Sayonara!! Rest in peace.

This informative podcast concerning HD-DVD sums it up quite good.

Here's the final news on HDDVD.... its a done deal now
 

Well, now that it's all official, I guess I'll just have to wait until I like the 1080p TVs that are out there. They're still not up to the standard I'd like - and I'm hoping that OLEDs will meet the colour requirements I'm aiming for, though I may end up having to purchase an interim TV when they switch to digital broadcast.

Once I get a 1080p set, I will undoubtedly get a Blu-Ray player to take advantage of it - unless someone announces a 4:4:4 1080p format for home viewing (maybe Red will say something about this at NAB?). But I will never be buying a collection of discs. This will be a rental player only, and maybe hooked up for gaming on occasion.

-Steve

I hope Sony sends them a fruitbasket at least, which a note saying:
"Good form, it was a splendid battle"
and in the basket would be a blu-ray player

Toshiba has withdrawn from the market
 

From the Wall St Journal:

Toshiba Exits HD DVD Business,
Ceding Market to Sony's Blu-ray
By YUKARI IWATANI KANE
February 19, 2008 11:37 a.m.

TOKYO -- Blaming the loss of support from a key movie studio, Toshiba Corp. said it is pulling out of the HD DVD business, handing victory to Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray technology in the fierce format war over high-definition DVDs.

Toshiba said Tuesday that it would cease production of its HD DVD players and recorders immediately and close out the business by the end of March.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1203...-Business-News

There could be a silver lining in the press announcement:

> "On Tuesday, Toshiba also formally announced that it will invest more than 1.7 trillion yen to build two flash memory factories.

One will be located in Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, and the other in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture.

The plants are scheduled for completion in 2010. Construction will begin in spring 2009.

Demand for flash memory chips, which are used in digital cameras and other products, is growing worldwide.(IHT/Asahi: February 20,2008)"

This could mean higher densities, faster speeds and lower prices for solid state memory.

Here's my conspiracy theory:

Hollywood is the driving force behind the victory of Blu-Ray.
Indy productions are somewhat of a threat to Hollywood's market share.
Blu-Ray, after many years, has no realistic software for indy producers.
Could it be that Blu-Ray is purposefully resisting indy productions?

I don't totally believe this, but the thought did make me wonder...On the flip side it doesn't make sense for Sony to block indy producers since they sell us cameras.

Also in today's Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1203...ub_marketplace

conspiracy theories...
 

Conspiracies are wonderful to speculate about. However, I think that ordinary ineptitude is sufficient to explain most of the problems we are seeing.

Personally, I'm not planning to have this part of the HD food chain functionally until late fall of this year, when profile 2.0 is available. And after Apple announces support for blu-ray in DVD SP and elsewhere.

Yeah, I think it will speed up the process for us. To me it's a huge bummer that HD DVD didn't win because at least they had their act together for our industry.

I guess I don't understand what you are referring to when you say HD DVD had their act together for our industry. I have had a Blu-Ray burner for months and have been able to record my HDV video to Blu-Ray without compromising quality. While I never have seen or heard of any HD DVD burner on the market. From the first time I saw some of my HDV footage. My goal has always been "how do I preserve this quality for my clients?" At least Blu-Ray gave me a burner.

Its nice that I have to now worry if my Blu Ray player is up to date and will work with all the functions that its supposed to have and if it play all my dvd's..list goes on

thats my 1/2 cent.

I think you are misinformed there - BOTH systems use EXACTLY the same codecs!