Travis Bickle

I want to see some advertising for HD....they are letting Sony just pound them with advertising. The difference this makes (IMO) is huge. Average Joe walks into Wal Mart, sees the Blu Ray display, and he's at least heard of it. I haven't seen an HD DVD ad on TV that I can remember....only some banners and minor print with the "5 Free Titles" promotion.

If you own an HD player like I do, this is somewhat good news. At least the ship hasn't sank just yet

DVD Josh

I've not bashing HD-DVD, but to say that "HD-DVD is the consumer's format of choice" is a bit Sony-esque.

Adam Tyner

I've seen a couple of spots on the high definition channels like HDNet and Universal HD, but nothing I can recall on a more traditional network. Marketing has definitely been one of HD DVD's weaknesses.

cardaway

Seeing this article make me wonder; Is there such a thing as an HD-DVD TV commercial that basically exists simply to push the format? I know I saw the Blu-ray one yesterday during football.

jeffrey r

What's that phrase--oh yeah:

Too little, too late.

I still enjoy my 2 HD-A2s, and my modest collection of HD-DVDs, but I kind of hoped Toshiba would give up the fight so we could move this thing forward. Putting up this kind of weak fight is silly. But in the end, despite what Toshiba says or does, if the studios continue to align themselves with blu-ray, and the retailers start dropping HD-DVD altogether or slanting things more in blu-ray's favor, that will have much more impact than Toshiba's continuing this fight.

As to the TV ads, I have seen a bunch of blu-ray ads lately, especially during football. So they're continuing to get their name out there to the masses.

Quinty

Studio's are only interested in the almighty buck but the way Toshiba is doing it says enough about how much convidence they have in their own product at this point.
Toshiba has done this over and over again by lowering the prices and they still don't get the majority of consumers to buy it while Blu-Ray players are being sold at about 100 dollars more like the Sony and Samsung players at around 270 dollars plus 5 free discs.
Plus they get Disney, Warner, Fox, Sony, New Line and Lions Gate software while HD-DVD only has Universal and Paramount and even they are rumoured to go at least neutral.

If this is al Toshiba can do to make HD-DVD become a succes than it's over for them soon since they are alone in this world together (for now) with Paramount and Universal.

BrandonJF

Exactly! From day one, THE advantage, spec-wise, has been price and... that's really it. I do understand that it has taken Blu-Ray this long to get up to spec and implement Profile 1.1 in order to be able to get that 2nd video stream going and HD-DVD had had an "advantage" as far as IME/U-Control content goes.

Otherwise, I suppose web content can be argued as an HD-DVD "advantage", although I see it as a disadvantage. IMO, studios are wasting their time trying to find something to do with web enabled content. They are seriously out of touch with reality if they think the consumer wants to download content rather than having it on the disc or enjoys buying ringtones using their wonderful Toshiba remote. But, if "cheap" + "web enabled content" is what people are still clinging to for hope, than more power to 'em.

The sole reason for HD-DVDs existence is "it's cheap! it's cheap!" From my experience with the hardware, you get what you pay for.

tonymontana313

Hd-dvd faithful, don't take this the wrong way but if Toshiba was serious about the future of hd-dvd, where are the new models? This just looks like a last stand closing out sale to take care of current inventories. As of right now, the only Toshiba player I would buy would be a XA2 and sadly that's not being offered.

GreenMonkey

No. I have both (20GB PS3) and I still prefer HD-DVD.

A solid, set specification means no 2-5 minute loading times from some of newer BD discs - especially the BD+ discs - like many BD standalones.

Built-in, mandatory ethernet = good for me - not necessarily present on a BD standalones and not really used because of it.

No BD+, non-mandatory AACS copy protections. Big plus for the DRM-haters like me.

Unflakey, working PiP features. Warner is still trying to get this working on BD.

Etc.

There's plenty of pros there for some of us.

BTW: The A3, etc just started showing up in stores around Thanksgiving last year. And the only difference is different, cheaper hardware inside - functionality is pretty much the same as the A2. Not much need for a new model when the current models do everything to spec and does it well. There's none of this profile upgrading, BD+/java improving, etc. They work and they work very well.

The only thing Toshiba could do to make them better would be to improve boot times. That's it as far as I'm concerned.

druryd

I'd like to see Toshiba give up this futile fight, develop their own Blu ray player and offer a coupon/discount to existing HD DVD player owners.

kefrank

this move, even if it is a legitimate attempt to keep HD DVD afloat indefinitely, is too little too late. even if toshiba literally gave away players for free, i don't think they could get enough hardware in homes to make a dent in software sales at this point. what HD DVD needs to have any chance of surviving the year is titles - significant, exclusive titles, one after another as well as a huge marketing push. i seriously doubt that's going to happen.

Ocelot

But but but... how can one download something w/o a hdd or memory cards? Toshiba has new models in the sleeves? That's what i'm saying since the beginning... if you're going to introduce web stuffs, don't you need a storage medium for the users to save the web contents? If they are not downloaing, at least the history of the pages they've visited? I'm really wondering you can even label the web stuffs as a "feature."

Adam Tyner

All HD DVD players are required to have some persistent storage. My HD-A1 has around 100 megs, for instance. That's obviously not enough to download anything meaningful, but...it's there.

I'd say web-awareness does qualify as a feature, although too many of the discs I've seen have been pretty useless -- the store on Even Almighty, White Noise 2 and its lack of anything related to the movie itself (it's all promotional material for other Universal releases), Freedom letting viewers unlock content that's already on the disc or download a 15 second, standard-def clip...

JayDerek

if these hardware pricing cuts were combined w/ a ton of new Universal & Paramount software release announcements I'd actually believe they were trying to stay in the game.

Ocelot

oh, i didn't know the players got like 100mb of internal hdd, good to know, but it's really quite "meaningless." I guess to each of his/her own really... No doubt that the web stuffs are extra and "feature" (to most i would say), but are they going to be around long?

Think of this way, people are not buying the PS3 b/c they want movies, not games... So for those people, i'm wondering the web stuffs are a turn on or just another turn off.

For those of us into multimedia packages, i.e. a machine does gaming and movies (various formats, including hdd media), are we even going to care about the web stuffs? Since the machine can surf the web, do you even care if the links on the discs take you there? Unless the discs got exclusive links, only can be viewed if accessing from the discs (but that's another bothersome barrier don't you think?).

Now, for those of us want everything wireless, do you even care if the hardware doesn't do WiFi? It seems that there are still a lot of open implementations and developments to make this web thingy a true feature. My opinion is that, it will be short lived...

Matto1020

So after reading that press release...here's what I got from it.

"Toshiba HD-DVD Players enhance your current library of standard DVD titles to near HD quality."

That is a terrible move Toshiba! It's almost common knowledge that the new HD and Blu players do this, so why quit focusing on your main selling point?

At least when I see the Blu displays they clearly market the differences between Blu and SD....not just settle saying "Upconverted HD is close enough."

I really believe this is Toshiba trying to clear stock as fast as possible.

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clappj

What I'd really like to see from them is a commitment to make inexpensive combo players in the future, so I can hold onto all my current HD-DVD titles.

Ocelot

Actually besides the 5 free hd-dvd promotion, there was the free Heroes S1 hd-dvd promotion with the X360 add-on. And i also saw the hd-dvd commercial on AE during the Sopranos reruns. However, i find the mafia hd-dvd promotion is a bit too general (yeah, if the Christopher guy think hd-dvd is great, it must be great). Not only that, but it kinda backfired for me, i.e. big deal, you're telling me the same thing that Blu-ray can do, not anything better or new. Of course, the purpose of the commercial is to get the words out... However, like another poster said, too little and too late.

kvrdave

While I also see this move as a bit of desperation, I think many of us are out of touch. With all the media coverage about BD getting Warner, and all the talking heads saying the war is over, of all the people I have talked to, nobody knows, and nobody cares.

When they are at my house and watch a movie on my 122" screen in HD, they are blown away. And then they are still completely happy going back to their homes, with their tvs, and watching standard DVDs. The more I watch the average people I know, the more I am convinced that this will forever be a niche market second to DVD.

But I hope that they continue to believe that it is worth the effort, because I want to pick up as many movies on either format as I can.

Ocelot

The you tube video was hilarious

however, i still think Blu-ray is Hitler though Since Sony has been labeled the bad guy in the war...

Gizmo

That was one week only at Best Buy.

kmac2878

Nice!

Gizmo

That is hilarious!

GreenEggs248

That youtube was great.

Zen Peckinpah

"BLADES OF GLORY!?!? Are you fucking kidding me!?"

This is all I could think of while reading this:


WE'RE HAVING A FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE sale!