Interesting interview with the CEO fo Toshiba today on their HD DVD pull out decision and their new strategy. I apologize if this is already posted but I searched this exact forum which seems the appropriate one to me...

The gist was he acknowledged deciding to pull-out after the Warner announcement. But the most interesting quote was this:

"If you watch stand DVD's on our players, the image quality is very high quality because they include an 'upconverting' feature. And we're going to improve this even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD. The player would be much cheaper than Blu-ray players too..."

So the focus will be on making upconversion so good that J6P doesn't care whether it is HDM and can just buy the cheaper, more plentiful SD DVD's and get, to the average consumer, the same result...

This could be a good thing if it forces the BDA to reduce prices. Upconversion can get close, but not match the visual quality on most peoples TVs and unfortunately, most can't appreciate the increase in sound quality. So if it get's blu-ray close to upconversion prices, then I'm all for it.

It is in Toshiba's interest to make Blu-Ray fail. They own patents on SDDVD's and get money from each disk sold. It will be interesting to see how good an upconverting player Toshiba can come up with. I don't think they will be able to make an upconverting player that will be as good as HD. They will never be able to get the sound quality out of SD disks. The question is will the public be satisfied with a player that is near HD quality at a low price? If I was part of the decision making in the Blu group I would press for a low priced player and low cost disks to combat Toshiba.

Cheezy.

I have an HD-A35, am happy to use it as an upscaler, but I see the real difference between that and the full HDM version. I also would be quite willing to buy Bluray technology in the future if that's affordable.

This just shows that Toshiba has its marketing head up it's *ss. As a consumer, seeing that it was duplicitous after Warner made up its mind makes me very leery of buying Toshiba in the future. If a company is saying one thing and doing another in one instance, why should I consider it in the future? As an engineer, I see the quality in HDM, to trumpet old technology as the future is short sighted. If they commit to upscaling, it may give them profits now, but they will be washed away in the future when solid state drives or downloading / VOD is king.

Not surprised, as all of these companies are run by duplicitous bean counters, but I am disappointed. The current environment serves me well, I'll buy as much HD-DVD content as I like in the short term, will get a Bluray player when it is practicable, will avoid lining Toshiba's pockets in the future.

Link to the full article...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120450428955606405.html

The question is will the public be satisfied with a player that is near HD quality at a low price? If I was part of the decision making in the Blu group I would press for a low priced player and low cost disks to combat Toshiba.

It will all come down to marketing. If Toshiba can somehow convince the public that there is no significant difference between the quality of a Toshiba-upconverted DVD and a BD version, they could make a lot of money. They can certainly muddy the water for HD, even if they can't succeed quality-wise. However, that's a real stretch, given the miserable marketing they did for HD DVD. They have the potential to make a great BD player; if they threw in HD DIVX support (or matrioshka, for that matter!) and online downloading, they could have a winner. Pity it's not likely to happen.

Brian

It will all come down to marketing. If Toshiba can somehow convince the public that there is no significant difference between the quality of a Toshiba-upconverted DVD and a BD version, they could make a lot of money. They can certainly muddy the water for HD, even if they can't succeed quality-wise. However, that's a real stretch, given the miserable marketing they did for HD DVD. They have the potential to make a great BD player; if they threw in HD DIVX support (or matrioshka, for that matter!) and online downloading, they could have a winner. Pity it's not likely to happen.

Brian

Hardly a big stretch for the uninformed. There are people now with $99 upconverting players that are convinced they are watching HD because "it says so right there on the player".

Wow.. just wow...


Upconverting is not HDM replacement.. You HD DVD guys will jump on anything at this point.. Not even going to argue this.. Just amazes way some of you guys think.. And please stop referring to people as J6P... Some of them make more money than you!

Hardly a big stretch for the uninformed. There are people now with $99 upconverting players that are convinced they are watching HD because "it says so right there on the player".

Good point. I am looking as I write at insert from a large electronics chain in Sunday's newspaper. Under the $400 BD player are 2 inexpensive upconverting players. The caption? "Convert your standard DVDs to HD quality."

Brian

Talk about sour grapes, let's say 5 years from now BD becomes very successful and takes a good chunk out of DVD sales, 25% for arguments sake, what is Toshiba going to do then? Sit on the sidelines and continue to lose money on not embracing blu-ray? IMO that's serious corporate irresponsibility, just to stick it to BD for beating them in the HDM game.

Wow.. just wow...


Upconverting is not HDM replacement.. You HD DVD guys will jump on anything at this point.. Not even going to argue this.. Just amazes way some of you guys think.. And please stop referring to people as J6P... Some of them make more money than you!

Don't jump to conclusions; we're not HD DVD guys, we're people who care very much about HD media adoption. The upconverting trend is probably the among the biggest threats to speedy, widespread adoption right now.

Brian

Pretty lame... I expected to hear something about downloads from them. They couldn't market HD-DVD well and that was a great product, this seems like quite the challenge. I can already hear the BDA ads "Don't settle for poor picture with an upgrade, get your HD in full 1080p on Blu-ray Hi-def!".

With Toshiba's mindset here I really hope BDA goes for the jugular.

It will all come down to marketing. If Toshiba can somehow convince the public that there is no significant difference between the quality of a Toshiba-upconverted DVD and a BD version, they could make a lot of money. They can certainly muddy the water for HD, even if they can't succeed quality-wise. However, that's a real stretch, given the miserable marketing they did for HD DVD. They have the potential to make a great BD player; if they threw in HD DIVX support (or matrioshka, for that matter!) and online downloading, they could have a winner. Pity it's not likely to happen.

Brian

imo the bd camp need to convince people that there is a significant difference. (their own eyes on their smallish hdtv sets tell them otherwise). the bda are the ones that want people to pay $500 for a better dvd player and 2x the price for the content.

toshiba only needs to convince them that dvd is still good enough and no point in paying a premium.

Wow.. just wow...


Upconverting is not HDM replacement.. You HD DVD guys will jump on anything at this point.. Not even going to argue this.. Just amazes way some of you guys think.. And please stop referring to people as J6P... Some of them make more money than you!

THANK YOU! +1

Just because someone doesn't want to dump time and money into HDM doesn't make him some bum with a 19" crt living in a trailer and dating his cousin.

Home theater is a hobby. Not everyone spends enough time sitting in their basement watching movies to justify purchasing a new high end surround sound system, an HDTV, and a "better DVD player".

Talk about sour grapes, let's say 5 years from now BD becomes very successful and takes a good chunk out of DVD sales, 25% for arguments sake, what is Toshiba going to do then? Sit on the sidelines and continue to lose money on not embracing blu-ray? IMO that's serious corporate irresponsibility, just to stick it to BD for beating them in the HDM game.

Many of us see that scenario as an impossibility, as I'm sure Toshiba does too. The lifespan of HDM will be much much much shorter than DVD due to newer emerging technologies right on the horizon. Toshiba knows this, which is why they weren't interested in throwing half a billion at studios to keep HD DVD alive.

What else is he supposed to say?

Toshiba ain't going commit enough marketing to overcome the Blu-ray express.

I can't wait to see Toshiba's newest upconverting player on steroids this fall!!! :D

Thanks for the WSJ link! ;)

Link to the full article...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120450428955606405.html


Interesting read. Thanks for the link.

Atsutoshi Nishida sounds like a positive man making some tough choices lately.

It will be interesting to see how well they can improve upon upconverting dvd players to get even closer to HD quality.

As many of us have stated here on AVS, HD clearly blows DVD clean out of the water, dependent on ones display, size of display, vision etc.

I'll believe it when I can see it.;)

Toshiba does not need to spend marketing dollars to do this, they can just coast on DVD upconverters current sales momentum; low risk, possible nice reward.

But its evolution and status quo. Toshiba is now the enemy of HD home theater geeks in wanting upconverters to continue and in slowing Blu-ray HDM adoption. Bah humbug.

This isn't a threat. We have had upconverting for years via external video scalers. And even with those there is a vast difference between an upconverted SD-DVD image and HDM. You can only squeeze so much detail out of a lower-rez picture. The real issue is going to be confusion with the terminology, and an uneducated consumer.

Oh gosh, you want them to say that they are going to make DVD players that completley stink in comparison to Blu-ray? Allowing them a graceful exit is one thing. Interpreting that as 'they are going to trash HD' is quite another.

I don't think that Nishida really believes DVD upconversion is as good as HD content but it is the logical thing for him to say at the moment since it won't be until next year that Toshiba could come out with a Blu-ray player.

So Toshiba thought HD was worth it as long it was their format and players that were playing it? Now that they have lost, standard def upconverted is good enough?

This should send a clear message to anyone still thinking Toshiba is the the victim in all this, and to anyone who thinks they are the ultimate consumer friendly company. Their format failed and now they want everyone to take a step back as a result and put up with an inferior product, because at least they are the ones making it. This is a pathetic move on Toshiba's part. As someone who was an early adopter to HD-DVD and a supported of the product this is a big time slap in the face. My days of Toshiba ownership are over.

This isn't a threat. We have had upconverting for years via external video scalers. And even with those there is a vast difference between an upconverted SD-DVD image and HDM. You can only squeeze so much detail out of a lower-rez picture. The real issue is going to be confusion with the terminology, and an uneducated consumer.

I think that's the point. Confuse the consumer so that they don't bother with Blu-Ray because they think their DVDs can be magically turned into HD, lol! I don't want HDM as a whole to fail so even though part of me hopes that this does some damage to Blu-Ray (or at least forces the prices down like someone else said) the other part of me just thinks this is wrong and Toshiba should work on some new HD technology if they want to be productive..

This thread was first: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1002847

larry