All HD DVD Feeds

Updated: Is a Blu-ray player really worth buying?

Ian Calcutt — 1207839600

High-definition TVs are everywhere but the vast majority of what people watch on them is still old fashioned standard-def material. There are now plenty of choices for getting spectacular HD content onto the screen, not least of which is Blu-ray.

However, there are also lots of HD movies on Sky, you can upscale any DVD to near-HD levels of quality and there's the promise of Freeview HD by 2012. Blu-ray might have won the format war, but is a Blu-ray player really worth getting?

"No," says Ian Calcutt

Blu-ray is not the only way to enjoy an HD quality picture. A good upscaling DVD player (like the Denon DVD-1730 ) will cost a fraction of the price of a next-gen disc spinner, even producing 1080p resolutions in some cases. DVD is hardly about to die out.

Blu-ray hardware is expensive. It's all very well if you're a gamer and have a PlayStation 3 (by far the best Blu-ray player, by the way), but home cinema buffs have to pay over the odds for a decent standalone player.

Ok, so the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD did create consumer confusion. But the competition did drive hardware prices down to almost ludicrously low levels. Did you know that since HD DVD bowed out, prices of some Blu-ray players have actually gone up?!

HD DVD was pretty finalised as a spec, but Blu-ray's hardware and software are still evolving. Some older Blu-ray players have no Ethernet ports for accessing upgrades and interactive disc features via broadband. Many also lack outputs to make the most of the picture and sound that discs can deliver. Some players don't support 7.1 channel audio and many don't meet the latest v1.3 spec of HDMI , allowing for better colour and lip-sync. Don't buy a Blu-ray player unless it supports the full Profile 2.0 spec.

You can get HD movies, sport, drama and documentaries from satellite and cable TV. Both platforms also use PVR technology for on-demand HD viewing.

Finally, the internet will become an increasingly important way to deliver HD. So, unless you really must build up a collection of discs on your shelf, why do you even need another disc player? Microsoft's Xbox Live already offers HD downloads to subscribers and you should expect other download services (including Apple's iTunes) to follow suit in the future. Why do we need another disc format, when digital delivery is obviously the next big thing?

"Yes," says Matt Hastings

Blu-ray won the high-def disc war, so it's the only way to watch true HD movies on your TV (unless you're a Sky HD or Virgin Media subscriber).

Even the best upscaling DVD players are no match for genuine HD source material. Why stick with DVD's dated video system (based on very lossy MPEG-2 compression) and rely on an upscaler's guesswork at what bits of the image are missing? Get the whole thing for real on Blu-ray disc. For those movies you still own on DVD, Blu-ray players upscale too, so you get the best of both worlds.

The average TV is getting bigger as technology improves and relative prices come down. Normal DVD pictures are going to start looking increasingly worse in the months and years to come. As a delivery system for HD, Blu-ray is a natural fit for big TVs.

Blu-ray can support films in the higher quality 1080p progressive scan format. Some players also offer a 24 frames-per-second output for as close a match to the original cinema copy as possible. You don't get 1080p with HDTV broadcasts and HD DVD players are not yet 24fps-compatible.

The audio capabilities of Blu-ray also far exceed those of DVD. Lossless high-end formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD are making movies sound as good as they did to the engineers in the mastering suite.

Like computer memory, you rarely realise how much you're going to want until you're outgrowing your system. At 50GB, Blu-ray has the highest capacity among disc-based media. And its future potential for storing top-notch pictures and high-bandwidth sound is currently unbeatable. Blu-ray can also be put to many other uses, from HD computer games on Sony's PS3 to backing up massive amounts of PC data.

Amazon makes HD DVD owners feel better

Don Reisinger — 1207796478

Amazon.com announced on Wednesday that anyone who purchased an HD DVD player from the retailer will be offered a $50 (£25) credit to be used at any time on the company's website. The news follows the death of the format back in February when Toshiba finally announced it was pulling out of the HD DVD business.

Citing its "value for customer relationships", Amazon sent an email to shoppers to inform them of the credit. Anyone who purchased an HD DVD player through its American online store before 23 February is eligible for the credit, which can be redeemed at any time between now and 9 April 2009.

Giving something back

"New technologies don't always work out as planned," the company wrote in a letter to customers. "We at Amazon.com value our customer relationships more than anything and would like to support customers who purchased these players by offering a credit good for $50 off any products sold by Amazon.com."

Amazon's decision to offer the credit doesn't come as a surprise, with many major retailers like Wal-Mart having already initiated similar programmes. Considering that none of these retailers actually needed to make such a gesture though, it's nice to see them give something back.

Toshiba HD DVD farce cost half billion pounds

J Mark Lytle — 1205392470

Anyone who thought Toshiba got off lightly in terms of face saved and avoiding throwing good money after bad when it pulled the plug on its HD DVD business last month will probably want to think again when looking at the scale of the financial loss it caused.

Rock-solid rumours coming from Japan say that the Tokyo firm is set to warn investors that it will write off a loss of ¥100 billion, or almost half a billion pounds, on HD DVD this financial year.

Losses doubled

Toshiba still expects full-year profits of ¥250 billion (£1.2 billion). But the fact that it's a public company with shareholders expecting far better numbers makes the larger-than-forecast HD DVD loss significant.

Thursday trading in Tokyo currently has Toshiba stock down almost 3 per cent compared to yesterday. The company had expected to lose ¥50 billion on HD DVD this year even if it had stayed in the market.

Now Toshiba boss bets house on standard DVD

J Mark Lytle — 1204619643

Anyone familiar with the conservative nature of big Japanese business will tell you that Toshiba’s decision to drop HD DVD like a hot brick was almost unseemly in its haste, even though the firm had little choice.

Instead of slowly running down production and sales, Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida went straight for the jugular last month. He put the whimpering format out of its misery, but what’s next for the hard-man boss after such a high-profile failure?

Standard DVD

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Nishida explained that Toshiba will switch focus to standard DVD players and even suggested that Blu-ray will struggle.

He said: “What people don't realise is that Hollywood studios are going to release new titles not just for Blu-ray but for standard DVDs as well, and there are a far greater number of current-generation DVD players out there.”

Upscaling players

That’s all very well, but isn’t the fact that DVD machines are as cheap as chips a bit of a problem? Apparently not: “If you watch standard DVDs on our players, the images are of very high quality because they include an upconverting feature. And we're going to improve this even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images.”

While Nishida clearly has nerves of steel, it’s hard to see many people who want to watch high-quality video not actually buying a high-definition machine. It just doesn’t make sense.

Although he’s clearly banking on a price difference in favour of his players, it won’t be long before Blu-ray decks hit the price sweet-spot that made DVD a must-buy product a few years ago.

DreamWorks to carry on with HD DVD releases

J Mark Lytle... — 1204101527

DreamWorks, the movie studio behind Sweeny Todd, the new Indiana Jones film and Transformers, surprised observers yesterday by announcing that it will most likely continue to release films on HD DVD.

In spite of the demise of the format, HD DVD owners will still get the chance to purchase new high-definition releases for their lame-duck players because of an existing agreement.

Cash in hand

DreamWorks intends to honour the deal it agreed last August to release its films only on HD DVD, even though its sister studio, Paramount, has already switched sides to join the Blu-ray camp.

Although the decision to persevere with HD DVD in the short term may appear ludicrous, it actually makes some financial sense. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD markets are still so small, the DreamWorks share of the $150 million (£70 million) promised by Toshiba in return for support is likely to be far more than it could take in sales of high-def movies anyway.

Shoppers to Tosh: You shouldn't have bothered

J Mark Lytle — 1203935471

Even though we've heard of some fantastic customer service for Japanese early adopters of the failed HD DVD format, it seems not everyone's happy with the brave face being put on by Toshiba.

In fact, a new survey by Nikkei Publications has found that almost half of respondents think Toshiba should never even have bothered with HD DVD in the first place.

Get out early

Asked, "At what point do you think Toshiba should have decided to withdraw from the HD DVD business?" 43 per cent said it should have done so in 2005 when it was still in talks with the backers of Blu-ray about finding a common high-definition format.

The poll of almost 1,000 Japanese geeks offered some small consolation for Toshiba in that just under 30 per cent backed its choice to wait until now to pull the plug.

Better yet, just under half of the technology and finance publisher's readers felt that the format war wasn't all bad news. A healthy 47 per cent said that "the format competition accelerated technical progress".

Did Sony and Toshiba conspire to kill HD DVD?

J. Mark Lytle — 1203934823

Although we promise not to bore you with too many stories about the demise of HD DVD this week, there's an intriguing conspiracy theory about the Blu-ray victory that's worth a quick look.

It concerns the suggestion that a recent deal done in Japan between Toshiba and Sony was somehow connected to the former's decision to stop making HD DVD hardware.

Chips with everything

In the immediate aftermath of HD DVD's demise, Sony announced the value of a deal that gave Toshiba its chip-making plants in west Japan for over £400 million. The new Toshiba plants will supply Cell processors and graphics chips for the PS3 as well as parts to various Toshiba items.

Although the sale was negotiated last October, the price was not revealed until after Toshiba agreed to give up on its high-definition format. Conspiracy or coincidence - you decide.

Cameras combine to create super HD TV

J. Mark Lytle — 1203672941

Japan's Mitsubishi Electric has come up with an unusual technique for boosting the resolution of high-definition video by combining shots from multiple ordinary cameras into one super HD stream.

The unnamed technology [Subscription link] is currently being tested at the company's labs in Tokyo using five video cameras capable of shooting high-quality images. It links these to computers with 3D graphics processors that can get to work on the raw data.

4x high-def

Input from the various cameras is analysed for differences, which are mashed together to form a composite video including everything at a much higher resolution.

With the current set-up of five cameras and five PCs the resulting video clocks in at quadruple the resolution of normal HD TV and is pumped out the other end just 0.15 seconds after the shooting begins.

Mitsubishi claims the quality is on a par with commercial digital cinema and says it hopes to use the technology in surveillance systems and possibly even in live TV broadcasts.

Honest retailer swaps HD DVD for Blu-ray gear

J. Mark Lytle — 1203672627

Amid the rush to wring the last few pennies out of HD DVD's rancid and yellowing corpse, at least one retailer has had the decency to front up and look after its unfortunate customers. Only problem is, it's in Japan.

Edion, the owner of several chains of electronics shops there, has taken the unusual step of extending the hand of sympathy to anyone who bought an HD DVD player or recorder from it. It's offering to exchange the useless machines for new Blu-ray devices.

Cash back too

Throughout March, customers can return any of seven Toshiba HD DVD decks and swap them for a BD unit from Sony, Panasonic or Sharp. If the latter is more expensive, customers need to make up the balance, but if it's cheaper they'll actually get a refund of the difference.

Edion's press release was refreshingly forthright about the HD DVD situation. It gave the reason for the exchange programme as the fact that "[HD DVD] customers can no longer use their purchases properly".

Extending the largesse even further, the company also promised to keep selling HD DVD movies and blank disks to anyone who needs them. Now that's the kind of customer service we could do with in the West.

HD DVD not yet dead in laptops?

Dan Grabham — 1203602840

According to Toshiba, it is undecided what to do about HD DVD drives in notebooks. TechRadar attended Toshiba’s UK press launch in lovely Hertfordshire this morning and found that it hadn’t quite made its mind up.

Tosh has been a bit silent on the subject of HD drives in its lappies over the past few days, pushing us from pillar to post in our quest to find the truth. But at the launch this morning, Olivier Van Wynendaele, deputy general manager of HD DVD at Toshiba, elaborated on the subject – if only a little. He said the corporation had “not yet decided” on its HD DVD strategy for notebooks since the corporation pulled the plug on the format.

Whether to persevere with a dead format

Presumably it will have to ponder whether to strip them from the spec of existing models or persevere with pending replacement models coming on to the market.

Now, unfortunately due to non-disclosure agreements, we can’t elaborate on the IT products shown at the launch this morning, but we’re sure you can imagine the kind of computing-based products they might be. However, Tosh was tight-lipped on whether any of them would contain HD DVD drives.

The first Toshiba notebook to incorporate an HD DVD drive was the Qosmio G30 back in 2006.

Check back later as we’ll have details on other product announcements from the launch.