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Here are 4 sneak previews of the upcoming Discovery Channel special “When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions”. The special series includes historical NASA footage restored to high-definition (HD) quality. The three-part series will start this coming Sunday, June 8, and continue on June 15 and June 22.
Comcast announced today it reached 500 choices in high-definition (HD) on its network and is adding more video-on-demand (VOD) and over 150 hours of HD television shows from Showtime, Encore, MoviePlex and Starz. Full Story »
In anticipation of the next Olympics to be held in Beijing, Broadcom and Coship Electronics have partnered on providing the first commercially available high definition set-top box for China. The set-top box (STB) will support 1080p and interactive services such as VOD.
DirecTV is set to deliver even more high definition (HD) channels with the successful launch of their DIRECTV 11 satellite yesterday. Once the satellite is put into service this coming Fall, it will enable the company to provide up to 150 HD channels nationwide. DirecTV will also be expanding its services to more than 100 markets.
Study predicts more than than 47 million American households will be subscribing to some type of high-definition TV service by the end of 2008.
Strategy Analytics reports that IPTV revenues will grow rapidly to $14 billion in 2012 from 2007 revenues of $694 million. “2007 was a watershed year for IPTV in the US market,” said Ben Piper, Director of the Strategy Analytics Broadband Network Strategies service.
Toshiba Corp. Chief Executive Atsutoshi Nishida sat down with the Wall Street Journal to discuss the death of HD DVD.
Chief Executive of Toshiba, Atsutoshi Nishida, said that HD DVD “was one of 45 strategic business units that we have.” He seemed to shrug of the potential of owning the next gen disc format saying, “This just means we now have 44.”
Microsoft announced Saturday it would stop making the HD DVD add-on player for its xBox 360 gaming console. The company said Toshiba’s discontinuation of its HD DVD players, and poor market saturation, lead to the decision. Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida estimated the HD DVD add-on player only sold 300,000 units.
With Amazon and other retailers blowing out prices on HD DVD players and movies, the question is “Should I buy into this dead technology or just save up for a Blu-ray Disc player?” This is a question that you have to answer yourself, but the point of this article is to give you some pros and cons.
Just a day after Toshiba threw in the towel and conceded the next generation disc to Sony, both parties are making a deal involving the production of advanced “Cell” microprocessors. According to the Associated Press, the joint venture will be owned 60 percent by Toshiba, and 40 percent split by Sony and its game unit Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
Will Blu-ray prices come down as quickly as they did when HD DVD was around? No. Will consumers buy high definition Blu-ray discs at $29.99 and higher for new releases? No way.
Sure you have the early adopters, the one who bought players for $1200 and didn’t mind paying $35 for a disc. And, you have some who were waiting for the format war decision to be made, and are now willing to pay $399(Sony BDP-S300) for a player. But for the mass consumer, Blu-ray is still too expensive.
According to a Reuters inside source, Toshiba said its planning on ending the high definition war by conceding to rival format Blu-ray Disc. Toshiba would suffer hundreds of millions of dollars if they scrapped production of their HD DVD players, however stock values for Toshiba Corp Quote increased by 6% at one point, indicating share holders concern over losing more money in the format more.
“They made a clear decision, and this was recognized by the market,” said Takeshi Osawa, senior fund manager at Norinchukin Zenkyoren Asset Management. While the move cannot be verified, Toshiba public relations was not taking any calls regarding the matter.
HD DVD suffered from several announcements in the last two weeks. Big box retailer Best Buy announced it would promote only Blu-ray Disc. Online movie rental company Netflix also announced it would follow Blu-ray. And, what may have been the biggest blow to the HD DVD camp was the Walmart decision last Friday to go with Blu-ray.
Could this be the end of HD DVD? Today Walmart announced it would promote Blu-ray Disc as the high definition format. This could possibly be the final blow to HD DVD, as earlier in the week both Netflix and Best Buy announced they would be promoting Blu-ray Disc exclusively.
A Hollywood Reporter article written by says that the “format war has turned into a format death watch.” Industry sources say that Toshiba is widely expected to pull the plug it’s competitive hi def format HD DVD. However Jodi Salli, VP of marketing for Toshiba America says, “Given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.”
Home Media Magazine writes, “Studio executives are looking at 2008 with guarded optimism. The high-definition disc format war may be nearing its end, given Warner Home Video’s defection from HD DVD. That means they can focus not on fighting each other, but instead on battling consumer indifference toward next-generation media, the success of which all agree is critical to the continued well-being of the home entertainment business.” Full Story
Most people have already declared Blu-ray to be the format war’s victory and our recent talks with Toshiba and Universal seem to suggest that the HD DVD camp might be ready to pull up stakes. The crazy part is this: Just a few weeks ago, it might’ve gone the other way entirely.
All those consumers who bought an HDTV for the holidays may wish they had waited awhile. According to a forecast by Menlo Park, Calif.’s Pacific Media Associates, flat-panel HDTV prices will drop another 15.6% this year, while the market for the TVs worldwide will grow 41%, to 113 million units.
Now that we have High-Definition (HD) in the beginning stages of taking over traditional 480i broadcasts, we will start to notice all the little things that we never before saw on television. With double the amount of line resolution and 5 times that clarity, HD will hide no secrets.
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