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kal
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject: Toshiba launching *ANOTHER* new HD disc format?? |
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You have to be kidding. C'mon guys. You lost. Sheesh.
From DVDfile.com:
| Quote: | You’ve Gotta Be Kiddin’ Me
Written by Dan Ramer
Wednesday, 04 June 2008
Savvy strategy or seriously sour grapes?
The Internet is all abuzz about a story published in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper that Toshiba is about to market yet another high definition disc format. The source is said to be an unnamed individual within the company. If true, Toshiba clearly has Sony in its sights after being soundly defeated in the marketplace.
The claim is that the quality will be comparable to BD, but the format will be an extension of the DVD format. The hardware is rumored to cost $200 or less and be available by the end of the year. As you might expect, it will be backward compatible with DVD and will scale up DVD’s standard definition to 720p or 1080i/p, just like Toshiba’s HD DVD players did. I infer that this is going to be a red laser technology.
A few years ago, if you’ll recall, when hardware manufacturers and studios were in discussions about bringing HD on disc to market, some favored a red laser solution combined with the improved efficiency of advanced video CODECs, like MPEG-4 (which evolved into AVC). If I remember correctly, Warner Home Video supported that approach.
I can imagine the reasoning process at a Toshiba brainstorming session that asked the question, now that HD DVD is dead, what are we going to do now? Toshiba executives and engineers might have looked at Internet download services and deduced that there are many consumers that don’t care about quality, so physical media at lower cost that offered reduced quality in the form of low bit rate transfers might fly. And thus, another wrongheaded concept was born.
What we don’t need right now is more consumer confusion with the introduction of another competing high defintion format, particularly if it lowers the performance bar instead of raising it. Blu-ray Disc won the format war and it deserves the full support of studios and hardware manufacturers. It delivers images and sound that exceed the qualities found at the motion picture theater (more about that in my next column).
This potential incursion comes at a time when Blu-ray Disc is enjoying formidable growth. BD sales during the first third of 2008 are more than four and one half times those from the same period the year before. In fact, more BDs have been sold in the first third of 2008 than in all of 2007. Eleven million BDs have been sold since format introduction.
Admittedly, during the last week in May, overall BD sold only 7% compared to 93% for DVD. Regardless, the format’s growth is impressive. If one examines the percentage of BDs versus DVDs for individual high profile titles, one finds that the numbers can hover around 25% for Blu-ray Disc.
With high profile titles being released later this year, like Transformers on September 2nd, and the introduction of a variety of Profile 2 BD players to ease the supply and demand bottleneck, I expect BD growth to accelerate significantly during that last third of the year. The consumer research firm NPD Group determined that four million HD-ready television owners plan to buy a Blu-ray Disc player within the next six months.
Market research firm StrategyAnalytics issued a recent report entitled “Blu-ray Disc Devices: Global Market Forecast.” The company’s summary states, “Blu-ray Disc has now been confirmed as the de facto next generation optical disc standard. Our forecasts for BD players, games consoles and PCs indicate that total annual device sales will reach 57.4 million units annually by 2012. We estimate that nearly 30 million households worldwide will own at least one BD device by the end of 2008, and predict 132 million BD-owning households by 2012.”
This is no time for Toshiba or any other company to confuse consumers or increase uncertainty when a buy decision is being considered. I can only hope that the studios realize that another destructive format war will only erode sales, slow acceptance of HD on disc, and delay their abilities to sell their back catalogs in high definition.
The market has spoken. Let’s stay Blu. |
Kal
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ecrabb
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm.. Sounds very similar to the April Fool's press release about HD-DVD+ (only without the HD-DVD part). Coming from the Apple/Mac fan community, my first instinct is that it's nothing more than internet folklore - a rumor whipped into a frenzy.
But, hold on! Thinking about it for a second, I could see how and why they could do this:
A) The formatting for the interactivity is already done. You only need a subset for a lower-end hardware profile.
B) All the authoring and encoding tools and R&D already sunk costs.
C) Revise content spec to something more like DVD bitrates with standard DD (DTS as optional) audio.
D) All this with practically NO investment.
It costs little to start selling players with the capability - Toshiba has a huge "in" the retail channel. They sell millions of players already, and they could start including the capability in every player they sell. Then, push it as a consumer-friendly authoring and playback platform. Work with software developers to make tools more available and more mature. Push the cheap aspect - cheap players for friends and families to watch your videos, and CHEAP media - standard DVD-R. Who wants to pay $15 for a BD blank?
Then, you wait in the wings for a year or so to see if the BD camp gets prices on hardware and software down to a mass market-friendly price point (it's not looking good right now if you ask me). If not, then BD may start looking like it's moving toward a Laserdisc-style "videophile" adoption, then you go on the offensive with the market and with the studios and show them all your cost advantage, your consumer-friendly pricing, and your super-cheap hardware.
I still think it's a rumor, but it's not as far-fetched as it seems. Think of HD on DVD like a cheap home/indy/hobbyist format.
SC
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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Don't forget, HD on red lasers has already been done--twice. So, the tech is easy.
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Dave
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| ecrabb wrote: |
Then, you wait in the wings for a year or so to see if the BD camp gets prices on hardware and software down to a mass market-friendly price point (it's not looking good right now if you ask me). |
Yep, the Sony strategy: screw your customers until they can't sit down anymore!!! 
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Dave
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kal
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| ecrabb wrote: | | Then, you wait in the wings for a year or so to see if the BD camp gets prices on hardware and software down to a mass market-friendly price point (it's not looking good right now if you ask me). |
IMHO if Toshiba wants to stand a chance at succeeding in this they need to do it NOW instead of waiting. There are rumours that Blu-ray players near the $200 mark will be out by Xmas.
Kal
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Clarence
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 3827
Location: Smith Mtn Lake, VA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:01 am Post subject: |
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IMHO it'll only work if the new discs have both SD and HD versions... if you put it in a SD player, it plays back in SD. If you put it in a HD player, it plays HD. And they only release titles in one SD+HD package. No longer offer the SD DVD.
But can they fit a feature-length SD+HD movie on a DVD9? I can't.
Hmm... should it play existing/abandoned/extinct HD-DVD discs?
Also, if Microsoft is still their partner, they need a XBox360HD version with the new player truly built-in.
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paw
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
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Location: Arvada, CO
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:20 am Post subject: |
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Interesting concept. Although, would this be in the works if HD DVD were still alive?
Wal-Mart already had a $298 Maganox Blu ray player in some markets.
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:45 am Post subject: |
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Who would even trust Toshiba anymore?
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Brian Hampton
Joined: 22 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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I think they already gave it their best shot and had their ass handed to them.
Trying again must signal they have money to launder. (Would losing hundreds of millions more be effective money laundering? I actually don't know.)
-Brian
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Brian Hampton wrote: | I think they already gave it their best shot
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I think the problem is they didn't. They brought a knife to a gun fight. They were not ready for the amount of lies and misinformation as well as cash Sony was willing to put into this. They counted on the consumer being educated enough to choose wisely--stupid plan.
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Dave
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-Pjackso
Joined: 31 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:03 pm Post subject: |
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If they attempt it, I hope they hire a competent advertising agency. In my opinion, it's waay too late in the game.
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AnalogRocks
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| Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:37 am Post subject: |
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You know they might be able to win on price alone. IF they implimented a new disk format and sold it for the SAME price as DVD they just might do it. On the other hand, since - as it has been discussed in other threads- most normal non HT people can't see the difference between upscalled DVD and Bluray then it may just not work.
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