Cool Tech Reviews

Sony’s Blu-ray won the high definition DVD format fight when Toshiba threw in the towel today on its HD DVD format:

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.
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“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation.
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Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

Longtime Toshiba ally Universal Studios also announced that they would become exclusively Blu-ray and you can expect everyone else to follow suit except for a few exceptions like LG Electronics who said that they will continue to ship dual format players for a while.

There’s yet another nail in the coffin of HD DVD as Netflix announced that in the future they would only stock Blu-ray high definition DVDs:

In what can only be classified as yet another crushing blow to the embattled HD DVD camp, rent-by-mail giant Netflix has just announced its intention to only stock Blu-ray titles in the future. Netflix justified its decision by pointing out the fact that most Hollywood studios seem to be converging solely around the Sony-backed format — a fact that’s all too familiar to Toshiba and friends. With both Blockbuster and now the ‘Flix having eschewed HD DVD for BD, it’s gonna get harder and harder to even find a place to rent those former discs in the first place, let alone one that has a decent selection.

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Last week featured announcements from various electronics retailers trying to trump each other for sub-$200 prices for the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player (which we have mentioned previously):

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This is the kind of thing that early adopters who forked over big bucks to get in early just love to hear - New Blu-ray Features Freeze Older Players; Updates Coming:

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The donnybrook between the rival high definition DVD formats took a strange turn today when Viacom announced that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation Each Declare Exclusive Support for HD DVD:

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Ed Oswald at BetaNews has the latest from the front lines:

Sony on Monday said it is lowering the cost of its upcoming Blu-ray player to $499 USD. Although it claims the $100 price drop is due to falling production costs and growing demand, Sony’s move is likely more in response to rising sales of HD DVD players.

Data indicates that player sales for HD DVD have increased by five to ten times depending on the retailer following its price drop to $299 USD. Sony had originally planned for the BDP-S300 player to retail for $599 USD.

At $499, it’s the same price as a Sony PS3 game console, part of whose attraction has always been that it was a cheap Blu-ray player. As for features:

Sony’s entry-level player will support 1080p, and has essentially the same feature set as the company’s high-end BDP-S1 in a smaller form factor. Sony also announced a price drop on that player to $799 USD.

So why would anyone buy a BDP-S1? Price war is hell, I guess.