It's official. HD DVD is dead.

[NaitoSan]

TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm

Finally, the war is over.

[mojoman0]

Just saw...
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/19/official-hd-dvd-dead-and-buried-format-war-is-over/

[AthlonXP1800]

YEAH FINALLY 2 years old HD-DUD is dead and buried next to Betamax grave.

[NaitoSan]

LOL! Love this picture from Engadget.

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/02/holygrailknight-440-hd-dvd-blu.jpg

Black knight is a perfect representation of HD DVD. :D

[ViN86]

YEAH FINALLY 2 years old HD-DUD is dead and buried next to Betamax grave.
the funny part is that you actually think it was an inferior format. ignorance is bliss, eh?

the answer to that is no, no it's not, you muppet.

LOL! Love this picture from Engadget.

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/02/holygrailknight-440-hd-dvd-blu.jpg

Black knight is a perfect representation of HD DVD. :D
how so? i cant wait to hear your logic, im sure it will be totally justifiable... :|

[nekrosoft13]

its sad how you people are happy that the inferior still not finalized product won.

[Yaboze]

I think they are happy it's over, not that Blu Ray actually won.

I would have liked to see HD DVD win, but oh well.

[nekrosoft13]

I think they are happy it's over, not that Blu Ray actually won.

I would have liked to see HD DVD win, but oh well.

I'm kind of worried about prices now. BD prices will stay high for longer amount of time.

[Butter Bandit]

The comments by bitter HD-DVD fanboys on various forums and sites are hilarious!

"**** BLU-RAY!! I'M GOING TO GET ALL MY HD MOVIES ON APPLE TV INSTEAD. I'M ****ING DONE WITH DISCS!!"

[jolle]

Spose its good its over, dunno about which format is better.
Tbh I dont really care, no plans of buying a player anyhow, but having two formats seems confusing, one standard is what it should be.

Wouldnt be suprised if the the next format battle is just around the corner either.

[mullet]

its sad how you people are happy that the inferior still not finalized product won.

+1

[Butter Bandit]

how so? i cant wait to hear your logic, im sure it will be totally justifiable... :|

The whole black knight comparison came about based on the way the blu-ray and HD-DVD camps have argued over the past few months.

Everytime a piece of detrimental news emerged for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray fanboys would say "Final Nail in the Coffin!" and HD-DVD fanboys would say "Not a big deal."

Blu-Ray : "Warner has gone Blu-Ray Exclusive. The fight is mine!"

HD-DVD : "Tis but a flesh wound!"

[six_storm]

I really wanted HD-DVD to win, but really, as long as it plays a good quality HD version of a film, who gives a rip? BR obviously costs more than HD-DVD. But give it a little time and prices will go down or something else will come out that is 5x better. I won't be going Blu for a little while.

R.I.P. HD-DVD

[S.I.N]

The comments by bitter HD-DVD fanboys on various forums and sites are hilarious!

"**** BLU-RAY!! I'M GOING TO GET ALL MY HD MOVIES ON APPLE TV INSTEAD. I'M ****ING DONE WITH DISCS!!"

Tell me about it. You would think there granny died. And most of them never even had a HD DVD player yet it was there format of choice, well maybe you should have supported it more than just ranting on message boards. :rolleyes:

[Medion]

I was also hoping that HD-DVD would win, being the superior format. However, more than that, I wanted one format, so I waited for a winner. Now, I feel comfortable getting a BR player in the future.

[Peoples-Agent]

Well, now that Universal have said they will soon release their titles in Blu-Ray they may actually be able to show the current bunch of morons how to create a decent release for others to follow suit.

Most of the BD25 rubbish that's been released so far needs to be removed , re-encoded and re-issued to be considered a preference to SD DVD.

[emacs]

Most of the BD25 rubbish that's been released so far needs to be removed , re-encoded and re-issued to be considered a preference to SD DVD.

... or simply don't purchase those discs. it's so easy and involves far less effort.

[Peoples-Agent]

... or simply don't purchase those discs. it's so easy and involves far less effort.

Defeats the purpose of wanting to collect a new HD format though doesn't it.

You would surely want your fave all time movies in the best reproduction possible.

[emacs]

Defeats the purpose of wanting to collect a new HD format though doesn't it. You would surely want your fave all time movies in the best reproduction possible.

most likely those films will be made available. no point of worrying about it now.

[Riptide]

Why do people keep saying HDDVD was the superior format?

[nekrosoft13]

Why do people keep saying HDDVD was the superior format?

1) been finalized on release
2) blu-ray still has not catched up to hd-dvd, while bd 1.1 is a step closer, bd 2.0 = hd-dvd 1.0
3) movies released on both formats usually showed that hd-dvd had better picture quality, because of stricker codec requirements.
4)less DRM
5)no region locking

[AngelGraves13]

Do you guys remember the first DVDs? Damn...they had hideous quality. It looked like Laser Disc. I still have Highlander which was released in 1997 and the remaster that was released recently. What a difference a few years and 24 bit makes. Blu-ray is still new, so like the first DVDs it won't look too impressive. Once we move on to 32 bit remastering and deep color (1 billion colors) then we will see a huge difference in quality. It probably won't be until after 2010 though since technology moves so slowly.

I kinda wish we had 4K already. That's what all the movie companies remaster their films in when they do digital intermediates (color correcting among other things). That'll probably be the next step after Hi-Def unless we skip straight to the Japanese 7000 lines of resolution format in 20 years, but that might be impossible for film based movies since the maximum resolution of 35 mm film is about 4000 lines of resolution, hence the 4K standard that the studios use to mint their masters.

[NaitoSan]

1) been finalized on release
2) blu-ray still has not catched up to hd-dvd, while bd 1.1 is a step closer, bd 2.0 = hd-dvd 1.0
3) movies released on both formats usually showed that hd-dvd had better picture quality, because of stricker codec requirements.
4)less DRM
5)no region locking
1.) early adopting first generation or new technology is always risky and always has been.
2.) same as above. but I want to mention something, there's not a lot of movies that uses PiP or internet feature on HD DVD. blu-ray will still run movies if it's 1.1 or 2.0 ready but only that you can't access them on 1.0 player.
3.) it's not the case now. if you look at some hd dvd releases, some are very poor, i.e. american gangster. it's picture quality is rather poor and sound isn't great. also it doesn't contain extended edition (where dvd has it).
4.) true but i don't think it'll affect most of us. some people make it something big than it actually is. also i don't think drm is used on movies yet... ?
5.) dvd has region locking, what's new? At least it's not as strict as DVD's region locking.

yeah, blu-ray is somewhere not finished and that's their disadvantage but hd dvd has it's disadvantage too. hd dvd would be superior if they pushed out 51gb discs, more ads, release xbox 360 hd dvd edition (hd dvd built in), gain more studio supports, and more movies to choose. If people give Blu-ray time, it'll get better and cheaper. Or get PS3 until there's better and cheaper players. Like someone mentioned, DVD used to be very expensive when it first hit the market. It took a while until DVD technology become more affordable.

[emacs]

Do you guys remember the first DVDs? Damn...they had hideous quality.

some people who want / expect absolutely stunning quality from something that's still in its infancy often forget history.

[Amuro]

Blu-ray region locking isn't bad. It puts Hong Kong, US and Japan in the same region which is great.