They should have slashed prices prior to xmas. It might have made a difference but at this point I think their done.

Could the lower more appealling price of HD players help HD format? It would for me since it is difficult to justify a higher priced BlueRay player for higher priced blue ray movies.

Mind you I'm fully aware that the price drop is due to the fact that the media format is being seen as dying, but, in hindsight how much of the general populace actually knows whats going on in the tech world. If I were to walk into a store right now and see a 1080p HD-DVD player for $200 and a BD player for $400, damn right I'd get the HD-DVD player.

This turn of events might actually end up making the player sell more. If enough people jump on it due to affordable pricing, it might give Toshiba a breathing chance to get back in the game.

The general consumer doesn't know that much about the format war. They're aware of two formats, both support 1080p, thats about it. Unless they're told otherwise, why wouldnt you jump on the cheaper deal.

This could be the way to get back into the game! If the HD DVD camp can stick it out, these prices will create a stir in the market and change the whole picture. Personally, I'm still waiting for a decent priced dual format player.

...But great for us consumers... unless Blu-ray prices increase as a result of less competition. Lets hope not.

The last two words struck me- "unfortunate format". It sounds as if the author inadvertently gave a human face to HD-DVD. Poor HD-DVD, for no fault of its own it has been abandoned.
I guess Sony must be breathing a huuuge sigh of relief- it could very well have been Betamax all over again.

blah blah blah

Format wars are a PITA for both producers and consumers, glad to finally see one side prevail

"This could be the start of a slew of "fire sales", marking the beginning of the end for the unfortunate format."

Nothing more needs to be said.

it's finally happening. they have finally gotten these hd players down to where the average consumer might actually bite. do you suppose blu-ray will be able to answer this? if not we could see another big swing in popularity.

HD-DVD Discs will be out of production in less than 6 months. Who is silly enough to buy a player that is going to have no discs??? I'd rather have a DivX player!

This article should have included Toshiba's press release of "standing its ground" by announcing a new ad campaign, lower prices and highlighting the fact that BR still can't deliver all the features that HD-DVD players have. Also most HD TVs re-convert 1080i to 1080P anyway, so 1080i/1080P is a moot point.

Choice is over.

"Also most HD TVs re-convert 1080i to 1080P anyway, so 1080i/1080P is a moot point."

I hear so many people spit this out. And while it is technically true there is an issue with the statement. Do 1080p native resolutions up convert 1080i signals? Yes, but don't forget that the TV uses a scaler to do this, and lets face it fokes not all tv scalers are created equal. Plus a 1080i pic scaled to 1080p is not going to look as good as a true 1080p pic no matter how good the scaler is. This is the reason SD still looks like crap on TVs with good scalers that scale 480i to 1080p. It's also the reason a 720p source will look better on a 720p native monitor/TV then on a 1080p native monitor/TV.

So while 1080i may get scaled to 1080p it's not a moot point. Though to be honest I don't think any normal person on a 70" or smaller tv is going to be able to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p with a BD or HD-DVD source.

Toshiba is just dumping their inventory. Don't get sucked into the deals on this out going fomat

Blu-ray guys pretty much ended this war by bribing Fox with $500 million. After that, Warner flopped (with New-Line), and now the other companies are beginning to waver too.

I've been an HD-DVD supporter and had an HD-A1 since the first day they were out. Not perfect at first, but with the firmware releases even my 1st gen HD-DVD player works amazingly well.

Another thing that helped to kill HD-DVD is the stupidity of the reporters and consumers. We've said it a thousand times guys, if your display is 1080p it doesn't matter whether your input source is 1080i/60 or 1080p/24. The display device converts it to 1080p/24 for the exact same result.

HD-DVDs have better features, equal storage with triple-layer 51GB HD-DVDs, equal video quality, equal sound quality, and at a much MUCH lower price for both the players and media.

I just picked up a Samsung Blu-ray player from Costco for $379 last week. It's nice, but not all the features work (like 24p sync), it needed a firmware upgrade to work at all (the first disc I rented wouldn't even play with 1.0 firmware!), video quality is perfect, sound quality is perfect (just like HD-DVD), it's a great player. But it cost $379 instead of HD-DVD for $99-$199 these days.

It's my opinion that HD-DVD has lost the war. But the ones who really lose out would be us, the consumers. We're now slaves to Sony's DRM, region coding, royalties on every player and every disc, and features that don't even equal HD-DVD and some features that don't even work yet.

But I am very glad to have movies in real high-def formats for the 133" screen. Standard DVDs seem SO blurry now!

" Also most HD TVs re-convert 1080i to 1080P anyway, so 1080i/1080P is a moot point."

That's one stupid statement. =)

HD DVD is dead. It's sad Toshiba won't accept it. Tell me how a media format can survive and thrive with no studios backing it. Or at most two studios. Really, I'd like to know... HD DVD players = Expensive upconverting DVD players.

@Edhill
"unless Blu-ray prices increase as a result of less competition. Lets hope not."
Quit spreading fud. One format != no competition! Jesus, how many of you are out there. Does no one understand this????
Blu-ray winning the war causes two things to start happening, which both lead to increased sales volume
and thus lower prices.
1) Fence sitters and general consumers now feel comfortable that they won't end up with a losing format, thus vastly
increasing volume of BD player and disc sales.
2) With more volume of players sold at a profit, the 7 current (and more to join) manufacturers of BD players go into a price war
to sell BD players.

This is common sense people. When in the history of consumer electronics did a format war ending actually raise prices???
What alternative universe are you guys living in?

Moot point? I find that funny considering every HD-DVD fanboy has been screaming about how the mass market will be much more willing to adopt HD-DVD vs Blu-ray because of the $100 or so savings on player prices. Assuming the same mass market crowd would be buying economical HDTVs (AKA walmart's red light special), those same cheap HDTVS are the ones that have poor DSPs/components that tend to do a very poor job at deinterlacing/Inverse telecine/etc and would thus lead to a much inferior picture when using a 1080i HD-DVD player.

Call it what it really is - a Fire Sale!

I sold electronics while in college and remember very clearly the fire sale we had on Laser Disc players when the DVD player was introduced. We could give those things away.

If I can get an HD DVD player cheap and a decent library of titles at bargain basement prices, I'll buy into HD DVD. Hell, i was buying up laserdiscs left and right off of eBay when DVD turned that into a dead format... although now that I have the 50" plasma my LDs get no play time. They were okay on the old 27" CRT, but 50" of screen real estate makes LDs look terrible.

Charles.

One format to rule them all,....
Well there can only be one.
Blu-ray is at least a cool name.
I am just glad there is a winner.

You're absolutely right. The cost for blu-ray will go down. This says nothing for the price of blu-ray.

Since the blu-ray camp will no longer have competition, the first thing they'll do is get the money back they had to spend to beat blu-ray. A big/fancy booth is nice for the gawkers at a show, but they cost a lot! not to mention the discounts/bribes they probably gave to win!

This isn't a rant agains big bad blu-ray. HD would have done the same, but don't think that the diappearance of choice is a good thing. why not make dual players - all dvd-players play CD's as well... and in many formats (dvd-r, dvd r, rw - that stuff)

.. I hate Sony. It's an evil and extremely stupid corporation now, always creating crappy and incompatible products. And they made many HUGE mistakes in recent years.
I know Blu-ray is not just Sony, but Sony has a significant involvement in it. For me, this is reason enough to support HD-DVD against Blu-ray.

However, the way things are going, it looks like Blu-ray will win. And that will probably happen before I ever buy the first device capable of reading HD media.
Because I think I'd be a fool to buy into this HD stuff now. It's still WAY too expensive, I have no need for a 30 inch display, and DVDs look good enough to me. Also, I only play movies on a computer, no standalone player. So this whole HD drama is moot IMO.

For the average consumer HD-DVD is WAY WAY WAY better in that it is much cheaper then Blu-ray and is the exact same quality image. With 55 GB vs 50 GB. And has no DRM. Blu-ray is optional DRM if I'm not wrong.

Also, most people have 720P 1080i anyway. If you want a 1080P its about 50 more.

Other then that Blu-ray has better sound... BUT! you would not notice even if you had a 150-300 dollar surround sound system.

Long -> Short

Toshiba dropped the ball and was to scared to take a hit for the team. And now they are trying to catch up.

let them both become obsolete before being accepted. who wants to spend $1000's reinvesting in a hd movie collection? not me my husband and I are satisfied with upconverted dvd's. after viewing spiderman3 on my sons ps3 and comparing it to an upconverted standard version, it just isn't worth the money. we will not be buying any bluray discs unless the pricing becomes equal to that of a standard dvd high def sports and video games is all that is needed in our house the only reason I would even consider hddvd is because it is backed by microsoft (MADE IN USA) which is also why we chose vizio for our tv's quit supporting foreign companies!!!!

Resolution is the same. Its like complaining about how a guy passes out poker cards.
Should I complain I got less cards if the dealer passes cards between me and another one at a time until the dealer hands out ten cards instead of just giving us one guy five and then the other five? No we both get five cards, its doesn't change that fact, its strictly how it is assembled on screen, there is no scaling because the numbers are the same. You still get the same resolution.

The studios are calling which format they want and not consumers. Either Sony is giving them an incentive, or they're going with it because of the DRM (as if that matters in the long run). I would have figured on HD DVD due to the ability to make one side play in regular DVD players and the other on HD. People could play the new discs until the price dropped on the player, or the players became more readily available. Though I think player availability hurt the HDDVD camp since I can find Blue ray players here in the technological boondocks where I live, but haven't seen an HDDVD player for sale yet.

The laughter in hollywood must be deafening. They just blindsided the computer companies and no one has hardly noticed. First they sold them a bill of goods on DRM with the promise of content for their platforms and the threat of withdrawal of content if they didn't play along, then let a phony format war go on till Toshiba Microsoft and Intel got in deep. Now they pull the rug out from underneath them. Ballmer must be having a stroke! Not only does he lose the game console market bet but now is in the position of being cop for Hollywood for nothing. Who has control of the format now? A member of the MPAA that is the most severe on content protection. Couldn't see that coming, huh.

More specifically on whether they can sustain and lower prices even further. If they somehow manage to get the entry level player price under $100 and consistently keep it there (e.g. sale promotions don't count), the format war may turn out the exact opposite. Of course, if like most everybody here predicts they have given up, this is a moot point. Let's not forget - they've lost a battle, but a single battle rarely decides a war...

Shane is right, the resolution is the same. Because there's no "flicker" effect to worry about with flatpanels, the picture quality difference results to the effective frames per second (hz). "P" being 60 and "i" being 30. Just about all film content is going to be below 30, specifically 24. Only content recorded on video would be 60, which is going to be porn, soap operas, low budget "films", or sports. All, with the exception of porn, would have minute sales in terms of disc content.

You do realize that HD-DVD was not developed by MS. It was developed by Toshiba, which is not an american company. So by thinking of supporting HD-DVD, you are going against your creed.

they're just trying to sell everything off. in a couple months prices will probably be even lower.

Why are there so many people thinking that 1080i is a different resolution to 1080p? Fact: 1080p displays de-interlace 1080i signals back into 1080p - they DO NOT 'SCALE' ANYTHING! Learn what 'de-interlace' means. ALL digital displays (Plazma, LCD, Laser, SED...) display a 1080p (progressive scan) 'image' - none are capable of displaying interlaced images. 1080i was only ever invented for analogue displays - that is the only reason it still exists! Please please do your research before furthering lies.