« Apple Devices Double Storage | Home | Switching to a Mac – But Which One? »
WAR ENDS!
By Dave Peterson | February 16, 2008
No, not that war, the other one. The High-Definition format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is over. Though an official statement from Toshiba on the termination of their HD format has yet to be issued, you can expect it within days if not hours. Engadget is reporting that both Reuters and NHK have stories on Toshiba’s intention to stop producing both player hardware and HD-DVD discs. There are also unconfirmed reports of Toshiba planning to produce their own Blu-ray players. At this point, they pretty much have to, or be left out of the next home video format. The Digital Bits has a report that Toshiba has stopped fulfilling their promo offer of five free discs with an HD-DVD player purchase. This seems a rather poor customer relations move, and we can only hope this was a bad decision on an individual manager’s level and not full-on company policy. Toshiba isn’t leaving the home video business and alienating their customers would be a bad move at this point.
For me, this means my HD hope of getting Star Trek: The Original Series digital remaster on Blu-ray is not just a “when” rather than an “if”, it makes it a “sooner” rather than a “later”. Defying my usual policy of early adoption, I’ve not gotten into the HD fray thus far, and I’m still not rushing to buy an Blu-ray machine, but I’ll have one by the time that package arrives.
Topics: Video |