Toshiba Says Good-bye to HD DVDs
The first time I saw a HD DVD was when we stayed in one of the Hilton Head rentals a couple of summers ago. It was a whole house and pretty expensive, but it was gorgeous. And high end. I was enamored with the amenities and the DVD player was no exception. I was incredibly impressed with the sound and picture- not to mention the interactive additions.
Well, it looks like the HD DVD has seen it’s last day.
At a board meeting today in Tokyo, Toshiba decided it would abandon the HD DVD format. A rival blue-laser optical disc technology to Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD was locked in a struggle with Blu-ray to become the next-generation heir to the booming $24 million DVD business. The format war stretched back to the year 2002, when backers of both formats unveiled their plans for blue-laser-based optical discs.
Toshiba’s chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida, addressed assembled media in Tokyo after the board meeting during which the company pulled the plug on its HD DVD support. At the press conference, Nishida noted that the decision to pull out of the HD DVD market was a difficult one, “but when we thought about the trouble we would cause to consumers and our partners, we decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence.”
It seems strange to see something that’s so new hit the highway. But many of us “older” people remember the last days of the 8 track, the Beta videos (before VHS), and the record (the big black thing some parents have stashed away that only works on that ancient looking hi-fi hidden in the corner under a table cloth). We’ve since added to our memory holes the cassette tape and VHS tape.
Actually we still use VHS in our house at times. They come in very handy for recording soaps when I miss them. And, no, we haven’t entered the world of DVRs quite yet.
At any rate, we now say sayonara to the HD DVD and make more room in our lives for the Blu-ray. Thankfully, most DVDs now are built to accomodate both types of players, so our movie collections won’t suffer. At least not until the Apple and their iTunes takes over the movie world. Next we’ll be seeing more WebTv with the tv actually being part of our PC.
I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.
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