So What Happened With The Re-launch Of Hd-dvd?

[bigkid1503559500]

Hi all,

Anyone know what happened? I can't find much in the way of anything on the net apart from the early announcements. Nothing on the Toshiba or Castel websites - although I was advised by Castel today that they are no longer handling Toshiba - HN Martin Place says they don't do Toshiba any more and Bing Lee in Sydney weren't stocking Toshiba HD-DVD units as of late last week. Is anyone aware of any info on the re-launch?? Was it all just a blu-ray conspiracy?

Regards,

Allan

[Skid_MacMarx]

I think it was a "stuff up" by the journo who reported it.. ie relaunch on the 1st April.. I have never known any AV equipment to be launched on a sunday... hence I thought it was an "april fools joke"

Although, I gather from the 1st April, Toshiba Australia will be distributing and marketing their AV equipment. NOT castel

I feel, in this country, Toshiba and Microsoft have let the format down in regards to marketing. Universal Australia recently launched a number of HD-DVDs locally.. Again that lacked any real fanfare .. any real marketing.

Maybe, as some have suggested, the Australian market, at this time, is so small that they see it as a "waste of money" to relaunch another marketing campaign????? I don't know..

[betty boop]

~

Maybe, as some have suggested, the Australian market, at this time, is so small that they see it as a "waste of money" to relaunch another marketing campaign????? I don't know..

toshiba have infact officially on record saying this. they acknowledged hi-def is a tiny tiny fraction of the market compared to DVD which has mass acceptance. myself I think theyre jsut being realistic rather than creating a beatup trying to get everyone enthused.

either way appears they sell pretty easily every player brought in the country so theyve probably achievign what targets theyre setting ofr them selves I'd say.

[Tweet]

toshiba have infact officially on record saying this. they acknowledged hi-def is a tiny tiny fraction of the market compared to DVD which has mass acceptance. myself I think theyre jsut being realistic rather than creating a beatup trying to get everyone enthused.

either way appears they sell pretty easily every player brought in the country so theyve probably achievign what targets theyre setting ofr them selves I'd say.

Yes Al, but if you are stuck on a raft in the middle of a big ocean it is wise to stick up a white flag on a pole so at least 'someone' might see you, even if it is a pelican.

Advertising attracts attention, no island is too small in the middle of an ocean.

C.M

[Skid_MacMarx]

toshiba have infact officially on record saying this. they acknowledged hi-def is a tiny tiny fraction of the market compared to DVD which has mass acceptance. myself I think theyre jsut being realistic rather than creating a beatup trying to get everyone enthused.

either way appears they sell pretty easily every player brought in the country so theyve probably achievign what targets theyre setting ofr them selves I'd say.

hey alebonau, you may find Sony Australia will launch the BDP-S1E as it plays PAL DVDs.

[betty boop]

hey alebonau, you may find Sony Australia will launch the BDP-S1E as it plays PAL DVDs.

good to hear will certainly be on the lookout for it. saw the pio blu-ray on demo at ehome. it was a us machine and only would play region 1 DVDs. told geoff there I would have bought it if it was region free on dvd.

[betty boop]

Yes Al, but if you are stuck on a raft in the middle of a big ocean it is wise to stick up a white flag on a pole so at least 'someone' might see you, even if it is a pelican.

Advertising attracts attention, no island is too small in the middle of an ocean.

C.M

I think theyre on the evolution rather than revolution thinkign perhaps

reality is your, just not goign to get mass aceptance of a $1000+ player in a hurry if mass public are now buying $50 devices that bring movies to the home already.

toshiba mindfull of that I think and probably just going to rely on the long list of specialist dealers they have supporting the format to showcase it to potential buyers.

which is the better strategy. the blu-ray hype machine vs toshibas gently gently..who knows.....time will tell I suspect.

[Guest JohnA]

this is the way i see it, and i dare say a ew others.

you may or may not agree but this is my way of thinking of these new formats at he moment

At the moment i won't purchase an of these new players and you will find the average joe won't bother either.

why:

1: The average Joe who will just plug it into his cheap lcd or plasma screen is not willing to spend over $1k for a format with not a huge range of titles

2: The hifi guys, like myself, there are currently no AVR's with hdmi 1.3 and player which only have 5 channel analogue out (there are exeptions with some that do have 8 channel analogue out)

but even then they do not support all the latest soundtracks

so for me, i won't grab a player untill the wars are fought and won

i won't throw away a $4.5k pre-pro because they won't include all the decoders on the players with full 8 channel analogue out

Thes formats are still in their early stages and there will be improvements to be had, so to purchase something now, and then try to onsell it once the new versions which may be better equiped come out will be almost imposible.

As far as i'm concerned, this whole thing is a balls up and will be a long time before it becomes fully accepted

LIVE ON DVD's

[betty boop]

this is the way i see it, and i dare say a ew others.

you may or may not agree but this is my way of thinking of these new formats at he moment

At the moment i won't purchase an of these new players and you will find the average joe won't bother either.

why:

1: The average Joe who will just plug it into his cheap lcd or plasma screen is not willing to spend over $1k for a format with not a huge range of titles

2: The hifi guys, like myself, there are currently no AVR's with hdmi 1.3 and player which only have 5 channel analogue out (there are exeptions with some that do have 8 channel analogue out)

but even then they do not support all the latest soundtracks

so for me, i won't grab a player untill the wars are fought and won

i won't throw away a $4.5k pre-pro because they won't include all the decoders on the players with full 8 channel analogue out

Thes formats are still in their early stages and there will be improvements to be had, so to purchase something now, and then try to onsell it once the new versions which may be better equiped come out will be almost imposible.

As far as i'm concerned, this whole thing is a balls up and will be a long time before it becomes fully accepted

LIVE ON DVD's

even though I have a hi-def plaeyr john and keen on buying a blu-ray plaeyr as well, I'd still agree with you. and can quite easily see the majority of the buying public thinkign along the same lines as well.

think it was Joz that posted on SN about how the sales guy in jb told him they were not selling any hi-def players but yeah heaps of displays !

[-Bishop-]

I basically agree with thinking that Toshiba know damn well that at this stage that it's not going to sell a lot of players, no matter how well marketed they are, it's just too early in development.

Their own press releases say the equipment is still to expensive, Sony don't seem to mind flushing away money marketing under developed products, but I'm thinking Toshiba won't show any real interest until they hit the sort of pricing Joe Average can afford.

Now I am a HD-DVD supporter, so it will of course taint this opinion, but while blu-ray have been claiming early victory in this format war, in the last week my own mind has been made up, and I think that even though no one else has claimed it, I think HD-DVD 'has' already won the format war.

Yeah, all the Sony fan boys just laid an egg, but look at the reality of the situation, all the BD players so far are all horribly under developed, lack features, and are horribly over priced, with Sony spending wads of money promoting it and forcing it into the PS3 at a loss.

In the mean time the few HD-DVD players that are out there, do everything they are supposed to do, cost a lot less, and no one is forcing or marketing anything with any real effort, yet they are still selling quite well, with less models and less marketing than BD???

And then you look at the future, the HD media is cheaper, and will stay that way, the players are cheaper, and Toshiba say regardless of what BD players come out, there will always be a cheaper HD player out there, so where is BD supposed to gain ground there?

Movie releases, well BD has some exclusive content there, but it's just media, at any stage it can easily just be stamped out on either format, so I'm still not sure why they think media can win the format war, if someone can't get the HD format, they are just as likely to stick with regular DVD, and ignore both new formats, we are talking Joe Average here, price will play a much bigger part in buying than choice of movies.

So yeah, HD-DVD have won, it's all over, BD may survive, but probably only as a mislabelled high end player that some think is a superior format, and who knows how long Sony could keep that going, in the mean time the studios will all just stamp out media on whatever is selling, and that will be whatever is cheap, and works like it's suposed to work...

[mattis]

Having gained my only HD disc media exposure until just recently purely on (a lot of) HD DVD, I have to say that my experience of Blu Ray thus far is, well, a let down!

I refer not to the video or audio experience of watching the movie itself, but the format functionality or lack of it. This format is truely half baked in that respect. It feels rushed out the door half done. No wonder they're evolving the specification.

30 odd HD DVD movies later and my experience of HD discs has always been consistantly predictable and comparitively a noted step up compared to DVD from a format function point of view. Enter Blu Ray and I notice a few things are quite different or dare I say it, missing. Too much of a good thing?

Your typical HD DVD returns to the menu after playing the entire movie. Thus far Blu Ray seems to loop and loop the feature movie.

Accessing the extras menu on at least one Blu disc I recall so far causes the movie to pause. Then once you've watched the extra instead of going back to the extras menu for more, it goes back to looping the movie from whereever it last was. So then you bring up the menu again, select extras, the movie pauses and you pick the next extra to watch. On HD DVD you can access all extras while the feature continues in the background and you don't get sent back into the movie after each extra.

But now I am really getting over this odd idea I've seen on several titles where after the language choice screen you get a splash screen saying 'your movie is about to start, don't forget to use the menu button to access the pop up menu'....to keep you amused for 5 seconds or so before the movie actually kicks off. It looks and feels cheap.

I really hope the quality of the format improves because compared to HD DVD it is very light on.

Matt

[franin]

From what I read HD-DVD is doing well overseas(Im not saying it's doing better than blu-ray).From what I've read paramount and warner will still keep releasing movies on hd-dvd.I will just keep ordering from the websites.I agree with Bishop most average Joe's will stick to sd dvd, they cannot careless of this war.I was wrong in a way I thought by the initial relaese of the ps3 many people will get into blu-ray,but the many I know don't care for blu-ray they enjoy the games.I was at HN in city west yeaterday and overhearing some people saying "Im not spending that money for a film we have already and dvd's are cheaper."I think it will be a long while before it's decided who will win, at least we can all get our hd-dvd from overseas without having to pay top dollar.Oh! and I cannot wait for the ultimate MATRIX collection released on HD-DVD on the 22 of MAY.That will be a beauty.I will love to know if that will be the biggest selling hd-dvd movie when it's released.

[AndrewWilliams]

DVD will be phased out eventually I'd say...about 10 years after all DVD players become HD capable.

[betty boop]

DVD will be phased out eventually I'd say...about 10 years after all DVD players become HD capable.

yes I'd agree 10 years would be about right, by then we would have hi-def disc players(soem format or the other) which would have dvd playign capability anyways and cheap enough compared to dvd players today. so probably all people would buy by that stage anyhow.

its a process that could start earlier, maybe at the 5 year mark but probably wont be 10 years before a complete phase out I'd agree.

[Julian L]

Having gained my only HD disc media exposure until just recently purely on (a lot of) HD DVD, I have to say that my experience of Blu Ray thus far is, well, a let down!

I refer not to the video or audio experience of watching the movie itself, but the format functionality or lack of it. This format is truely half baked in that respect. It feels rushed out the door half done. No wonder they're evolving the specification.

30 odd HD DVD movies later and my experience of HD discs has always been consistantly predictable and comparitively a noted step up compared to DVD from a format function point of view. Enter Blu Ray and I notice a few things are quite different or dare I say it, missing. Too much of a good thing?

Your typical HD DVD returns to the menu after playing the entire movie. Thus far Blu Ray seems to loop and loop the feature movie.

Accessing the extras menu on at least one Blu disc I recall so far causes the movie to pause. Then once you've watched the extra instead of going back to the extras menu for more, it goes back to looping the movie from whereever it last was. So then you bring up the menu again, select extras, the movie pauses and you pick the next extra to watch. On HD DVD you can access all extras while the feature continues in the background and you don't get sent back into the movie after each extra.

I actually have the reverse issue. I find the Toshiba players completely user unfriendly. Slow, loud and clunky. Further, when you press the Display button you have no idea as to how long the movie has left to play, just how long the movie has been playing. The PS3 menu provides you with detailed information about bitrates for audio and video as well as how the running time of the movie. Not sure why you're concerned about the player not returning to the menu when the film plays; also not sure why you want the movie to continue playing when you want to access the extras, although Blu-Ray movies do not stop when you do this (at least the ones I have don't do this). The menu button is there for a reason.

[Tweet]

I would say the progress of the HD formats is largely dependent on a number of factors.

(1) ........The price of the HD player.

(2) ........The price and the availability of movies

(3) ........Whether the Video store will carry them as rentals.

(4) ....... Will it make any real visual difference on the display I've got ?

(5) ....... Do I need a new display and how big ?

(6) ....... Advertising for the sake of product awareness is essential.

( 7) ...... The price of new HD displays will also influence the take-up of the new HD source material.

These are just a few things that need to work together to get the new technology into the hands of consumers.

*........... But what really is essential above all is that the players are actually available for consumers to buy off the shelves.

HELLO, TOSHIBA !!!

(Sorry, I'm sick of waiting, and waiting, and waiting.)

C.M

[mattis]

I actually have the reverse issue. I find the Toshiba players completely user unfriendly. Slow, loud and clunky. Further, when you press the Display button you have no idea as to how long the movie has left to play, just how long the movie has been playing. The PS3 menu provides you with detailed information about bitrates for audio and video as well as how the running time of the movie. Not sure why you're concerned about the player not returning to the menu when the film plays; also not sure why you want the movie to continue playing when you want to access the extras, although Blu-Ray movies do not stop when you do this (at least the ones I have don't do this). The menu button is there for a reason.

You must be talking about a first gen HD DVD player then because my second gen unit doesn't exhibit the loud or clunky features you speak of. As for slow, you need to try out a couple of BD players besides the PS3 and you'll find the Toshiba is fast!

True the info button on the PS3 gives some nice technical info and I hope that Toshiba include this type of info in a firmware update one day. But the time remaining etc you are looking for is actually a feature of the format, not the player. Check out the timeline function on the disc!

I'm sorry but the BD format is like HD lite at present. Hopefully it improves. No wonder the earlier discs dissapointed. Not only did they also lack these goodies but they looked shocking too.

Matt