Why it never went Blu?

By Tony Smith
25th September 2008 11:53 GMT

Erstwhile HD DVD heavyweight Toshiba has forecast the end of consumer optical media, and is to develop a series of set-top boxes and portable players all fed with digital content sold on SD card instead.

The scheme follows the Japanese giant's decision to invest $20m in US digital content deliver specialist MOD Systems in addition to the $4m it's already pumped into the company.

MOD focuses on providing retailers with kit to sell songs, videos, TV shows and movies through kiosks fed from its servers. Punters buy the shows they want in store, and the kiosks issue an SD card containing the downloads they've purchased.

MOD's system currently delivers music only, but it wants to extend the service to films and TV programming. It's in talks with content providers, Toshiba said, with a view to rolling out the expanded service in the spring of 2009.

Enter at this point Toshiba with players capable of taking said SD cards and displaying the downloads on the move. It also said it would develop a set-top box capable of showing the cards' contents on HD TVs. Toshiba will also make high-capacity SD cards for the system.

All of which may go some way to explain why, having killed off HD DVD back in February, Toshiba never rushed to join the rival Blu-ray Disc camp. Of course, honour plays a part, but most observers assumed Toshiba would go Blu eventually.

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