It’s over, folks. HD DVD has officially been laid to rest. Toshiba has conceded defeat to Sony and (drumroll please) Blu-ray has emerged as the victor in the 21st century high definition format wars.
Toshiba declared today that it will halt the production and marketing of HD DVD players and recorders gradually, ceasing completely by the end of March. Atsutoshi Nishida, the president of the company, said, “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”
Well, we certainly appreciate the concern for the consumers, Mr. Nishida. He also assured us that the one million people who’ve bought HD DVD players will not be left in the cold by the company and are still entitled to the support that was promised to them.
However, when all the content has shifted in favor of Blu-ray, I doubt those customers will be sticking with their HD DVD players for very long. I’m guessing we’re about to see those boxes put to creative use on YouTube in the coming months.
Of particular interest to us is what this means for the future of Macs. Apple has long backed the Blu-ray horse, despite not putting the technology into any of its computers. Now that Blu-ray has kicked HD DVD out of the ring, will we finally see Mac Pros and MacBook Pros with Blu-ray drives? Maybe even the Apple TV? Or is Apple going to retain its lukewarm stance towards the high-definition formats and try to drive sales of their HD movie rentals service?
Personally, I’m pretty sure that Apple will start putting Blu-ray drives in Macs any day now, but won’t equip the Apple TV with it. That way, the Macs get the latest and the greatest in the market without any fear of cannibalizing the iTunes movie rentals service. Sounds like a plan to me.
What do you think?
Prediction...
Tuesday February 26th...
Blu-Ray drives now available on Mac Pros.
My guess is that new machines will start getting them soon. First though, Apple will refresh it's displays to take HDMI input and put HDMI ports on new computers. WIthout HDMI you won't be able to watch Blu-ray movies in their full 1080p glory. I don't see Apple accepting that. The only exception might be Blu-ray burners on Mac Pros. You won't be able to watch your Blu-ray movies (not in 1080p anyway), but you can back up your data.
Of course, once it goes that route, you might be able to rent (purchase?) HD content from the iTunes Store on your computer.
So do all the big wigs from Toshiba have to go home now and commit Hari-Kari?
Correction: It's not HDMI, but HDCP that matters
Personally I think Apple should be kicked in the nuts for keeping the mac users without a Blu ray drive or software for so long. It's been more than a year already and still no support even for the professional computers. I mean, at least make it optional.
@Goobimama:
I think Apple did a good thing waiting.
Look how many people who bought HDDVD Drive/Player.
They won't have any new movies.
If Apple had chosen HDDVD people would be complaining they won't have any new movies.
If they had chose Blu-Ray and it had lost the same would be true.
So while I agree it is somewhat frustrating, I think it was the smart move.
Unlike Microsoft's investment into HDDVD for the XBox 360.
Who cares? I've had nothing to do with Blu-ray or HD-DVD so far and that will continue in the future. DVD is still "good enough" and Apple TV appears set to deliver a far more convenient service than Blu-ray will deliver. A Blu-ray drive might be useful for performing cheap backups that you want to store off-site but beyond that I can't think what the point of them would be. My SuperDrive today does pretty much nothing so I can't see that situation changing with a Blu-ray drive.
At the current prices though, a 60GB external hard drive is far cheaper than a Blu-ray RW drive and a dual layer Blu-ray disc. :)
Ummm...guys, aren't you paying attention? Apple thinks disc-based distribution of any kind is dead. The newest version of iDVD is an afterthought. The latest version of iMovie doesn't even mention DVD as a possibility. And Apple's newest laptop doesn't even have an optical drive based on the premise that you won't miss it.
I'm not saying I think optical is dead, but it's pretty clear that Apple does. So you probably won't see BRD drives until WRITEABLE drives come down to reasonable prices so that Final Cut users can make one-offs.