Toshiba defiant on HD DVD: It ain't dead yet
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Two days after it lost an important ally in the high-definition format battle, Toshiba put on a defiant face at the Consumer Electronics Show and declared the HD DVD format is a long way from being dead.&quot;We remain firm in the belief that HD DVD is the format best suited to the wants and needs of consumers,&quot; said Akio Ozaka, head of Toshiba America Consumer Products, at a news conference. He said Toshiba was surprised by the announcement, which came on Friday, that&#160;Warner Bros. was dropping HD DVD&#160;and exclusively backing Blu-ray.&#160; &quot;We are especially surprised that this decision was made in spite of the significant momentum that HD DVD has gained in the U.S. market and other regions.&quot;Warner was the only major Hollywood studio releasing movies on both formats and the decision to go with Blu-ray Disc meant Toshiba has only two major studios, Paramount and Universal, backing its technology.The decision also left Toshiba with a potential public relations disaster as it came just days before CES, the annual North American gathering of the consumer electronics industry that kicks off officially here on Monday. In response to the Warner news the HD DVD Promotion Group canceled its news conference, leaving some to conclude that backers of the format were ready to concede defeat.&quot;As you can imagine this is a tough day for me,&quot; said Jodi Sally, vice president of marketing for digital audio and video products at Toshiba America Consumer Products. &quot;It&#39;s difficult for me to read all the pundits declare that HD DVD is dead. Clearly the events of the last few days have led you to that conclusion but we&#39;ve been declared dead before.&quot;But Toshiba might have a hard time convincing the analysts and media that follow the battle closely that HD DVD is still in the race.&quot;It&#39;s interesting the CEO said he was surprised. I think that&#39;s an understatement. Devastated would probably be more accurate,&quot; said Peter King, an analyst at U.K.-based Strategy Analytics, who attended the Toshiba news conference.&quot;They really have an uphill battle,&quot; he said. &quot;They are left with a couple of the smaller studios but there is no doubt the major studios have voted with their feet. It&#39;s hard to see now what they can do. Maybe focus on the PC market as a format, but they have a major struggle and that was very clear today.&quot;King wasn&#39;t willing to call the battle over just yet but he said a lot would depend on comments made during CES by other industry leaders, like&#160;Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is scheduled to speak in Las Vegas Sunday evening.But if the battle is over then what&#39;s bad news for Toshiba will be good news for consumers and the consumer electronics industry, he said. &quot;Everybody in the industry can get behind one format [and] start promoting. The message will be simple and clear, prices will come down and it&#39;s a good thing for the industry.&quot;Toshiba said 1 million HD DVD players are currently in the market in North America.In a statement issued on Saturday the company also expressed surprise over Warner&#39;s move &quot;despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD.&quot; On Sunday it didn&#39;t elaborate on those contracts or what its next move may be in the march to make HD DVD the de facto replacement for DVD for high-definition content.
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And Toshiba to bring 1080p to under â¬400 IFA 07 UK consumer electronics company - yes, we have a few - Venturer has pledged to bring HD DVD to the mass market with a slimline player set to retail for under Â£200 and â¬300.â¦
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called &quot;HD DVD&quot; -- is in competition with the Sony-led Blu-ray disc to become the dominant next generation DVD. Toshiba said the HD DVD&#39;s strength against
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Toshiba has hammered another nail in the Blu-Ray coffin, by announcing a dual layer HD-DVD and DVD disc. This means that studios will be able to sell discs that have the DVD version on one side and the HD-DVD
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Japan's Toshiba Corp.  aims to  put disk drives for high-definition DVDs on all its laptops  next year as it strives to gain an edge in the high-stakes  next-generation DVD format battle, a Toshiba executive said on  Tuesday.
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Toshiba Corp  said on Sunday  its HD DVD high-definition video format is not dead despite  being dealt a big setback by Warner Bros studio's decision to  exclusively back Sony Corp's  rival Blu-ray technology.
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Reuters confirms Toshiba will cease manufacturing HD-DVD equipment, which leaves Blu-Ray as the presumptive victor in the irrelevant optical disk format war. Rob Beschizza reports in his Gadget Lab blog.
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Toshiba still says it will fight on in the high definition disc race. But campaign sources tell the Hollywood Reporter that it is preparing to accept that HD DVD simply canât win.
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No We surrender Toshiba has abandoned HD DVD "following recent major changes in the market", it announced this morning. The company spun the failure of its favourite format as a move made to strengthen the industry.â¦
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Toshiba (6502.T) said on Friday it would  introduce its first two High Definition DVD players (HD DVD) in  Europe by November, priced between 599 and 999 euros  ($768-1,280), well above prices in the United States.
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Toshiba announced plans to include an HD DVD-enabled DVD player in its laptops starting in December next year. The new drives will be limited to the high-end &quot;Qosmio&quot; brand, and will sell for around 200,000-300,000 yen (US$1,845-$2,770).
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(InfoWorld) - The first laptop computer to feature an HD DVD-R drive, Toshiba's Qosmio Q30, went on sale in Japan over the weekend. HD DVD-R is the read-only version of the HD DVD format and a single-sided disc can hold up to 15GB of data. The format, which is principally backed by Toshiba, is in competition with Blu-ray Disc, which is backed by Sony. The Qosmio G30/97A is an upgraded model of the existing Qosmio laptop computer that is already on sale in several markets worldwide. It is based on an Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and has a 17-inch widescreen display with 1,920 pixel by 1,280 pixel resolution, which means it can show high-definition images from HD DVD movie discs. The 4.8-kg machine also features a 320GB hard-disk drive, digital TV tuner and HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) output. ToshibaÂ announced the laptopÂ in mid-January also displayed at the recentÂ International Consumer Electronics ShowÂ (CES) in Las Vegas in January. It's on sale for around Â¥373,365 ($3,085) in Japan at present. Toshiba hasn't announced international launch plans or prices but says it will go on sale overseas. To coincide with the launch of the new laptop, Hitachi MaxellÂ is putting blank HD DVD-R media on the market for around Â¥1,500 per disc. Â
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Toshiba Corp  is planning to give  up on its HD DVD format for high-definition video, conceding  defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp  , a company source said on Saturday.
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Toshiba Corp  is planning to give  up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding  defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp  , a company source said on Saturday.
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Will the competing next-generation optical disc standards ever meet in the same device? Not for now, it seems.
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NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES  - Toshiba Corp  may  not have officially given up on its HD DVD format for high  definition DVDs, but the word on the street on Sunday was that  rival Sony Corp's  Blu-ray had won the war.
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NEC, Toshiba will put the next-generation DVD technology in desktops and laptops next year. NEC plans to start selling desktop PCs equipped with HD-DVD (High Definition/High Density-DVD) drives at the end of 2005, the company says.