Toshiba Will Benefit From Blu-ray Victory

And no refunds for HD-DVD buyers

Posted by Staff
Toshiba's Mark Whittard: Significant lifespan shortenage.
Toshiba's Mark Whittard: Significant lifespan shortenage.
Toshiba's admission of defeat in the Hi-Def disc format wars came one day before Sony sold its Cell Processor fabrication off to... Toshiba.

Reuters confirmed our October 2007 story of the 90-billion yen (£430M) sale. It included the information that, "The equipment will be used by their (Toshiba's) semiconductor joint venture that will make high-performance Cell chips and RSX graphic chips, both used in Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, as well as other microchips that go into Toshiba products."

Therefore, the more PS3s sold, the more money Toshiba stands to make. Isn't big business great?

So, how have Toshiba executives been spinning the HD-DVD demise? Mark Whittard is general manager of Toshiba's Information Systems Division in Australia. Yesterday in a press conference Mark Whittard said the following regarding the HD-DVD format that went the way of Betamax and Tab Clear.

"The projected lifespan of HD DVD has shortened significantly due to the acceleration of digital content distribution via the internet."

So, the format wasn't killed due to Hollywood studios pulling out - it simply had its lifespan "shortened significantly". There's a line to use at the next funeral you have to attend.

Whittard's statement came on the same day as Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Digital Platforms, told the world, "The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate.

"While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalogue titles on Blu-ray."

Let's not stop Mark Whittard in his tracks though. Let us not forget that this was the executive who, in July 2006, told Australia's IT Wire, "The Xbox is coming out with an HD DVD player towards the end of this year. With Microsoft’s marketing engine behind HD DVD, who knows what will happen.

"I would imagine that there are plans in place to put an HD DVD drive internally in future revisions of the product. They're not speaking about it publicly at the moment but I would expect them to do that and fairly soon."

Back to the present day, and Whittard is unstoppable. Yesterday he was also prepared to say that, "We believe that technology developments will leapfrog high definition, whether it be HD DVD or Blu-ray discs.

"They (the consumer) can still play their CDs, they can still play their DVD library. They can also upscale their DVDs to enjoy a high definition picture", he continued.

So, basically, the whole Hi-Def format war was a bad idea in the first place, because digital downloads were going were going to leapfrog boring old discs? And, while being leapfrogged by the new new downloady, Hi-Def discs were also being undermined by good old DVDs that can be upscaled to HD anyway?

You can have it both ways!

Mark is a serious business type, though. He won't brook any dissent from consumers. So, when asked about refunds for punters who have invested in a format that, by its own admission, Toshiba sees as about as good as upscaled DVD, he responded as follows:

"It’s not our intention to take returns, because of the inherent value in the players".


That will be the upscaling then. Just in case the customers were still a little (childishly) annoyed, Mark went all Business 101 on them, saying:

"They [customers] understood that there were two competing formats and understood that one of them would probably prevail ... so they made the decision to go with HD DVD.''


Let's leave Mark thrashing around in a word-net of his own making with his response to the question of whether Tosh' would adopt Blu-ray. "Never say never, but we have no plans at this stage", says Mark.

Additional Source: The Australian
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Comments

Daz 20 Feb 2008 11:56
1/10
screw downloads, I prefer my movies on a disc
SuperSaiyan4 20 Feb 2008 12:56
2/10
Its the best time to buy a HD-DVD player!

Amazon.co.uk and play.com are selling the HD-E-30 for less than £80!!

And the 360 add-on for less than £70!!

Dont forget the HD-DVD player can upscale regular dvd's and can play the huge library of hd-dvd movies.

Or you can go blow £300 on a degraded PS3 that is a blu-ray player or around £230 for a Samsung blu-ray player.
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Bentley 20 Feb 2008 13:25
3/10
The time it will take to download a truly HD movie is probably longer than the time it will take to nip to the shops and buy it on Blu-Ray. Sure, when broadband speeds go crazy-nuts-fast over the years it might be an option, but personally I like to have something physical when I spend my dosh, that I can take round to a mate's house and watch, or swap with them for a bit, for example. This is an ancient skill known to some as "trading" and others as "swapsies", and would be killed by a purely digital download environment.
And DVD can't be upscaled to give the same degree of definition of detail as a proper HD movie- if the detail is not there in the first place (e.g. tiny grains in the wood of doors, patterns on wallpaper and little details like that) then upscaling won't suddenly make them appear. It will just make the DVD movie appear less blocky, not suddenly with super HD detail. What a misleading comment from a so-called expert.
Daz 20 Feb 2008 13:58
4/10
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Its the best time to buy a HD-DVD player!

Amazon.co.uk and play.com are selling the HD-E-30 for less than £80!!

And the 360 add-on for less than £70!!

Dont forget the HD-DVD player can upscale regular dvd's and can play the huge library of hd-dvd movies.

Or you can go blow £300 on a degraded PS3 that is a blu-ray player or around £230 for a Samsung blu-ray player.


Like anyone is stupid enough to buy a HD-DVD player, they may be cheap be that's because they're obsolete, SS4 you really give a whole new meaning to the words "Failed, Big time"
deleted 20 Feb 2008 14:13
5/10
Daz wrote:
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Its the best time to buy a HD-DVD player!

Amazon.co.uk and play.com are selling the HD-E-30 for less than £80!!

And the 360 add-on for less than £70!!

Dont forget the HD-DVD player can upscale regular dvd's and can play the huge library of hd-dvd movies.

Or you can go blow £300 on a degraded PS3 that is a blu-ray player or around £230 for a Samsung blu-ray player.


Like anyone is stupid enough to buy a HD-DVD player, they may be cheap be that's because they're obsolete, SS4 you really give a whole new meaning to the words "Failed, Big time"



Cant believe im saying this but.... he is right, a HD DVD player would be a very high quality DVD upscaling player for thise not wanting to buy a blu ray player just yet. and although no you wont get the quality of True HD media, Upscaled DVD`s look plenty fine esp for those not ready for the HD leap just yet.
SuperSaiyan4 20 Feb 2008 15:02
6/10
haritori wrote:
Daz wrote:
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Its the best time to buy a HD-DVD player!

Amazon.co.uk and play.com are selling the HD-E-30 for less than £80!!

And the 360 add-on for less than £70!!

Dont forget the HD-DVD player can upscale regular dvd's and can play the huge library of hd-dvd movies.

Or you can go blow £300 on a degraded PS3 that is a blu-ray player or around £230 for a Samsung blu-ray player.


Like anyone is stupid enough to buy a HD-DVD player, they may be cheap be that's because they're obsolete, SS4 you really give a whole new meaning to the words "Failed, Big time"



Cant believe im saying this but.... he is right, a HD DVD player would be a very high quality DVD upscaling player for thise not wanting to buy a blu ray player just yet. and although no you wont get the quality of True HD media, Upscaled DVD`s look plenty fine esp for those not ready for the HD leap just yet.


Thanks.

At at £80 what you gonna lose exactly? Especially since there are tons of hd-dvd movies available and still are on for further releases and if the HD-DVD movies get a price drop even better!

Check out www.dvdworldusa.com REGION FREE HD-DVD MOVIES FROM AS MUSCH AS £15 with around £2 postage!
theman 21 Feb 2008 15:18
7/10
I am happy to say i didnt waste my money on this stupid format war.
I am also happy to say i WILL NEVER waste money on a 'bluray' player.

the reason...

me and all my friends get our videos through download.. tv shows... movies... standup comedy... all downloadable.
If you get them as divx or xvid you can view dvd quality movies downloaded on your pc on your Wii. Why pay all that money when you can get it for free.

I dont need HD movies.

No one needs HD movies.

DVD movies i can live with.

nothing wrong with them that needs changing.

DOWNLOADS ARE NOT THE FUTURE... THEY ARE THE PRESENT.
Shawn 21 Feb 2008 16:11
8/10
pretty sure when they say downloads they mean PAYING for legit downloads like through xbox live or netflix or s**t like that not being a frickin pirate and jewing everyone out of there hard earned money........dueschbags like you should not exist yet your everywhere bet you steal EVERY bit of music you "own" also..... if stealing downloaded music and movies is the future or the present for everyone there is absolutly no future for entertainment... thanks to you.....
deleted 21 Feb 2008 16:18
9/10
theman wrote:
I am happy to say i didnt waste my money on this stupid format war.
I am also happy to say i WILL NEVER waste money on a 'bluray' player.

the reason...

me and all my friends get our videos through download.. tv shows... movies... standup comedy... all downloadable.
If you get them as divx or xvid you can view dvd quality movies downloaded on your pc on your Wii. Why pay all that money when you can get it for free.

I dont need HD movies.

No one needs HD movies.

DVD movies i can live with.

nothing wrong with them that needs changing.

DOWNLOADS ARE NOT THE FUTURE... THEY ARE THE PRESENT.



Aside from legality of what you do, physical media is here to stay and it will do for a long long time, the format doesn’t matter and the quality will only get better, people need something tangible something to show for their money as why the majority of movie download site (the legal ones) also send you a DVD with purchase, HD is needed because if HD isn’t needed DVD wouldn’t of been needed and VHS wouldn’t of been needed and we would all be watching the news in our local cinematorium! Consumers will always want the next quality visuals the next ultimate storage device and the next set of interactivity and you yourself does or you wouldn’t own a console or least would have stopped at the Nes/Snses/PSone/PS2 or whatever generation you are.


As for the legality of what you do, simply put you are the cancer on the entertainment industry, because of you, the iPod has restrictions, HD-DVD AND BLU-Ray has DRM, and Games Prices are increasing. And because of you admittance you will find no friends here.

DoctorDee 21 Feb 2008 21:48
10/10
haritori wrote:

Aside from legality of what you do, physical media is here to stay and it will do for a long long time,

I used to agree with you. I remember being at some high powered VC meeting in maybe 2000, and this guy said to me that Music downloads would replace CDs, and I said to him that people would always want to own something, to hold something. But now, I feel completely different. My CD collection was massive, and took up a pretty big part of my house. I go all that onto one 500GB drive (plus another 500GB drive for backup). The 51000 songs in my collection take up 260GB, and I can get a sizeable proportion of them onto an iPod. CDs are just rubbish. I joined a (legitimate) download service and dumped my CDs. Next, I'm going to do the same with movies. My 200 or so DVDs will compress down to about 200GB. I can easily take up to 10 or so with me on my iPhone when I'm travelling.

For me Physical Media is dead.

And when WiFi, or WiMax or whatever becomes ubiquitous, even downloads will become old hat. Why fill your player up with music when you can just have continuous, unlimited streaming access the music or movies of your choice?

Physical Media is dead, and so is media ownership. Downloads are just an interim phase. Soon(ish) every bit of software will be pay per play.


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