News Home Cinema RIP: HD-DVD? RIP: HD-DVD? |
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| Written by Simon Toat | |
| Monday, 18 February 2008 | |
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Many news reports have come in that have said the company would be ending support of HD-DVD and no longer make players. However, a statement from the company counteracted these claims and said no such thing has happened yet. "The media has reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD-DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this," the company said. "Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment." The past few weeks have not been kind to HD-DVD, Warner Bros announced it was going Blu-Ray exclusive while several big retailers also lined up behind the Sony-backed technology. According to Carl Gressum, senior analyst at Ovum, the Toshiba-backed HD-DVD format is "now running on its last leg." "After Warner Bros' exclusive Blu-ray deal, retailers and DVD rental companies have decided to stop stocking HD DVD products," said Gressum. "In our view, HD DVD is now a dead format, but we expect that Toshiba and the Promotion Group to officially support the format until April 2008, however in reality the race is now over." He said that the big question is now about the impact on Toshiba as an electronics company. "It has after all bet its disc media business on HD-DVD, as well as gone for HD-DVD integration into some of its laptop PCs. The channel has inventory to clear, and demands from owners of HD-DVD players. This once again shows why incompatible and mutually exclusive formats should be avoided at all cost by the industry. It reduces profitability and delays customer adoption." "Toshiba is now stuck between a rock and a hard place, and HD-DVD will be a big and nasty sword for the Japanese electronics company to fall on," he said. Related HD-DVD news
Microsoft slashes Xbox HD-DVD in fire sale |
It might be worth going out and buying that new high-definition player
you've always promised yourself. After years of warring between the two
rival formats, it now looks increasingly likely that Blu-Ray will
emerge as winner.Toshiba is reviewing its
business strategy in a move that could deal a fatal blow to HD-DVD.
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