'Reliable sources' say Toshiba to drop HD DVD - soon

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 15 February 2008 20:10

Opinion and Analysis

The death of HD DVD could see Blu-ray prices fall much slower than they would have otherwise with a healthy competitor in HD DVD, but with next-gen high-def disc sales still vastly lower than sales of regular DVDs, one side had to give way.

It gives me no particular pleasure that it is HD DVD that has almost certainly lost, but then I have no particular reason either to have wanted Blu-ray to win.

But just like the Superbowl or any other major sporting event, there is always only one winner - a tie is very rare indeed.

Aside from the fact that high-def downloads will eventually wipe Blu-ray and regular DVD discs into the dust, we simply aren’t there yet, and don’t have fast enough bandwidth or large enough download limits to download 50GB movies.

For that reason, a physical optical disc format is still the way to go, for now, with Blu-ray all but assured of the high-def crown in 2008.