The lost Toshiba press conference


The match can be explained, but why did he have a gallon of gasoline behind the podium?

With Warner Bros. planting their flag firmly twixt Sony’s Blu-Ray buttocks, only Paramount and Universal remain married to HD DVD. I was pulling for the maroon boxes (though I refuse to commit to one or the other) because they are cheaper to produce, cheaper to buy, the players themselves are cheaper, and the tech is (sort of) better if only for the fact that the spec is finalized and the features work on every player currently being sold. If that makes no sense to you, you probably aren’t aware that the Blu-Ray spec IS NOT finalized and most of the players on the market right now will not be able to take advantage of the features on Blu-Ray discs coming out, say, tomorrow. The PS3 is the only acception, since it’s such a hoss of a machine they can continue to upgrade its features through software as Blu-Ray evolves.

CES happened this weekend, and Toshiba was going to have an HD DVD “State of the Format” press conference… until they heard about WB ditching them for blu-er pastures (I guess this means I’m rebuying all of Dawson’s Creek on Blu-Ray now). The Tosh packed up their embroidered swag bags and said, “I’m taking my maligned high definition format and GOING HOME! NYEAH!” The ONLY right thing for the HD DVD Consortium to do right now is gracefully admit defeat. Not because they are definitely going to lose (though the outlook isn’t good) but because they now have the power to end the format war and reunify the fractured consumer masses.

Josh and I were in Best Buy this weekend looking through the various next gen discs. Battlestar was on HD, as was Bladerunner. This is good news because Josh has the HD DVD Xbox add on. But LOST was in a translucent blue box. Well, god damnit, we want High Def Jack and Kate and such too! We’re not going to drop $400 for a PS3 just so we can support both competing formats (Eli did exactly that). No one cares about the studios behind the movies and shows we love. We WANT to give you Hollywood douche-tards our delicious monies. Why are you making it so hard.

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27 Comments

  1. What he whispered in his ear was: We’re sorry, but we’ve decided to back Blu-Ray. There’s a can of gasoline behind you with a matchbox on it. I will say no more.

  2. Truly, It sucks for the owners of the HD DVD units. You have a clear point in them being cheaper – That’s probably the reason that everyone went with Blu-ray. They can’t make more money off it!

    Luckily, I do plan on buying a PS3, so i suppose either way is fine…

    Still, i think I’m going to cry a little.

  3. @Ape
    That solves it. Air tight.

    @astranged_airman
    Im not even sure if that’s the case because they are supposed to be more expensive to produce as well. The biggest problem with BluRay winning is that ALL early adopters except PS3 owners will have to upgrade their players once the spec is finalized. Assuming many of them wont be firmware upgradable, the players will probably be junk.

  4. @Joel

    Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think “ALL” early adopters will have to upgrade. It will be the miniority that want to have the interactive features such as games or pip content I thought.

    If I’m wrong, then just kill me now Joel. End it, end it hard and dirty for me would you please?

    I love movies, but even I don’t look at bonus content (Via Blu or DVD) more than once out of every 10 or more movies I buy. And even then, I generally only look at that additional content once, and that is not even saying I look at all of it.

  5. I’m totally confused. I figured since the porn industry had (from what I heard) chosen the HD format, that it was pretty much a done deal (anyone else remember VHS vs. Beta?) Oh well. Its a good thing I haven’t shelled out for either one yet.

  6. @Joel

    You have to figure that the $30/movie price tag will decrease. Seeing on Amazon, you can get some pretty decent Blu movies for $20 or so now (The Harry Potters as an example.) Even Pirates: At World’s End (As shitty as it was) is $20..

    @ Not Mandatory

    I’d agree with you, but the internets weren’t a player in pr0n when the VHS vs Beta debate was raging. That was titally decided on price and length of the tapes. Why pay for pr0n you’ll only watch a few times and have to hide from the kids or your preacher when you can wack on the interwebs for free?

  7. @Not Mandatory and Jeff

    “Why pay for pr0n you’ll only watch a few times and have to hide from the kids or your preacher when you can wack on the interwebs for free?”

    This is absolutely the kind of discourse i want to foster on this site. I love it.

    When porn backed HD DVD a while back some analysts figured that would be all HD needed to succeed. I read a few reviews and realized something pretty funny. Porn in HD is terrifying! Consider DVD artifacting to be a nice full screen airbrush or soft lens. You really dont want to see your porn with immaculate detail. Sweat and clogged pores and zits and scars and ass hairs do not a happy wanker make.

    Ratatouille and Cars in HD would certainly be eyeball porn.

  8. Fuck both of them. I’ll stick to getting HD movies via my Xbox360. No HD-DVD required when you download directly to your xbox! Plus, all the companies can participate with no competition as to format.

  9. @Joel

    Any challenge to foster discourse anywhere is a challeng of my manhood.

    That was the other thing, pr0n in DVD was a shock to my system as well, also, there are some clips on the interne…, I mean, I’ve heard that some clips on the interenet are shockingly clear.

    You can only see a chicks tonsils or hemorroids that clear once, maybe twice, then you might as well be pushing a rope. Or something like that. I personaly like the sweat, it reminds me of high school.

    And you’re right, Cars and Ratatouille are amazing. I’ve seen Cars I don’t know how many times on DVD because it’s the daughters favorite movie. I bought her (Read me) the Blu-Ray version of it and Ratatouille for Christmas. I had to open Cars and see it before Christmas. I watched the whole movie, before I reliazed it, by myself because I just couldn’t turn it off. I kept noticing little details that you can’t see in the DVD.

  10. for the record, i also have a ps3 now, i was simply not picking up Lost because i wanted to start again from season 1, not 3.

    and there are a lot of current blu movies that lock up first gen bluray players. “Just watching the movie” doesn’t help when you can’t even get to the main menu.

  11. @Jeff-Dammit! I forgot about porn in the internets! After the initial surge of availability, my husband’s “internet porn habit” kinda tapered off. I don’t even think he watches anymore…unless you count videos of concept cars on the Honda site. And I must echo Joel’s kudos for the hemorrhoid porn and daughter’s DVD in one sentence. Well played indeed!

    @Joel-You know I guess I never really thought about how disturbing it would be to have HD porn. I mean, just with regular DVD porn I was always ragging about how I didn’t need to see the bikini area shaving bumps or how discolored her beef curtains were, not to mention how they all looked like they’d been rode hard and put away wet in the face, imagine the terror in HD. I shudder to think. Anyway, sorry to hijack a perfectly innocent discussion. I’ll stop now.

  12. Firstly, I like the new comments layout.

    As for Lost in HD, Microsoft just made a deal with ABC that will allow TV show downloads to the Xbox 360. You won’t even need an HD-DVD or BluRay player – just the 360’ll do it.

    • I’m still working on the comments. I found all the fixes I need. Just have to implement them now. Glad you like it.

      As for the 360 downloads, I dont consider content stored on my tiny video game console hard drive to be archived. Sounds like more of a temporary or rental type thing. Its a good start but not the solution I will personally jump on.

  13. Also, just for the record:

    The Bladerunner sets (normal, the deluxe breifcase etc) come on DVD, HD, and Blu-Ray.

    I’d love to find the quote, but supposedly when May rolls around (with the current back out will be official) Blu-Ray will have access to 70% of the total titles on the market, which HD can definitely not say.

    In an entertainment (games, dvds, cds, high def movies etc) store I frequent *due to being oppressed by the man), I’ve seen the amount of titles for both. My Blu-Ray section is literally twice the size of HD. Then again, we don’t carry HD porn (though there is a Blu-Ray Girls Gone Wild…).

  14. Erm…I know it's late and no one will probably answer this but…is that the Batman symbol on the WB guy's left arm? Is he saying he's Batman!? BLASPHEMY!!…erm…sorry bout that…>.>

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