The eventual demise of all DVD formats has been a constant theme over the last couple of years. Many people are predicting that Blu-ray has left it’s run to late for anyone to care.

Online DVD retailer EzyDVD seem to agree. They are in the process of launching a new site that will allow users to download their movies to either rent or buy. A site to watch I think.

Check out http://www.ezydownload.com.au for more information

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Last night Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida officially announced that his company would no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players. “We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” he said.

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Later this week, Toshiba are expected formally announce that they have lost the HD DVD war. An unnamed source within the company has indicated that Toshiba are currently planning their exit from the next generation DVD business. 

Since Warner’s announcement that they would drop support for HD-DVD at the start of the year, U.S. majors Netflix and Wal-Mart have followed suit leaving little retail support for the format.

A spokesman for JB Hi-Fi said that it would “…be very surprising if they [Toshiba] made that announcement that quick.”

I guess we’ll wait and see but I can’t see any real future for a format with no retail presence…

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Despite assuring the public late last year that they had no intention of abandoning the HD-DVD format, Warner has issued a press release stating that beginning May this year, they will no longer release HD-DVD format discs.

Kevin Tsujihara, President of Warners Home Entertainment Groups is quoted as saying:

“A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and
indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from
reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that
it can be for the industry. Consumers have clearly
chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the
right step in making this great home entertainment experience
accessible to the widest possible audience. Warner Bros. has worked
very closely with the Toshiba Corporation in promoting high definition
media and we have enormous respect for their efforts. We look forward
to working with them on other projects in the future.”

I’ll be interested to see what sort of spin the HD-DVD camp will try to put on this one….

Thanks to Jim for pointing me to the press relase which you can read in it’s entirety over at the Hi-Def Digest.

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According to a recent article at Gizmodo, there’s a bit of a split in the Blu-ray camp.  It seems that Sony, Pioneer, Sharp and LG are more than happy to stick to the 1.0 Blu-ray spec for as long as possible, while Panasonic, Samsung and Denon have all moved to version 1.1 and it seems that version 2.0 is still a distant gleam in a firmware engineers eye.

The article suggested that this was a real issue for Blu-ray - but I wonder what the issue actually is?

From my point of view, I buy a Blu-ray disc to watch the movie and maybe the extras if there’s something on there beyond the cast and crew patting each other on the back and saying what a great movie it was.

The Blu-ray version 1.1 adds a picture in picture function and changes to the scriptability of menus, etc. Big deal.  I just want to watch the movie, and the 1.1 spec doesn’t do a thing to change the picture or audio quality.

I also don’t think anyone buys a DVD of any sort because the menus are fancier or the cast will show up in a little window while you’re watching the film so I don’t see studios making any great use of the new features.

And don’t get me started on BD Profile 2.0 - does anyone really want online interactivity from their DVD player? Not me…

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