Last Updated on Saturday, 16 February 2008 03:32 Friday, 15 February 2008 10:43

HD DVD has been on a downward slope since Warner Bros. retracted support for the format in January. Best Buy and Netflix's decision only expedited the process. Jumping on the bandwagon is Wal-Mart and Toshiba with plans to phase out HD DVD shortly after Best Buy's policy change in March. 

Wal-mart's plans go in effect by June, when they will only carry Blu-ray movies and hardware for high definition content. DVD formats are still fully supported.

Toshiba's decision is not official yet, and the rumor is only confirmed through "reliable" sources. Those sources say that an announcement might come out in the weeks to come. Unfortunately, Toshiba has been selling their hardware at a severe loss of several hundred USD per player. To make matters worse, they just spent 2.7 million USD on a Super Bowl ad to muster sales. If the company could have created the user base, the disc royalties would have paid for the short falls.

At this point, it might be prudent to admit defeat. Despite every effort by Toshiba, sales continue to drop on HD DVD and Blu-ray's lead increases. Amidst all the blows to the HD DVD format, the price cuts and continued sales raise questions in our mind. Are they trying to unload hardware before they announce their decision? Are they fighting to the end? All foreseeable paths lead to an unsupported format and an abandoned user base.

We expect prices to drop on Blu-ray equipment due to the increased volume. Those HD DVD players everyone bought can also upscale dvds, so not all is lost. Just stick it in a kids room. One of the best Blu-ray players on the market is a PS3 for 399 USD.  In addition, it plays games and runs linux.

There are further readings available at CNet, Hollywood Reporter, and ars technica.

**update**

Confirming our rumors, NHK dropped the news today that Toshiba is dropping out of the format war. Reuters has a story on the NHK news post.  200k Video cast

What are your plans for your HD DVD player? Feel free to let us know.

• Add New
• Search
• RSS

Comments (0)

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.