Reuters reports here and here that Sony has out maneuvered Toshiba, and secured Blu-ray as the next generation DVD format. Toshiba have indicated they’ll withdraw from their HD-DVD initiatives .. although the industry still waits on an official statement to be issued.

This is great news for everyone! HD is rapidly going full circle: we can now buy HD TVs, receive HD TV broadcasts, watch HD movie previews over the web, and record our own movies in HD. But the final step - burning our HD movies to disc, and watching the latest studio-release HD films - has forced consumers down 2 incompatible format paths - Blu-ray or HD-DVD. And that hurts. It’s hard to choose which way to go, understand why there is a difference in the first place, and then fork out good money for a format that might go the way of Betamax. But no more!

At APPLEBOX, we have a limited selection of Blu-ray discs, and are lucky to make our money back on these titles. In Fairfield (Melbourne), the awareness and penetration of Blu-ray players (mainly PS3’s) just isn’t high enough. But with this latest development, give it 18 months and I think it’ll be another story altogether. Marketing will crank up, player prices will drop, disc prices will drop (currently $10 more than a standard DVD), and all studios will release to Blu-ray. And if you’ve ever watched a high def DVD on a nice flat panel - it’s fantastic!

Ultimately Blu-ray is good for us stores as well. The files sizes are much bigger (4 gig vs 1 gig) so pirating Blu-ray discs will be harder (ie, bigger downloads) and probably continue as standard def or below. The difference in quality between a pirated movie and the real thing will become more obvious. It will also put pressure on VOD services, as streaming 4 gig of movie down our weedy broadband pipes will break your ISP limits and bring tears to their eyes.

So bring it on! At last there’s a single path forward for watching High Definition movies. And hat tip to Chris for sending the Reuters link my way.

UPDATE
In the comments Andrew Pascoe reports that it’s now official! Toshiba have issued a statement and will cease production of HD-DVD units by March.

Posted February 19th, 2008 under Business and Strategy.
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