Toshiba boss: Company not going Blu

Good, they should stick to making refrigerators!

[Post edited by Onyxx on Feb 19, 2008]

Hope Toshiba make something new to beat Blu ray! may be HD DVD 2?

Now that's ignorant.

Anyways, I think we will not hear from Toshiba for quite some time again. They may announce ground breaking breakthroughs on those other technologies, but I have a feeling it will be two years or more before a Blu-Ray deck comes out. Reason why, 90% of the market is still on DVD. Blu-Ray may be the Winner today, but over 240 million alone still own DVD, and there are only 9 million BR users. HD may or may not grow as quickly as they had hoped...

If anything, the next generation Upconversion DVD players are going to be revolutionary...

I agree. For now, they will probably concentrate on producing superior upconverting players for the masses perhaps porting technology over from the HD DVD players. They won't dive into BD until the format gains a more widespread consumer base, if that ever happens. Having said that, I would not be suprised if there was not already a prototype Toshiba BD player locked away in some product development lab ready to go...

It’s a sad day,
The rose petals fall,
The sky turns black,
The people call out in the streets,
A man holds a disc,
Standing in his office,
A tear falls from his face,
The disc drops to the floor,
And what of paramount and universal,
Now HD DVD is no more...
The 19th of Feb,
The day Sony won a war,
First of their own,
But we have seen this evil before
RIP HD DVD

ReaggieP,

That brings up a good point... Toshiba could just say, "Why go Blu-Ray, try OUR Up-Converting DVD Player!" After all, what consumer wants to keep buying the same movies over and over again? The reality is that for many Blu-Ray would be relegated to new movie releases only and many might just say, "Hey, I'm not paying $25 - $30 for the BD version when the DVD is only $14 and my Toshiba Up-Convert works perfectly fine".

Could Toshiba stop the adoption of Blu-Ray with this approach? Nope, but they could significantly slow the media adoption if their player is cheap enough.

Quote:
Could Toshiba stop the adoption of Blu-Ray with this approach? Nope, but they could significantly slow the media adoption if their player is cheap enough.

The market is already flooded with less than $100 standard DVD upconverting players. They are commodities. The DVD market has been diminishing. Toshiba may say they don't have plans to get into the Blu market right now, but I can't see how they could avoid not doing so eventually.

And why would you, or Toshiba for that matter, want to slow down high definition media adoption? Besides, you nor Toshiba can. Technological progress and its consumer adoption moves forward - not backward. Whether they make it public or not, it's in Toshiba's best interest to get on the Blu-wagon now and come out with a cheaper alternative.

We will see how long that statement holds up. My guess probably not more than a year depending on how soon the player prices drop.

It will be in the best interests of all partys for toshiba to get in on blu. I personally would love to see toshiba enter in with a player of their own.

guess I won't be buying movies anymore...

I don't blame Toshiba for not going Blu, after all it would be a case of the bully not only beating you up but also getting your lunch money as well (literally ). As I said before, the HD battle is over but the real war beggins, and Toshiba knows this. That's why they'll put their resources into further develop DVD technologies.

That's quite alright. The Blu-ray side of the high-def business is already crowded as it is with all those great CE companies, so whether or not Toshiba joins is a moot point. There is enough competition already with or without Toshiba joining the fold.

Henning quoted from today's WSJournal, but overlooked mentioning this info...

Quote:
"Analysts speculate that Toshiba might eventually buy Blu-ray disc drives from another manufacturer to install in its computers, which is a big business for the company."

Seems logical. You can bet others will be doing the same (HP, Apple, etc, joing Sony who already has a few Vaio laptops offering Blu-ray drives).

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

I think some time people forget that High def, was a very small part of Toshiba's overall business strategy. They don't HAVE to get into the Blu-Ray player making business right now and can always go back to it once it becomes cheaper to do so.

"If you look at it from a purely technical side, HD DVD was perhaps slightly superior compared with Blu-ray," said Checchia.


http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080219/technology/entertainment
_it_electronics_consumer_japan

[Post edited by motogp34 on Feb 19, 2008]

Very true Movielover316... Toshiba makes many products, like semiconductor chips (etc), flat panel HDTVs, computers, DVD players and home theater systems etc. They are one of the largest Japanese electronics companies. They've spent less on their investment in HD-DVD, than Sony has with Blu-ray (and the PS3).

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

I think the funniest thing, is Toshiba makes the cell processor used in the PS3.

Here is a question. Will HD DVD movies be cheaper now than Blu-Ray movies. For instance, I own two of the 5 Harry Potter movies on HD DVD. They are also on BR (they would of course go BR any day now anyway) wouldn't the HD DVD versions be cheaper than the BR versions now. I think this would be a huge plus for anyone who chose HD DVD's side, especially ones with the X360 add-on who got it cheaper. I wasn't planning on buying any DVDs (HD or Blu-Ray) until late this year or next year, but if the price will go down and the since the quality and content is uncomparable I might just pick of remaining HD DVDs. This is absolutely great!

Yeah, I really hop the price of HD DVD discs drop dramatically. I adopted HD DVD a long time ago, and I am hoping to get a full collection of HD DVD's before they are completely done being made!!
hopefully we will soon be able to get HD DVD's for 10-15 bucks!

10-15 hddvds are already around

Keep in mind that once your HD DVD machine breaks down you may lose the ability to play your HD DVD disc because, you will not be able to replace your HD DVD player in the future. I would buy an extra HD DVD player from eBay just in case as a backup, now that the prices will probably drop a lot more.

You will be able to get a used HD DVD player for years to come on places like Ebay, Amazon, Craigslist, etc. No need to worry.

Yeah seriously Falcon, go to Ebay and look up Laser disc player. Pretty good for a long dead format.

I'm sure, at least for the time being, Toshiba doesnt want to pay royality fees to the company it lost to. That, and they're probably already looking at some formats to beat Blu-Ray in the near future. Those two titans are WAY more in the trenches than MS vs Sony.

This actually makes a lot of sense. Intel, HP and Microsoft were all in cahoots from the beginning to make digital downloads the future. It's no surprise that Toshiba has decided to officially jump on board now that HD DVD is gone.

I would buy a second HD DVD player as a backup if the prices of the players fall in the range of $40-$60 which would be a small premium to pay for a backup. In the past, prices of HD DVD player have already hit the $99 mark. Therefore, it is possible to see clearance prices in the $40 to $60 range. This decision will also depend on how big your HD DVD collection is. It does not make sense to buy and extra player if you only have a couple of HD DVD titles. On the other hand it makes more sense if you have invested heavily on new HD DVD titles.

Perfectblue, I checked Craigslist in Toronto and there was an HD-A2 for $60 and another for $80. Even if I never purchased an HD DVD or bluray player I would most certainly buy one at that price.

I already have an HD-A2 and I'm in the market for an HD-XA2 which is still the best hidef player made so far for either format. I probably won't get a bluray player until this coming holiday season in the hopes that a few profile 2.0 players are out there and working without issues AND the prices of players have come down. If not I can wait.

I must say HD DVD has really spoiled me which is why I'll keep buying movies for a long time in the format.

I just don't want to buy a blu-ray player and then find out it is out of date or whatever or that it needs to be 2.0 or heck even 3.0. I don't really know what I am talking about concerning this so bear with me. All I know is that HD DVD has firmware updates to update things like this and so does the PS3, but I wouldn't be caught dead with the PS3. As for HD DVD with some people, X360 has spoiled me. IMO, It is the world's greatest gaming console ever made with the best games. Why would I pay double the price for a lesser console in the PS3?

I want to make sure that the BR player I buy will be able to play all BR movies, not just certain ones and like I said PS3 is not an option. I wouldn't consider buying that until it goes down to $ 200 or less. I am THAT happy with X360. Meanwhile if my 360 broke, I'd gladly buy a second one. (not right now, I am in a saving money thing, but at the end of the year. I think it could be good anyway, that way I could play system link.)

My guess from these comments are they are going to build a HD download box (kinda like Apple TV) but it will support interactive features via HDi. After all, MS is still their partner, they already wrote their software, they already have boxes that have the codec decompression, ethernet, and HDi software.....all they need to do is add a storefront and a hard disk drive. (The HD DVD drive might have even been an ATA style drive, just swap it for a HD). I'm sure they have stuff like this already in the labs as a backup if HD DVD failed in the market.

Why not? I mean, HDi was a very nice interactivity layer...I think this is where they are going.

they won't cut there nose off to spite there face if they are clever they will adopt the old saying if you can't beat them join them what i think they should do is bring out a REGION FREE BLU-RAY PLAYER this year and steal some of the market back