It took three years to end the format war and now we can finally declare a winner. But it was definately not the consumer that chose Blu-ray over HD DVD, it was the industry that made all the choices.
Van Wynendaele, deputy general manager of HD DVD, now forecasts what we can expect from Toshiba in the future. How will they continue after HD DVD? First the company wants to let us know that all early adaptors don't have to worry about warranties and firmware updates. All players will continue to be protected on the standard Toshiba warranty and firmware updates will be offered when needed.
So what can we expect from Toshiba when it comes to high-definition? Toshiba openly states that the world is changing and that they don't think optical is the only way to enjoy HD content. For now Toshiba is 'studying their strategy', but is willing to say that they are not planning on making Blu-ray players.
We can expect Toshiba to look at different ways to consume movies. Now the company is looking at storage options such as NAND storage and its miniature hard drive range found in Microsoft's Zune MP3 player to continue forward, rather than admitting defeat by selling Blu-ray players.
Of course they're going to say that, they just got their asses kicked. If this format war has taught us anything, it's that there's no such thing as loyalty. The almighty buck rules. They'll be making Blu-ray players by August, if not sooner.
"But it was definately not the consumer that chose Blu-ray over HD DVD, it was the industry that made all the choices." BS, some of it was but the industry made their descision based on consumer choice/purchases/polls and the overall technology behind this format. They realized 3 years is long enough and that it wasn't good for the consumer because not everyone was going to dive in until there was a clear winner, which needed to happen in order for the industry and consumers to move forward. And now we can. This message was edited at: 20-02-2008 20:54
"Toshiba will become a big winner if they start producing x264 players that play also DVDs and are consumer friendly"
Yep. Its the best way the tosh could screw over sony, blu and more so the industry. And they have a right to do that, as the real reason for choosing blu was tougher DRM plus region coding. They couldnt care less what consumer wanted (and started to buy in increasing numbers.)
So what would now stop toshiba from making a player that handles 1080p .264 and vc1 individual files (read - blu rips) and able to handle large HDD storage via usb. 
Blu rentals grow, the consumer is ecstatic and those who dont want to respect fair use rights get f-ed. 
Happy Birthday to you 
