Toshiba may continue HD DVD business

I hope this is true will find out very very soon. www.digitimes.com/systems/a20080218PD215.html

Indeed.

In all honesty though, they need to hang it up. The market itself needs a clear winner here and this is a good time for them to call it. IMO its all over but the crying at this point.

Course, I have been wrong before. We shall see here in a bit.

Wow, all those are valid points made by ODD but, how can Toshiba and HD-DVD survive w/o Hollywood support?

-Paramount/Dreamworks: They are under contract but there is rumor of a scape clause if WB went BD.
-Universal: there is rumor its contract expired and it hasn't being renewed.
-WB: Will be gone by the end of May (Twister its last official title) although they publicly admited that they'll make occasional HD-DVD's if demand calls for it.
-New Line Cinema: Another "region freak" (like Disney) went BD after WB, although that was expected because WB and NLC are both owned by Time-Warner

I think the real wild-card in this format war was Fox as stated in some reports, the only way WB was going HD-DVD exclusive is if Fox would go HD-DVD too but we all know how that one went. Since WB and NLC are not under contract (as far as I know, if WB was under contract then why would they make "occacional HD-DVD movies?) with BD then the last hope for HD-DVD is to bring Fox, then I'm sure WB and LNC to follow suit. But since Sony did pay Fox to stay (inside Fox sources admitted to it), unless there is a scape clause, Fox is stuck with BD and so are the rest of the studios.

Quote:
If Toshiba gives up in the battle with BD, it will immediately lose royalty revenues from HD DVD patents, be forced to return already paid royalty charges as well as face risks of customers' returning purchased HD DVD products and launching mass litigation for compensation, the Taiwan source explained.

OUCH!! That'll leave a mark.

I don't think it will happen, but the article does bring up valid points. Therefore, I think an immediate shut down is too extreme and a 3-4 month phase out would soften the blow for HD DVD owners, without impeding the newly crowned Blu-ray as the HDM winner. Give HD DVD a few months so owners can buy the few titles they were waiting for, what's the big deal? Paramount and Universal can go neutral immediately and go Blu-ray exclusive when WB's contract runs out. But whatever, Toshiba will announce what they're gonna do in a few hours, so we'll see.

Sooo... basically... Keep the format and lose money... or Drop the format and lose even more money and possibly start looking for a new job.

If Toshiba does concede defeat, I would expect a gracefully transition to Blu from HD DVD, instead of an abrupt termination of all HD DVD operations, and a future uncertain.

If need be, a Toshiba line of 4th generation HD DVD players with Blu Ray 2.x support as well.

If the price point was $249 or less, I would probably jump on board immediately.

Unfortunately, $ony won't likely let that happen as it would negatively impact their PS3 sales figures.

maybe HD Downloads are the HD future, and thanks to $ony, they have brought it on several years earlier than first expected.

Ooooh Ahh, envy me now, an HD Download supporter with a 20Mbps/20Mbps Verizon FiOS connection..

I have 2 TBytes of storage capacity, let the HD downloads begin, screw the physical disc formats...