In a press release published today, Toshiba announced it would "no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders."
The dust has finally settled for those of us who've been waiting to jump into the hi-def world: it's Sony; it's Blu-ray.
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Now we just need to wait for Blu Ray players to settle down to reasonable prices. There's no way I'm paying $400 for a Blu Ray player when they're bound to fall in price in the near future. You know there's something wrong when it costs the same for a DVD player as it does for a Playstation 3...
Well, that's just Toshiba... :P
Anyway, not that I really care. My fiance is the technology-mad one and I'm sure he'll be happy blu-ray has won, and hopefully that'll mean it will come down in price sometime soon...
um...O_O. Why do the comments have giant numbers next to them now? Or did I just go all this time without noticing them, lol.
I was hoping that the format wars would end up being won by Blu-ray, because I plan to upgrade to a PS3 sometime in the future, and since it can play blu-ray discs, I'd save on the trouble of having to buy another player as well. But honestly, I kind of don't see much point to either of the new formats. DVDs were huge revalution over VHS, but what signifigant improvements do these things have, other than HD video quality?
I think it's ironic that Sony's Betamax lost the video cassette format war to VHS, but prevailed in the high-def DVD battle.
"I think it's ironic that Sony's Betamax lost the video cassette format war to VHS, but prevailed in the high-def DVD battle."
Yes, but back then Sony didn't have a huge marketshare of the home videogame industry to help them out.
I'm glad I have a regular dvd player...I know the hoopla about High def. etc...but come on people, I watch too much tv/movies as it is, and I still think "it's just watching a movie"
Do people really consider EVERYTHING we spend money on as potential idols?
(just food for thought, I don't assume if one has a nice car, or high def. gadgets that their heart/mind isn't in the right place)
Been enjoying Blu-Ray for awhile now... so it'll be nice to finally start getting Universal and Paramount movies!
Audio is also (in most cases) an upgrade over the DVD version...but like the Video, you need the right equipment to appreciate it.
Since Ive started trading in for Blu-Ray, i've taken it as an opportunity to trim my movie collection habits as well. Feels good to not have a closet full anymore!
Good to see that the better format won out in this one.
I got on board with blu-ray when I bought my PS3. THe blu-ray thing was just an addition as far as I was concerned, but seeing how much GREAT content PS3 games can pack when put onto blu-ray amazed me, and having seen blu-ray movies....that was even better. As a tech-geek, I really appreciate blu-ray's significant advantages over HD, and basically blu-ray was the all-round more-preferred format in my mind. It's good to see the format war be done with and see the good guys on top (betamax was always known to be the better format than VHS, but VHS still won....not the same here thankfully).
You know what? I'm perfectly happy without Blu Ray. Want to know why? Because I can now go down to Office Depot and purchase a 500 GB hard drive for a hundred bucks, and if you multiply that by three then you've got 1.5 terabytes of storage space... plenty for a movie collection.
After that I can rip the DVD files off my DVD's and compress them into smaller file sizes and convert them into a multimedia video file and dump them into a library. All I need to do then is find a way to hook my hi def tv into my home network and then call up the movie file from my computer via the tv and voila... absolutely NO need for a Blu Ray disc.
Now... not everyone can do that because they're not that technically inclined, but pre-packaged "entertainment networks" will soon be available at a suburban shopping area near you... if they aren't available already.
@ #3
The numbers were introduced a little while back to make talking to some one like yourself easier. There was a blog entry about it.
Also, the big thing about blue ray is speed and capacity. Since the laser is blue and not red, the wavelength is smaller therefore it can fit more information in a smaller space. That means less rotation to read the same amount of info. This leads to faster read times and more content. The biggest halt to progress in all media in my opinion is compression. That is we are often limited not by imagination but in capacity. Remember when we used to say we would never fill a gig of HDD space? Now, 120G is not enough and we're finding more and more to store. This is a huge step to offering better video, sound, and interaction not only for movies and music but also for digital storage.
The war is far from over but the dipping economy might really help the better format win.
Good news for my town, where Sony makes Blu-Ray discs. There was a big scare amongst laborers there when a couple studios decided to go with HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray. As for how they compare, I have no clue. Haven't used either.
If you'd like to leave a comment, click here. I couldn't get the commenting feature to work correctly here, but it is available on that less user-friendly mobile version of the blog. Yeah, it's kludgy. Sorry. ~Ted.
1. Tim Challies said the following at 1:53 PM on Feb 19:
1
Now we just need to wait for Blu Ray players to settle down to reasonable prices. There's no way I'm paying $400 for a Blu Ray player when they're bound to fall in price in the near future. You know there's something wrong when it costs the same for a DVD player as it does for a Playstation 3...
2. Leah said the following at 3:20 PM on Feb 19:
2
Well, that's just Toshiba... :P
Anyway, not that I really care. My fiance is the technology-mad one and I'm sure he'll be happy blu-ray has won, and hopefully that'll mean it will come down in price sometime soon...
3. Alex C. said the following at 4:46 PM on Feb 19:
3
um...O_O. Why do the comments have giant numbers next to them now? Or did I just go all this time without noticing them, lol.
I was hoping that the format wars would end up being won by Blu-ray, because I plan to upgrade to a PS3 sometime in the future, and since it can play blu-ray discs, I'd save on the trouble of having to buy another player as well. But honestly, I kind of don't see much point to either of the new formats. DVDs were huge revalution over VHS, but what signifigant improvements do these things have, other than HD video quality?
4. Steve Watters said the following at 4:56 PM on Feb 19:
4
I think it's ironic that Sony's Betamax lost the video cassette format war to VHS, but prevailed in the high-def DVD battle.
5. Mike Theemling said the following at 6:33 PM on Feb 19:
5
"I think it's ironic that Sony's Betamax lost the video cassette format war to VHS, but prevailed in the high-def DVD battle."
Yes, but back then Sony didn't have a huge marketshare of the home videogame industry to help them out.
6. DannieA said the following at 7:28 PM on Feb 19:
6
I'm glad I have a regular dvd player...I know the hoopla about High def. etc...but come on people, I watch too much tv/movies as it is, and I still think "it's just watching a movie"
Do people really consider EVERYTHING we spend money on as potential idols?
(just food for thought, I don't assume if one has a nice car, or high def. gadgets that their heart/mind isn't in the right place)
7. jj said the following at 9:50 PM on Feb 19:
7
Been enjoying Blu-Ray for awhile now... so it'll be nice to finally start getting Universal and Paramount movies!
Audio is also (in most cases) an upgrade over the DVD version...but like the Video, you need the right equipment to appreciate it.
Since Ive started trading in for Blu-Ray, i've taken it as an opportunity to trim my movie collection habits as well. Feels good to not have a closet full anymore!
8. James said the following at 11:29 PM on Feb 19:
8
Good to see that the better format won out in this one.
I got on board with blu-ray when I bought my PS3. THe blu-ray thing was just an addition as far as I was concerned, but seeing how much GREAT content PS3 games can pack when put onto blu-ray amazed me, and having seen blu-ray movies....that was even better. As a tech-geek, I really appreciate blu-ray's significant advantages over HD, and basically blu-ray was the all-round more-preferred format in my mind. It's good to see the format war be done with and see the good guys on top (betamax was always known to be the better format than VHS, but VHS still won....not the same here thankfully).
9. Jason said the following at 1:00 AM on Feb 20:
9
You know what? I'm perfectly happy without Blu Ray. Want to know why? Because I can now go down to Office Depot and purchase a 500 GB hard drive for a hundred bucks, and if you multiply that by three then you've got 1.5 terabytes of storage space... plenty for a movie collection.
After that I can rip the DVD files off my DVD's and compress them into smaller file sizes and convert them into a multimedia video file and dump them into a library. All I need to do then is find a way to hook my hi def tv into my home network and then call up the movie file from my computer via the tv and voila... absolutely NO need for a Blu Ray disc.
Now... not everyone can do that because they're not that technically inclined, but pre-packaged "entertainment networks" will soon be available at a suburban shopping area near you... if they aren't available already.
10. BB said the following at 8:14 AM on Feb 20:
10
@ #3
The numbers were introduced a little while back to make talking to some one like yourself easier. There was a blog entry about it.
Also, the big thing about blue ray is speed and capacity. Since the laser is blue and not red, the wavelength is smaller therefore it can fit more information in a smaller space. That means less rotation to read the same amount of info. This leads to faster read times and more content. The biggest halt to progress in all media in my opinion is compression. That is we are often limited not by imagination but in capacity. Remember when we used to say we would never fill a gig of HDD space? Now, 120G is not enough and we're finding more and more to store. This is a huge step to offering better video, sound, and interaction not only for movies and music but also for digital storage.
The war is far from over but the dipping economy might really help the better format win.
11. Joshua said the following at 12:27 PM on Feb 20:
11
Good news for my town, where Sony makes Blu-Ray discs. There was a big scare amongst laborers there when a couple studios decided to go with HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray. As for how they compare, I have no clue. Haven't used either.