Taps for HD DVD as Wal-Mart Backs Blu-ray
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High-definition DVD died Friday after a brief illness. The cause of death was the decision by Wal-Mart to stock only HD DVDs and players using the Blu-ray format.
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The Walt Disney Co. will back the high-definition Blu-ray disc developed by Sony over a competing HD DVD format, setting in place a high-stakes battle between Hollywood&#39;s
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With Blu-ray rapidly gaining momentum in the next-gen DVD war, UK retailer Woolworths has announced it will stop stocking Toshiba's HD DVD format in stores.
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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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Blu-ray takes the lead in the battle of the high-definition DVD formats after Warner backs it.
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NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES  - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Tuesday introduced a test version of its new video download service, making it the first major retailer to offer such a service with the backing of all of Hollywood's big studios.
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Warner Bros. Entertainment said yesterday that it will release high-definition movie discs only in the Blu-ray format, rejecting the rival HD DVD format and creating another complication for consumers.
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In news that has shocked the already rocky state of today&#39;s DVD industry, the Walt Disney Company yesterday announced that it intends to back Sony&#39;s high-def Blu-Ray format in the upcoming war between two competing technologies.
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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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National discount retailer Wal-Mart announced Friday that it had decided to only sell Sony's Blu-ray hi-definition movie discs, and will phase out Toshiba's competing HD-DVD formatted discs over the next several months.
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Toshiba increasingly isolated Wal-Mart has apparently decided to follow Best Buy and Netflix and only offer its customers Blu-ray Disc products in future.â¦
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Despite major studios' recent decisions (and rumors from others) to back Blu-ray, Microsoft says it is standing by its decision to support HD DVD on Xbox 360.
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That bouncing smiley-face thing over at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is at it again -- this time the little critter is rolling back the cost of the Arkansas retailer&#39;s online DVD rental program.
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Warner Brothers is dumping HD DVD and going Blu-ray exclusively. Does this spell the end of the format war?
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Prior to this, Blu-ray had the greatest backing, while HD DVD&#39;s support was limited. &quot;Before, you could say that every major player was supporting Blu-ray.
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Microsoft shrugged off HD DVD&#39;s demise on Tuesday, declining to say if or when it would support Blu-ray Disc for the Xbox.Microsoft steadfastly backed HD DVD, selling an external drive for the Xbox for $129.99. That offer was still on the U.S. Xbox Web site as of Tuesday, despite the news that&#160;Toshiba will scuttle the format. Toshiba had been the lead electronics manufacturer in a coalition of companies pushing that format but content producers have thrown their support to Blu-ray.Microsoft&#39;s decision to make the HD DVD drive external rather than within the console &quot;was quite a strategic move on their part,&quot; said Paul O&#39;Donovan, principal analyst with Gartner.However, it&#39;s inevitable that future Xbox versions, as well as other gaming systems aimed at tighter integration with entertainment systems, will incorporate Blu-ray Disc drives, said O&#39;Donovan. The Xbox currently has a standard DVD drive.Sony gained momentum for its Blu-ray player by putting it in its PlayStation 3 console, according to research company IDC.The PS3&#39;s &quot;dual roles as a gaming console and a next-generation DVD player have made it an important part of the format war,&quot; according to the report.Prior to Toshiba&#39;s announcement, Microsoft downplayed the rumors of HD DVD&#39;s death, contending buyers are more interested in gaming functions.&quot;We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace,&quot; the company said in a statement. &quot;It is premature to speculate but we do know from market data that HD movie playback is not a primary purchase driver for consumers buying video game consoles.&quot;Microsoft, which started selling the external drive for $199 in late 2006, has dropped the price twice, to $179 last August finally to its current price, which varies by region.O&#39;Donovan agreed the company likely won&#39;t face declining sales of its Xbox gaming console. But Microsoft&#39;s greater problem may be getting rid of the external HD DVD drives in its inventory.HD DVD is &quot;dead and gone&quot; now, O&#39;Donovan said.&#160;
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Warner Bros., the only major movie studio to release titles on both of the rival high-definition video disc formats, has decided to drop HD DVD and exclusively back Blu-ray Disc, it said Friday.The move could prove decisive in determining which of the two formats becomes the de facto DVD replacement for high-definition content. Currently, both formats are battling to secure a lead, but neither has managed to obtain a meaningful market share due to consumer indifference as a consequence of the battle. As a result, the market for high-definition movies has seen its growth stunted, and companies like Warner have lost potential sales.Warner said the decision was made in part as a response to this situation.&quot;A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry,&quot; said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner&#39;s home entertainment group in a statement.The move comes on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off on Monday in Las Vegas, and is sure to light a fire under the HD DVD camp, which is chiefly backed by Toshiba and also includes Paramount, Universal, HBO Video, Microsoft, and Intel. The HD DVD Promotion Group has a previously scheduled news conference on Sunday, and the rival Blu-ray Disc group is scheduled to speak the following day.Companies from both sides of the format battle are expected to show their latest players and talk up their own formats during CES.Last year&#39;s CES saw the unveiling by Warner of a hybrid disc called Total HD. The disc attempted to break the format deadlock by offering one side compatible with HD DVD and the other side compatible with Blu-ray Disc. However, the disc never made it to market, and Warner gave up on the hybrid format later in 2007.