HD-DVD Dead

From Wired:

Toshiba put HD-DVD out of its misery today. Reuters confirmed this afternoon that it will cease manufacturing HD-DVD equipment, following earlier reports from Japan's NHK public broadcasting network.

This leaves Blu-Ray as the presumptive victor in the irrelevant optical disk format war. It now must face up to the real competition: the continuing success of DVD and the growing popularity of downloads, both on the internet and on-demand cable TV.

The end comes only a day after Wal-Mart announced it would no longer carry HD-DVD stuff. This will go a long way to confirming the view, long-held by cynics, that the mega-retailer always held the executioner's axe to begin with, and was merely waiting until it was clear which format's camp had the most densely-stuffed brown envelopes to throw at Hollywood.

3 comments:

  1. Wow. My sis bought a new TV and DVD player the other day and asked my advise on what to get. I said I thought I'd heard someplace that Blue Ray was the way to go...I'm glad that's what she got.

    Ugh. I have a love/hate thing with technology!

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  2. I came this close to buying a HD-DVD player around Christmas. This is one time I'm glad I waited. I did buy a Blu-Ray player a couple of weeks ago after Warner Brothers announced they were dropping HD-DVD.

    Downloads are not there yet. Ultimately, DVDs will go away (as will all physical, portable media). Everything will be connected and we'll just ship bits back and forth. But, for the short term, DVDs are the way to go for me. I rented a "HD" movie from Time Warner Cable a few weeks ago. It wasn't even in Dolby and the picture didn't look all that great. Blu-Ray is amazing! I'd say it'll be around at least 3-5 years before being replaced by downloads.

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  3. I'm also at the crossroads for new media players and I feel a little panicky that I'm missing news like this. Thanks for posting.

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