HD format war seen dragging on
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The high-definition DVD format war  has not been won, at least not in the minds of the retailers.  Last week, Time Warner Inc's  Warner Bros studio said it  would exclusively release high-definition DVDs in Blu-ray  format instead of Toshiba Corp's  competing HD DVD  technology.
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But the war continues... IFA 07 Another month, another consumer electronics show, and once again the backers of the rival HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats come to attempt to persuade us their favoured format is winning the war. The IFA show in Berlin last week was no exception - so how is battle faring now?â¦
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So Toshiba finally threw in the towel on its HD DVD format today, making Blu-ray  the winner in the hi-def war. Consumers, however, could be the losers because without competition, there's no incentive for cheaper Blu-ray players.
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HD DVD supporters and vendors pause and regroup after Warner's surprise vote in the format war.
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The HD DVD format has won a battle in its ongoing war with rival optical format Blu-ray with the announcement that Universal Pictures is backing the technology.
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Warner Brothers, the only studio to back both high-definition video disk formats, now will only publish movies in Blu-ray. Some say this shift will quickly kill the competing HD DVD format.
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The Audiophiliac ponders the imminent demise of HD DVD, and looks back over a long history of defunct formats.
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Hollywood film studios have pledged support for one of the competing formats battling for primacy in the DVD market. The group supporting the HD DVD optical disc format for high-definition video is vying with the rival Blu-ray Disc format .
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DonÂt buy that high-definition TV yet. Competition may force the prices down further.
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Company is the latest to pick a side in the battle of high-definition disc formats.
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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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from LPs to compact discs and from VHS to DVD,&quot; says Jeff Joseph of the Consumer Electronics Association. &quot;High definition
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The decision by Warner Bros. to drop HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray Disc for high-definition movies has set the ele...
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Hollywood players pick sides in the competition between the HD DVD and Blu-ray standards.
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TOKYO - A full-scale war over DVD formats is only a matter of time - the electronics industry can smell it in the air. As the two opposing camps continue to recruit allies, negotiations are no longer about averting a confrontation.
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&quot;The problem is that we&#39;re getting into another round of format wars and until it shakes out, consumers are not likely to buy much of anything,&quot; Michael Gartenberg, research director at Jupiter Media, told TechNewsWorld.
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HD DVD has recently faced some head wind in its struggle to become the high-definition successor to the DVD, but its supporters are playing an ace from their sleeve with the arrival of the first discs that take advantage of its players' built-in Internet connections.