Even though Toshiba is set to launch its HD DVD players later this month, it looks like early buyers will be disappointed by the lack of any movies to play in them! This comes as Warner announced that they will not release any HD DVD movies on March 28th due to technical problems and no other content providers are ready to release movies for another while yet. As a result, the first HD DVD titles are expected to go on sale in April. This means that while Toshiba may have its players out early, by the time movies start rolling out on HD DVD, it will be very close to the competitor's Blu-ray launch date, not to mention a slow start for HD DVD.
Unlike Blu-ray, the HD DVD format has another drawback in that Toshiba will be the only manufacturer to initially offer any HD DVD players and as LG has only just agreed to manufacture HD DVD players, it will be a good while yet before they develop their HD DVD products, never mind getting them shipped them out. So far, no other consumer electronics manufacturer has any plans to start developing HD DVD players. Finally, even if consumers were to start rushing out to grab HD DVD players, there are rumours about that Toshiba has only ~10,000 HD DVD players available for the launch.
On the other hand, if HD DVD manages to make a good start and the PS3 gets delayed long enough, then by the time the PS3 debuts, HD DVD may potentially grab enough of the market to win the war, at least when it comes to movies. Thanks to Hypnosis4U2NV for letting us know about the following news:
|
"To be honest, the outlook is tenuous -- we're still coming out with an initial slate, but we may be a week or two later; we just don't know," division president Ron Sanders said. *** Quote from ars technica: *** This is not encouraging news for Toshiba, one of the primary backers of the HD DVD specification. Two Toshiba players are set to launch later this month, but with Warner's ship date slipping, the players will initially launch without any available titles. Movies should appear within several weeks of the launch, but it's not yet clear how much they will cost. Some further info can be read on Yahoo and ars technica. |
Like the original launch of the DVD format and players, there is a very good chance that neither format will start selling well until prices have come down considerably. For example, the last thing a cost conscious consumer would like is to spend $499 on a HD DVD player only to find that a few months down the line, the player has fallen to half its price or another model comes out with a much lower price tag.
Finally, the format war only makes matters worse, as there is also a much greater chance that the take-off will be slowed down even further if many consumers decide to wait and see which format does the best before deciding on which format to go for. For example, I cannot easily see the average consumer spending half a grand on a new player only to find out that it becomes virtually obsolete a year later! A very good example of a format war running into difficulty is DVD-Audio vs. Super Audio CD. These were originally aimed at replacing the Audio CD as the next generation audio disc format, yet each format has only managed to reach a few percent of album sales, despite both being on the market for several years now.
Feel free to discuss about HD DVD and Blu-ray on our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and HD-DVD Forum.
Source: Yahoo News
...it looks like early buyers will be disappointed by the lack of any movies to play in them! This comes as Warner announced that they will not release any HD DVD movies on March 28th...
FYI
Warner is not the only one that was planning to release on March 28th. So instead of 40+ tiles at launch, (compared to 8 or so for BD), there will only be 20-30 titles for HD. Still much more than the expected BD launch.
Maybe 20 porn titles.. but nothing from the major studios. Warner was the only one to set a firm shipping date and they're not going to make it. Who knows when the other HD DVD "supporters" will get around to shipping movies in the format.
What i cant get is what kind of "technical difficulties" these could be. Did warner just loose all their master tapes or they cant figure out what the AACS malicious code is and how to burn it 
Anywho, the more i follow the story, the clearer i can see The Blue joining dvd audio and such. Its not that nobody need it, its just the benefit/drawback ratio is too, pardon, crappy. Everybody wanted hi-def sound, but only few were ready to cope with with watermarking noise [rumors?] lubbed with inability to back up the purchased stuff. Had it been a simple 24 instead of 16 bit CD, than both camps would have been shovelling greens. All same applies to Blue. So, my advise, If you want toshiba player NOW, buy it. Make sure it is heavy tho for later you can use it to lets say crack nuts.
Cheers.@ Ian
hmmm.... not sure where you are getting your list of release titles from. Warner is the one having the most problems at the moment. The others are not.@ FidelC
The 'technical dificulties' have nothing to do with Warner. All these folks do is release titles and mass produce discs. They do not rely on their own software/hardware to do all the hard work. They spend tons of money on the equipment that does all the hard work. Since the AACS spec was just finalized last week (I think), then the companies that supply the software/hardware that does the 'hard work' are a little behind.
Until the AACS spec was approved, the companies that make the software/hardware to make these discs could not finalize there software/hardware. Now that the spec is ready, bugs are being found in the way the software/hardware implements the AACS. These bugs could not be found until now because the major companies could not make up their minds on the AACS spec.
As mentioned above^^, Warner is behind. But not because of their own faults. They are relying on third party companies to actually make the discs and these other companies just got the final AACS spec in the last few days.
Our Community messages
Happy Birthday to you dvdproblems 
Zod thank you for your reaction in the news section. 
C0deKing just logged in, Good to see you back!