaleidescape and Niveus, have recently joined the Blu-ray camp.
The format war hasn't been easy on integrators, with some choosing one route or the other, hybrid players, or even high-end upconverting DVD systems. Custom shops felt the pain too, expressing hesitance in recommending either format.
But how things have changed. Just four months ago, Sony CEO Howard Stringer was calling the format war a "stalemate" after Paramount and Dreamworks were wooed to HD DVD exclusivity.
Big-box deals and manufacturer incentives couldn't stop the impact of Warner Bros.' decision to back Blu-ray exclusively.
With Netflix, Best Buy and Wal-Mart all supporting Blu-ray, rumors swirled of Toshiba's impending decision to drop HD DVD.
The company says it will still support the products even after it stops manufacturing them, and is still determining its position on HD DVD laptops.
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6 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
Can you tell us again how to get the “government $40.00 rebate” for the cost of buying the converter in 2009?
I’m only barely understanding this. I do have a TV. But, it’s old. And I have cable. So, I assume I’ll need to go and buy something. I want my govie-bux!!
Jeff Pollin
Jeff, this article does not pertain to the switch to digital TV broadcasting in 2009. Nevertheless, as I understand it, you won’t need to buy a converter since you have cable. The digital switch is necessary to free up analog broadcast airwaves, so you won’t (yet) be affected.
Jeff, you have cable, so why would you have to buy something new? Unless your cable company changes, and then you’d need something from your cable company. Doh!
The only thing you need a box for is if you’re using an antenna with an older tv that only has an analog (ntsc) tuner (and no digital (atsc) tuner). In that case, you’ll plug your antenna into the box and the box into the tv, the box will do the conversion from analog to digital for you, and you’ll change channels on the box instead of your tv itself. Without that box, that old tv will be useless with an antenna, cuz nobody will be broadcasting analog anymore. It wouldn’t be useless with cable, satellite, a vcr, a dvd player, etc, or of course a digital tuner box.
Just read what I typed and noticed an obvious mistake. Typed too fast I guess. The box converts digital to analog (not analog to digital), doh.
I can’t believe that Sony’s strategy of declaring victory from the onset actually worked.
I think it is a real commentary on the power of marketing.
Just when I got bought my fancy new Toshiba laptop with HD DVD built in they go south on me. Oh well. At least I didn’t buy the Sammy 5000 duo player I’ve had on order through the reseller channel the last couple of months (which still has not been released to the CE integrators yet). Time to start looking at BD-Live now.
After 20 years, Sony finally won a betamax war.