Toshiba To Stop HD DVD Player Production

[cisco1138]

If you can't tell the difference in HD quality and you have all the HD stuff, watch an MLS soccer game on ESPN2HD this year and then watch another one two days later on Fox Soccer Channel in SD.
No frickin' comparison.

There is also no comparison between BD movies played back on my PS3, and ANY of the content available from cable or satellite. The effort being made by the content providers is laughable. The larger your display, the easier it is to see the difference.

I project my ATT&T U-Verse, PS3, and iMac onto a 110" screen. U-Verse has a lot of room for improvement.

 

[jaw04005]

Apple should have been an early adopter here as they were with the DVD.

That's very true. I've talked with many people who are purchasing licenses for Adobe's Encore for this very reason. The thing is, if you're going to replace DVD Studio Pro with Encore, it may lead to replacing the entire Final Cut Studio suite with Adobe CS3 Production Suite.

Adobe's pricing is very aggressive.

And Blu-Ray can use the same encodes as HD-DVD did, and many of them do.

That's a huge gain with the format war ending. Now, former "purple" movie studios can produce hi-def encodes that actually use Blu-ray's technology (50GB, max 48 Mbit/s) instead of producing cookie-cutter HD DVD and Blu-ray encodes.

 

[Xtremehkr]

About time, with hard drives reaching a TB in size, regular DVDs are far too undersized for storage these days. 7 years ago, I used to be able to back up an entire hard drive onto 6 DVDs, but it would take about 107 now. I have Time Machine working on an external drive now, but I like to keep a backup on media as well. There will be all sorts of advantages to having an optical drive with that much capacity. I wonder how long it will be before the CD disappears entirely. I can't imagine a DVD is that much more expensive than a CD is to make.

 

[PodPacker]

Apple and Blu-Ray

Apple hasn't gone for full support of Blu-Ray because it would cannibalize it's sales of AppleTV. Apple has invested too much into iTunes to have people buying discs to watch movies on the OS X platform.

 

[nick9191]

I think Apple didn't adopt Blu Ray because I can't see it gaining any ground, what with the whole rental system taking off on itunes. So what will blu-ray be used for except distributing software, and it will be a long time before a single application requires more than a DVD.

I'd just like to point out that HD DVD is far better for the consumers. If you want a load of DRM rubbish then go for Blu Ray. I'd also like to point out that the blu-ray specification is not finished, so If its changed in the future then theres a good chance none of the future disks will work on current players.

Thats the one single reason movie producers are choosing blu-ray, DRM.

One say people will realise what a joke DRM is... One day...

Oh and hi, I'm Nick

 

[TMay]

That's very true. I've talked with many people who are purchasing licenses for Adobe's Encore for this very reason. The thing is, if you're going to replace DVD Studio Pro with Encore, it may lead to replacing the entire Final Cut Studio suite with Adobe CS3 Production Suite.

Adobe's pricing is very aggressive.



That's a huge gain with the format war ending. Now, former "purple" movie studios can produce hi-def encodes that actually use Blu-ray's technology (50GB, max 48 Mbit/s) instead of producing cookie-cutter HD DVD and Blu-ray encodes.

I've been holding off purchasing a Mac Pro until both a Blu-Ray burner and the next rev of the Cinema displays appear. It would be reasonable to expect that Apple is working on BD authoring support in FCS to be released in the same time frame.

Personally, I think Apple wants to give HD downloads a bit of running room before release of a Blu-Ray player/burner.

 

[Shore Points]

Let the bitching from the people that bought HDDVD players begin.

It's your own fault for not waiting.

Yup...that would be me.

Not bitching though....I knew I was rolling the dice. Did get the player at a good price....and I only own HD-DVD 6 movies (10 if those free ones ever roll in).

Oh well. At least it will play regular DVDs. Maybe I'll get luck and there will be a class action lawsuit or something.

 

[TMay]

I think Apple didn't adopt Blu Ray because I can't see it gaining any ground, what with the whole rental system taking off on itunes. So what will blu-ray be used for except distributing software, and it will be a long time before a single application requires more than a DVD.

I'd just like to point out that HD DVD is far better for the consumers. If you want a load of DRM rubbish then go for Blu Ray. I'd also like to point out that the blu-ray specification is not finished, so If its changed in the future then theres a good chance none of the future disks will work on current players.

Thats the one single reason movie producers are choosing blu-ray, DRM.

One say people will realise what a joke DRM is... One day...

Oh and hi, I'm Nick

Blu-Ray 2.0 is the final spec, has been released, players have been announced (Panasonic DMP-BD50K as an example) and the PS3 needs only a firmware update. The only difference in the specs is addition of PIP and memory (1.1) and ethernet (2.0).

As others have pointed out, HD-DVD had DRM, just not the same level that Blu-Ray had, and region coding had been approved for HD-DVD by the DVD Forum, but hadn't been implemented.

 

[cube]

Apple does not include any hidef drives because they support BOTH Blu-Ray and HD DVD.

 

[supafly1703]

Finally!

Long live blu-ray

 

[bdkennedy1]

They started popping up on Craigslist for cheap if anyone still wants one for some reason.

 

[mondesi43]

Today is a good day for laughing at all the Sony haters.

Today HD DVD has fallen. Next year it will be the turn of the Xbox 360.

You are funny and/or out yo mind. PS3 should have been number one in sales because 1) people aren't going to buy multiple 360s 2) the Wii allegedly can't keep up to demand. It's pathetic that they didn't become #1 within the first 6 months. Oh yeah, crappy games and people only buying as a cheap alternative to the BR only players. That's what sold them.

I currently have 20 some HD DVD titles and thoroughly welcome this. I will be able to buy another 30+ titles at dirt cheap prices. Yay me! I got 6 free titles and never paid more than $20 for the other ones. I really can't tell the difference between the formats when I'm sitting on the couch anyway.

The only thing that sucks now is less competition between the formats/developers = laziness and no price checks.

 

[BenRoethig]

Apple hasn't gone for full support of Blu-Ray because it would cannibalize it's sales of AppleTV. Apple has invested too much into iTunes to have people buying discs to watch movies on the OS X platform.

If they think that AppleTV is going to be the immediate successor the DVD, they better be ready for their products and all the gains that Mac has made to go bye bye. Neither the device nor the format are ready for prime-time yet. Video compression technology isn't near as good as it should be. It could be the future of HD rentals, but until there is a major breakthrough, DVD and Blu-ray will reign supreme and if Apple better jump on board if the don't want to be left out.

 

[zorinlynx]

Edit: Also don't think that just because optical disks have no moving parts that they don't degrade. Home-burnt optical disks have about a 5 year shelf life before they literally start to fall apart. :-S

I think this is an urban legend. I have a binder full of CD-Rs of many different brands I burned between 1995 and 2001 or so, and all of them still read okay. (Yes, ALL of them, I copied all of them to my hard drive about a year ago so I could have all my data online and not have to hunt for disks anymore. Funny how a *BINDER* full of discs is now nothing compared to the size of typical hard drives!)

 

[zorinlynx]

Apple hasn't gone for full support of Blu-Ray because it would cannibalize it's sales of AppleTV. Apple has invested too much into iTunes to have people buying discs to watch movies on the OS X platform.

I'm actually surprised that third parties have not stepped in and sold Blu-ray movie watching kits for Macs. I suspect it's because the only mac you can install an additional optical drive into is the Mac Pro, making the potential market smaller.

It's not hard to do; Bluray player plus movie playing software in a box. They did this back in the days before all systems came with DVD-ROM drives, afterall.

 

[TheNightPhoenix]

Region codes are bad because why the **** should we have to wait two to three months to pay twice the amount for a film that is in the same language, packaging etc. It doesn't cost that much to translate a film from "American" to English after all!

I have more HD DVDs in my collection because they're region free and buy many of them via Import. Bluray is *significantly* more expensive in terms of films and players, even when you get blurays as part of 3-for-2 deals here in the UK.

I don't think region codes have a whole lot to do with the release date and price of films. The majority of people buy their DVD's from the local shop or their favorite website which begin selling the DVD when the studios say so and at the price the studio say so. Even if DVD didn't have region codes I really doubt HMV would start mass importing from America. They would still sell when they are told to and for how much they are told to.

I also don't see region codes on Bluray are a major. Out of about 40 bluray I have 30 have come from the states that I bought on holiday, no region codes on them. The rest come from toys r us where they are only £9.99.

 

[futureswitcher]

ooh...i wonder if the next MB update will include blu-ray drives!
doubt it, but hey I can hope

 

[TheNightPhoenix]

I think this is an urban legend. I have a binder full of CD-Rs of many different brands I burned between 1995 and 2001 or so, and all of them still read okay. (Yes, ALL of them, I copied all of them to my hard drive about a year ago so I could have all my data online and not have to hunt for disks anymore. Funny how a *BINDER* full of discs is now nothing compared to the size of typical hard drives!)

NOT legend. I would have lost all my College and University work if it wasn't on the original zip discs!

I backed up onto CD, and kept them on a spindle in a drawer away from heat, cold etc some are intenso some are verbatim all have gone yellow-ish and most can't be read from.

I also had some burnt music CD's from the late 90's, a friend asked to borrow them. They had been on a self next to original bought CD's. They nearly all had pealed and the top silver coating had peeled right off.

If you want a true safe back up you need to make more then one back up and on different types of media. I know a very sensible head of IT who ended up kicking himself silly when he placed all his back up hard drives in the store room next to the lift. Turns out the motors generated a wonderfully powerful magnetic field, although his DVD's were fine.

 

[TMay]

You are funny and/or out yo mind. PS3 should have been number one in sales because 1) people aren't going to buy multiple 360s 2) the Wii allegedly can't keep up to demand. It's pathetic that they didn't become #1 within the first 6 months. Oh yeah, crappy games and people only buying as a cheap alternative to the BR only players. That's what sold them.

I currently have 20 some HD DVD titles and thoroughly welcome this. I will be able to buy another 30+ titles at dirt cheap prices. Yay me! I got 6 free titles and never paid more than $20 for the other ones. I really can't tell the difference between the formats when I'm sitting on the couch anyway.

The only thing that sucks now is less competition between the formats/developers = laziness and no price checks.

Uhm, the PS3 had a cell processor that had never been developed for. By definition, it would take longer for developers to learn to program the chip. This year, lots of titles announced, many of which will take advantage of the common hardware platform that is the PS3.

Advantage early to the Xbox 360, even with its high failure rate, which was a very conventional computer platform to develop for. Its probable that the PS3 will hit its stride this year, what with many announced titles coming out, cost reductions on the hardware and rumors of a $299 machine.

If that happens, Xbox sales rates will thereafter place Microsoft in at best a respectable third place.

 

[bluefiberoptics]

Can people tell the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray on a 15 inch Macbook Pro screen?

 

[V.K.]

I think this is an urban legend. I have a binder full of CD-Rs of many different brands I burned between 1995 and 2001 or so, and all of them still read okay. (Yes, ALL of them, I copied all of them to my hard drive about a year ago so I could have all my data online and not have to hunt for disks anymore. Funny how a *BINDER* full of discs is now nothing compared to the size of typical hard drives!)

It's not a legend. It might depend on the burner and the actual disks (I'm not sure what's the cause is) but it does happen. I have a bunch of DVD-R's burned on my laptop that became unreadable a couple of years after I burned them with VERY light usage. It also happened with a number of disks burned on my old PC.

 

[Mister9]

...and now Apple makes its offer to Sony for $50 billion and my entire house will be in sync.

 

[Mister9]

well lets not go too overboard here. I think that there is still a market for HD-DVD's/Players because they're a lot cheaper; i.e. consumer computers. Although BD's will have the Netflix and Blockbuster on lock down I think HD-DVD's might be able to make a market in the computer hardware business.

 

[Frisco]

well lets not go too overboard here. I think that there is still a market for HD-DVD's/Players because they're a lot cheaper; i.e. consumer computers. Although BD's will have the Netflix and Blockbuster on lock down I think HD-DVD's might be able to make a market in the computer hardware business.

No way. It's completely dead now.

 

[zedsdead]

No way. It's completely dead now.

It is. Toshiba is even backing out. As an HD DVD supporter for a while, I am not overjoyed, but not unhappy. I stopped buying about April 2007, and am sorry I even got into it that far. I really thought the end to the war would be dual player and the like, but it seems that since Warner's Total HD discs failed the company had no choice but to pick one and Blu-Ray won out.

The only good news is that Apple will finally add support, it's just a matter of when at this point. Maybe then Handbrake or another program will be able to support Blu-Ray to Apple TV conversions.

I still prefer downloads. The Apple TV HD is amazing considering the specs.