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.

[...]

By Wolfgang Gruener
Tuesday, July 01, 2008 12:45

Tokyo (Japan) - A new DVD logo released by the DVD Forum has added to the speculation surrounding Toshiba’s HD-enabled DVD player that is expected to become available later this year. The organization chaired by Toshiba approved the “DVD Download/DL” logo during its most recent Steering Committee meeting.

Since Toshiba’s decision to drop out of the high-definition race with Blu-ray we learned that Toshiba will not jump on the Blu-ray train, but worked on cheaper DVD players that will feature enhanced image scaling capabilities. While there is no definite information on Toshiba’s technology yet, it is widely believed that these new DVD players will be based on the company’s SpursEngine 1000 processor, a trimmed-down version of the Cell BE CPU, in order to deliver higher quality video scaling than what is offered in DVD players today.

But it looks like that Toshiba is looking to get DVD players much closer to Blu-ray in terms of other features as well. During the most recent DVD Steering Committee meeting held on June 11 in Los Angeles, the organization approved the DVD Download/DL logo, which is speculated to describe Internet connectivity to extend content stored on a DVD. No further details have been made public about the logo.

The DVD Steering Committee also approved updated specifications Chinese HD DVD format (C-HD DVD) and has not yet cancelled further discussions on the general HD DVD format yet. In addition to several specification approvals passed in the February 27, 2008 meeting the Committee also passed the HD DVD-Video Product Requirement & Guideline Version 1.2 in the June 11 meeting.

By Chris Tompkins

Home-theater buffs will gasp in horror, deride me and mock my lack of taste for what I am about to say. But the evidence is hard to deny: Sony is finally starting to realize that compressed, downloadable movies -- as opposed to physical media like high-definition Blu-ray discs -- are the way of the future.

This may come as a surprise to HD fanatics and observers who have watched the entertainment giant spend billions promoting the Blu-ray format. The push included a $3.3 billion dollar investment in the Playstation 3 game console, which supports Blu-ray discs. Now as more consumers watch movies online, Sony is hedging its bets on Blu-ray, by introducing two new ways to stream movies directly to the home. The first method comes with the new Playstation 3 firmware and allows PS3 owners to order from a direct-download movie store. The second method uses a device called the Bravia Internet which connects to Sony's Bravia TV line.

These new add-on technologies seem like attempts to wage a two-front war against competitors in both the physical media and streaming arenas, instead of focusing all of its considerable resources on the right format for the future. Even though Blu-ray trounced Toshiba's rival HD-DVD format, Sony seems to have realized that it merely won a small battle in the wrong war. Now Sony is skirmishing on the new front, streaming media. Its most recent volley came with the announcement that Bravia Internet owners will be able to download Will Smith's new movie, Hancock, before the DVD release.

So why is Sony now hedging its bet on the expensive "Blu" format, that was supposed to make the PS3 console the machine of the future? The company assumed that HD alone would be a big enough draw for Blu-ray, but interest simply hasn't materialized. Right now, only 25% of American households own an HDTV, and just a fraction of those users actually view any HD media. As for the other Blu-ray features -- HD-DTS, Master Soundtracks, multi-streams -- I doubt any of them are must-have features for the average consumer. I'd even wager that most HDTV owners will barely notice the difference between 1080p resolution Blu-ray and 720p streaming media. These touted Blu-ray features end up being largely irrelevant to anyone not owning a $20,000 home theater.

[...]

by David Waratuke — June 05, 2008 03:53

Why is this man smiling? He thinks he has a shinny new stick to beat Sony with.
When Toshiba ceded the format war back in February, one thing they made clear was that they did not plan to make Blu-ray players and that they would pursue other technologies such as NAND flash memory and next generation CPUs to push HD adoption, and that they were determined to continue developing the DVD format. Many figured that the company either would focus on digital distribution of HD media or ultimately would join the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) to avoid falling behind in the presumed future of consumer electronics.

Little did anyone suspect such direct foreshadowing as Toshiba has now patented technology to get more capacity out of the existing DVD technology while retaining backwards compatibility.

Toshiba is again looking to move the HDTV bandwagon in its own direction and is pushing forward on several fronts to make good on its promise of leveraging its HD-DVD investment.

Based on details that are sketchy at present about exactly what Toshiba is up to with good old DVD, it seems that there is a two pronged approach, one based on better scaling techniques (presumably based around the Cell Processor video technology they were working on at CES this year) and the second based on disc storage limits.

According to Atsutoshi Nishida, President, and CEO of Toshiba Corporation, in an interview with the Japanese newspaper Daily Yomiuri, Toshiba plans to release DVD players based on Large Scale Integration (LSI) process technology later this year that is claimed to allow picture quality at nearly the level of HD-DVD on standard DVD. Then there is Toshiba’s newly patented DVD technology that looks to add two or more additional data layers per side and utilize parallel read heads to eliminate layer crosstalk that has limited previous attempts to squeeze higher storage density out of red laser DVD. One interesting possibility for such a change is the possibility of storing SD video on discs with tracking readable by any existing DVD player and using the additional layers to store supplemental information required to generate HD resolution video on a suitably equipped player.

What is not entirely clear is if the two developments are intended to be independent or combined. LSI appears to be an attempt to improve DVD up scaling and processing while the new patent seems to address space limitations that affect the practicality of putting HD content on DVDs that lead to new formats such as HD-DVD and BD in the first place. Combined they might address the space limitations of DVD completely.

[...]

Posted by Rick Broida

 
(Credit: Logitech)

Tired of juggling remotes? Replace them all with the Logitech Harmony 550, which sold for $150 when it debuted a couple years ago, lists for $129.99 now, and is available from TigerDirect for just $39.99 (after a $30 mail-in rebate).

In case you're not familiar with them, the Harmony remotes are renowned for offering (relatively) easy programming via desktop software, which is available for both Windows and Mac systems. Just choose your home-theater hardware from an extensive database, then set up your desired activities ("Watch a movie," "Listen to music," and so on). The remote's built-in help screens walk you through any problems that may crop up (like the TV turns on but the receiver doesn't).

...