Cnet is reporting that Toshiba is pulling the plug on HD DVD. The writing has been on the wall after suffering defections from the likes of Warner Brothers, Netflix, Best Buy, and others.
Blu-ray has one the high definition DVD war.
You can read the story from Cnet here and this story from Reuters.
Look for an official announcement from Toshiba next week.
Sony has slashed the price of it’s new BDP-300 Blu-ray player by $100 to give it a price tag of $499.
In just six months, the price of a Blu-ray player has fallen by 50% (not counting PS3s which Sony sells at a loss) from $1000 to $500.
One advantage that Sony has in being able to make these price cuts is that they produce their own blue laser diodes. While they were initially having trouble producing a sufficient supply of the diodes, they now have an ample supply to cut prices on their blu-ray players.
A Price Cut For The PS3?
The big question now is if Sony will also be reducing the price of its Playstation 3. At $599, it’s still substantially more expensive than the Xbox 360 and more than twice as much as the $250 Nintendo Wii. The high price tag of the PS3 has been blamed for its sluggish sales thus far.
Sony Still Losing The Price War to Toshiba’s HDDVD Format
Although they’ve reduced the price of their blu-ray player, Toshiba still offers their players for less money. There’s a special deal on Amazon right now where you can get a Toshiba HD-DVD player for $250 - half the price of Sony’s BDP-300.
In an effort to compete with HD-DVD players, Sony announced that their BDP-S3000 Blu-ray player will be priced at $599, a $400 drop from the BDP-S1.
Their current price is not more in line with HD-DVD players.
However, the PS3 is already priced at $599 for the premium version, and $499 for the 20gb version, meaning that customers can already get a Blu-ray player and a game system for the price of the BDP-S3000. And all reports are that the PS3’s Blu-ray player is just as good as the standalone players, so why not get a game system with your player if you’re going to spend that much?
The hacker arnezami has cracked the DRM (digital rights management) for both Blu-ray AND HD-DVD. He found the processing key that allowed them to be decrypted.
At some point you’d think the companies would stop spending billions of dollars trying to figure out how to prevent people from making a copy of a movie and start worrying about producing better content.
All DRM really does is prevent legitimate consumers from being able to conveniently user the product.
People who really want to make a copy of something are going to find a way to make a copy of it - period.
For example, let’s take copying a DVD, for example. I know how to make a copy of a DVD. I know what software I need to download, and I have the hardware I need to do it. However, since it takes time to make all that stuff work, I’d much rather just buy the movie, and I’ve never made a copy of a DVD. The majority of people are just like me, they don’t have any interest in making illegal copies of movies. A small minority, however, does. So the movie companies, rather than worrying about making better movies, instead focuses on cracking down on illegal copying.
With Blu-ray, they’ve been so overzealous with their DRM that regular people who buy computers with have sometimes had trouble getting their Blu-ray movies to play because their computer doesn’t have the right security settings or some other nonsense.
I, for one, am thrilled to see that the DRM has been cracked on Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Not because I’m in favor of piracy, but because I think that if you buy a movie, it should just work. You shouldn’t need to make sure you all the exact equipment just to make your movie play.
Now that both formats are out, and some reviews have come on both, I’ve started really thinking that it might not be a question of which format will beat out the other, but if either format can become mainstream.
I started thinking about the challenges it’s facing, and here’s some I came up with during a discussion I was having a with a friend.
1) What the heck is it? I know what the difference between 780p, 1080i, and 1080p - you probably do too, but does the average consumer - well, not the ones I talked to. All the average consumer wants is something that is convenient, easy to use, and that they can mostly understand. But a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc looks like a DVD, gets inserted into something that looks like a DVD player, yet costs a heck of a lot more. I think people have a hard time understanding just what the heck it is.
2) Not a Leap Forward. In 1982 when CDs were released - they were a leap forward. In 1997, DVDs were released - they were a leap forward as well. You no longer had to rewind the movie when you were done viewing - and the heavens rejoiced. The DVD and VHS look nothing alike. You can see the improvement in video quality and hear better audio on a regular TV with regular surround sound.
Blu-ray and HD-DVD I don’t really see as being a leap forward. They look like DVDs. The average consumer probably couldn’t tell the difference on a reguar TV - they’d need to buy entirely new equipment.
3) Expensive Equipment. The cost of the equipment is enourmous. I’m know we’re still talking about first generation devices here, but 1080p televisions that can take full advantage of the new formats cost as much as luxury cars. And High definition audio equipment is hardly a drop in the bucket.
This technology is out of the reach of most households - even with no payments, no interest for a year deals.
The one feature I do see the benefit of is the fact that these formats hold a lot of data - 25gb for Blu-ray (50gb coming out in October) and 30gb for HD-DVD. So these devices may be very useful for backing up large amounts of data. Blu-ray and HD-DVD may never make it in the mainstream home theater market, but I do see them becoming a common drive on a computer for burning large amounts of data to disc.
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An analyst firm has reported that Toshiba loses approximatley $200 on each HD-A1 HD-DVD player it sells.
The company currently charges $499 for the player, but it’s estimated costs for the entire unit are estimated to be in the $700 range. The firm beleives that Toshiba is trying to buy its way into the market. The current Blu-ray players currently cost $999, so an HD-DVD player currently costs half as much as the new Blu-ray format.
PCs will have a major role in deciding which format ultimately wins in the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD format wars.
Of the world’s three largest computer manufacturers, only Dell has committed to one format - Blu-ray. Both HP (#2), and Lenovo (#3) are planning on supporting both formats at the moment.
Acer just released four notebooks with HD-DVD drives, but has said they plan on releasing models with Blu-ray drives as soon as they are available.
Computers will Blu-ray drives could start shipping as early as late June.
The scheduled release date of the first Blu-ray movies is set for June 20th according to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.