toshiba finally announce the expected drop of HD DVD, and its a very very rapid one, with production crashing to a halt before the end of march.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7252172.stm

is it me, or was the whole war a bit silly and toshiba should have realised that they really were gonna struggle against sony when it was known every ps3 was going to include a blu ray drive. anyways, its over now and whether you prefer the format that won or not, its only better for the consumer that bluray will be allowed to proliferate without a secondary format strangling mass market acceptance.

i am however really looking forward to universal and paramount movies on bluray, hopefully they wont be stupidly stubborn accept defeat and switch production quickly so we start seeing their bluray movies in the next few months

the worst part for me is that i want a new laptop and my company of choice use HD DVD drives as standard lol so im gonna have to wait longer or choose a different machine,

Yup Vulcan,


unfortunately....... for any format to become all it can be...... one format has to step aside so as the industry can focus on what it can do best and that is to bring us contents of their production/product... and not have to divert their resources in trying to be compatible between multiple formats.

i would now like some speedy cheap BD drives for laptops and desktop computers. the PC industry can take the lead here, its been well over a decade since home computers and laptops have sported what could be called 'HD' displays.

i would certainly like a cheap BD writer capable of writing at least a single layer disc in less than 15 minutes for under 100 pounds, rather than the half hour times we commonly see at the moment. i still find it an attractive proposition to carry around 50GB of mixed data on single disc, so the quicker the format proliferates in the pc industry the better.

well .... I too hope that with this announcement that the industry will move forward in getting the consumer the products it wants at the price that is acceptable. Hopefully Sony will do the right thing this time around in the price catagory.


Now..... onto the next format war..... Blu-ray vs DVD heheheh..... now the trick is to win the consumer over and get onboard with HD Blu-ray..... price is going to be the key when it comes to media and hardware (i.e. for computers, set top, and games console)...

can i get, "Who-Ha 2 times Tuesday?!?!"

You coulda just posted to the somewhat obvious currently active thread on this:
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/70600/

john albrich said:
He has a good point.

This is what we were waiting for before purchasing a stand-alone player.

The next wait is for the prices of the hardware, media, and movies to come down...... Otherwise DVD will be around alot longer.

G. G. said:
The magic number is $199, when they hit that price, you will see mainstream adoption. It will also have a huge sales spike when the players get down to $299, but $199 is truly magical. When DVD players hit $199, that's when everyone I knew was buying them. And when they drop under $100, you will probably see it take over conventional DVD sales.

For me.... at this point in time it is mute... I dont even have a HD tv set to take advantage of Blu-ray .. LOL..... I still have a '96 Mitsubishi 40" CRTthat works perfectly with my standard DVDs.... Heck I have a high tech pseudo sat system ontop of my tv ..... I think they call it " Rabbit Ears " LOL ahahahah.... But one day...... one day..... one day......

Sony had the advantage with the PS3. I hate sony with a ragin passion

I saw the headline on MSN...

Im just glad I didn't dive right in like some did to have the "latest and greatest"

Kind of forces Paramount, Universal and DreamWorks to change their format minds now I suppose.

I guess to the people who have bought HD-DVD and movies for it, get a universal player. That way you can still take advantage of the HD-DVD discs you have, and use Blu-Ray into the future.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23204819/wid/11915829?GT1=10939

Bulls**t ... I wouldn't pay a dime over $198.

Adam Kolak said:

I know most consumers could care less about Blu-Ray burning capability, but when you can get a Blu-Ray/DVD/CD burner for $360, then paying $299 for a Blu-Ray player is just dumb.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/70600/#529357

I think the "magic" price is going to be more like $129.99. Which may just "happen" to coincide with the US switch to digital TV in 2009 when a lot of people are going to go out looking for new TVs...most likely HDTVs.

About time. It was annoying to have some movies on HD-DVD and some on blu-ray. Now I won't have to buy two players.

Tam-the-Bam said:


i feel your hatered for sony. i for one, want to rage all over there face

McFly said:
Keywords in bold, your not the mainstream

Tam-the-Bam said:
As do I, but I dont care which format wins/won to be perfectly honest.

I am surprised they gave up in such a dramatic fashion. I expected HD-DVD to try to compete with Blu-Ray for at least another year.

Sony must have been ecstatic when they heard the news. I guess they were predicting it as well after the first year results. The PS3 sales are gonna improve significantly as a result of this.

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:
I am not a big fan of Sony myself, and certainly would not buy a Sony Blu-Ray player, but I guess I could end up buying a Samsung or something. But I am hoping that HD-DVD players go on a mad sale for like $49 a piece or less, and $5 HD movies, I could buy a HD-DVD player and it's entire movie collection for $100 while I wait for a Samsung Blu-Ray player to drop under $200. Although maybe I'm just dreaming that they will go that low, but they gotta get rid of all these players and movies right?

I remember when the Sega Dreamcast was killed off, you could buy the console for $20 and games for $3 to $5 a piece. I know a few people who bought one right after they stopped production, and I wish I had done the same. I'll admit though, that I have a thing for failed tech products.