When do you think Toshiba will release a stand alone Blu-ray player?  

Why is it so important that Toshiba release a standalone player? If Blu-Ray is such a success, then it really doesn't need Toshiba to capitulate and say, "We were wrong." My question is when will someone release a sub-$100 player (likely hard to do with $60? worth of royalties attached)?

It is not clear how important Toshiba is to Blu-ray.

I would think that Blu-ray is important to Toshiba if they want to keep selling HDTV's and computers.

1. Retailers are going to be offering Blu-ray players bundled with HDTV sets this next fall. This trend is very clear. I have already seen Toshiba HDTV's bundled with Sony Blu-ray players. This cannot be good for Toshiba.

2. Computers are following the same trend with Blu-ray that they followed a decade ago with DVD. The price difference is now about $100 increase to include a Blu-ray player in a PC instead of a DVD player. As this falls, we will see more machines including Blu-ray players by default. Wait 2 years and see.

At some point, Toshiba has to either go along or lose out.

I understand that Toshiba is replacing its CEO this summer. I look to this with interest. The new CEO may not feel the sense of loss of face about HD DVD that the previous administration felt. A little pragmatism will help.

I think a Toshiba Blu-ray player including their upscaling, a comprehensive download solution, and an SD card reader could be a boffo product. Bring it on!

I figure if they release one at all, it will be in about 2012 when DVD sales are likely to be dwindling relative to Blu-ray and/or online purchases.

Toshiba's whole approach to HDM has turned me off so badly that I will never consider buying another Toshiba product ever again.

I think there would be a bigger chance that Toshiba is selling laptops with BD drives, then that they start selling standalone BD players.

There isnt that much money on standalones, so it doesnt provide any financial reason for them to sell a standalone.

On laptops, its another matter, because customers wants options so it never hurts to have a laptop with BD drive there.

Never and I think it's not really a big surprise other people think so too. I personally don't think Blu-ray will grow to be dominant in the market as DVD was at all and in the next 5 year or so we will see a dramatic shift in consumer homes towards digital delivery and online access to all content.

For Toshiba to go and develop a standalone they would have to sell at a loss again in order to compete with dropping Blu-ray prices due to non-interested market is a bad business decision anyway you look at it, especially with the fact they are a huge holder of Flash and other types of memory in manufacturing it makes more sense for them to simply keep plugging on SSDs, memory cards and other type of flash memory to completely replace the aging optical media.

Just look at what Blu-ray players look like today. If they don't have Netflix and online accessibility they are a non-sell for majority of users. I can see Toshiba releasing some kind of devices that would utilize their technology and online delivery without Blu-ray, which seems like a much smarter move to make.

Currently Toshiba is looking at the market and thinking this...We get $ for every DVD sold and we would have to pay money to sell Blu-ray. Our DVD format is still 90% of the market. Would it be more cost effective to keep pushing DVD or to start selling Blu-ray players?

My bet is that next year they will quietly release a Blu-ray player or 2, but for now they will put everything in to their XDE upscaling DVD players and DVRs. They want DVD to remain top dog for a very a long time.

As they are still licking their wounds over HD DVD and trying to release players that do anything but BD, I don't ever see Toshiba releasing a BD player.

They are hoping that it just goes away.

Seggers

Well I have no idea what Toshiba may do in regards to Blu-ray. What we do know:

Toshiba is just one of many patent holders for DVD, 3C Group (Sony, Philips and Pioneer) and the 6C Group (Hitachi, JVC, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Samsung, Panasonic, Warner, Toshiba and Sharp).

The market for Blu-ray is slowly but surely expanding

Thanks for the chart, but I do wonder what the percentages are on a unit basis. Does anyone know? DVD is entering its final phase, so downward price pressure is in full swing. I would guess that Blu is still at less than 10% on a unit basis. I am not sure that is good or bad, but this is a new model for sure.

Unlike the move from VHS to DVD, many peole will still buy DVDs as the player will still play them and they are cheaper. It still doesn't make me feel great about BD, but it is good to see it growing, which is a start.

It really does not mater in the overall scheme of things. Three years ago Blu-ray revenue was 0%, two years ago it was X%, 1 year ago it was Y%. The point is, it is growing at fairly good rate (and during one of our worst economic periods in several years).

If you want all the sanguineous sales details then checkout Kosty's post in the master Blu-ray sales thread.

When will Toshiba release a stand alone Blu-ray player?

I voted never because there was an option missing . . .

Who cares?

And I don't ever see myself having the slightest desire to buy another standalone Toshiba player.

I'm never buying another Toshiba product ever again, so who really give a $^!&!

That company is run by morons.

I have been waiting for some more entries in the XDE upscalers and haven't seen any so far this year. This makes me wonder if a Blu-ray player may not be in the works.

If Toshiba really believes in XDE, the best way to prove their case is to combine it with a Blu-ray player.

Its very easy.

Toshiba will release a standalone BD player when its the right thing to do for their financial interest.



Thats in interesting approach. If someone with a very small HDTV and sits far away. Buys a BD player, they may think that the difference in quality isnt worth the difference in price. And continue to buy DVDs despite they having a BD player.

Do anyone here knows how many HDTVs in peoples homes are in the 32inch range vs +42 inch range?

At a unit level BD is far less than the revenue market share.


It's good for BD, bad for DVD (and Toshiba). Apparently many die-hard fans of a certain defunct HD format don't understand this (not aimed at you larrimore), but this is NOT a new trend or sales model, it's the same one that plays out every time a new format replaces an old one. The high profit margin to lower sales volume trend gets reset, and as manufacturing prices come down and sales volume goes up retail prices are reduced to drive even greater sales volume/market penetration. One of the reasons the other format couldn't get more companies on board was it kept trying to skip this to squeeze the profit margins too early on in the life cycle.

By the time BD revenue hits 35-40% of the market DVD will be a dead legacy product from the POV of most companies. They'll shift to releasing DVDs later, just as they did with the VHS/DVD transition. Companies always favor higher-margin growth markets over saturated markets with razor-thin profit margins.

As for Toshiba, I think the change in management will help. As long as Toshiba thinks it is prolonging its DVD royalties and not cannibalizing future sales in other markets (consumer electronics, computers, etc.) it won't release a BD product...but there is little they can do to forestall the replacement of DVD at this point, and dragging their feet too much longer will cause them to lose brand support over the long run (many consumers don't know why Toshiba doesn't make a BD player, just that Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung do). It will become a bullet point that favors Dell or Sony laptops over their own, etc.

I expect Toshiba will quietly look into the manufacturing issue this year, but wait on the sidelines until after the next holiday season, hoping that interest in the format will dwindle (which it won't...sales and awareness have increased too far, it's all but inevitable baring an even greater economic collapse that BD will replace DVD over the next couple years). If BD sales continue on pace Toshiba will jump into the fray next year (possibly with a CES announcement in 2010) to help polish their brand and get in on the game.


Probably, but the same is true for people who own combo VHS/DVD players. My in-laws, for example, still pick up (used) VHS tapes on the cheap to this day. Doesn't change the fact that any new movie you want to see can only be had on DVD (and now BD).


Not only is it growing, but BD sales as a percent of overall sales is pretty much on target compared to DVD/VHS. I don't know where this hysteria came from about BD, sales rate, and pricing, but it's right on track. It took DVD half a decade to catch VHS in actual unit sales, but that didn't change the fact that DVD was the de facto standard even before then. The same is happening right now with BD.

Some people have very short memories.

I thin your logic is flawed...
First VHS cost much more (and takes a lot longer) to produce than DVD (so studios wanted to get away from it), while BD cost more than DVD. Also, DVDs are lighter and take up less space, therefore they are cheaper to ship.
Second, you could record/copy with VHS and studios hated that which is another reason they wanted to transition.
Third, it will still be a few years before BD hits 35-40% of the market and by then BD prices will have dropped to near the same price as DVD, so the profits margins will be close to same... and DVD will still be selling 2x BD.
Fourth, in 2 years virtually every TV and disc player will support streaming (even Sony).

I have said all along in a couple years we will see a good mix of marketshare like this (just a guess):
BD - 25%
DVD-50%
Streaming-20%
??-5%

I think the writing is going to be on the wall for Toshiba next year.

Bluray isn't going away, its only getting better. Any one building ANY kind of decent home theater setup, is going to get a Bluray player.

Not having a Bluray player will begin to hurt their HDTV sales eventually, as many people like to keep like brands in their chains.

If Toshiba refuses to accept Bluray, they will begin to look like an antiquated company, especially if all they do is continue to push upconversion.

We all know Toshiba doesn't want DVD going anywhere because they make a lot of money off of DVD, but if they hold off of Bluray for too long, it will bite them.

Brand Perception is a big part of marketing. If someone goes to Best Buy, and sees the new Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung Bluray Players, and all they see from Toshbia on that aisle is a Upconverting DVD player at the end of the aisle, people will perceive Toshiba as a lesser brand.

So, since DVD recording is readily available and cheap, you would agree that the studios would like to transition to BD since BD recording is not readily available.


So now you can predict the market share & pricing of BD in the future but you chose HD DVD in the beginning to dominate the HiDef media format?
Not sure if I can trust your predictions.


Just because they may have the ability to stream does not mean it will be used. It's like saying just because my car has a satellite receiver capabilities or OnStar that it's assumed to be enabled/used.


You have high hopes for streaming but predict it will be around 5-10% at most in the next 5 years as physical media stays as the preferred method for movie delivery to homes. Right now, a lot of streaming is free but as pricing goes up and streaming is no longer free, the usage will plateau quickly.
Streaming won't dominate until it's mass adopted in 10-20 years.

Kind of like how Netzero advertises that dial up can save you money and gets you to the same internet.
Their advertisment is true but we all know with dial up, the quality of your internet usage/experience suffers greatly.

Um, BD rips all over the Internet. My bet is every BD can easily be found. If you were a studio would you rather have people stealing 480p versions or 1080p versions of you best films?


Wow, the format war again...why do you always bring that up? For the record, I never predicted BD would lose and never said HD DVD would dominate, and repeatedly said the 2 would co-exist..and was wrong.


Sure, that is why I said 20%. Also, I think most will watch a combination of DVD, BD and streaming in the future.



So you think streaming will dominate? Sounds like you are the one with high hopes! As you point out, I just say it will reach 20% of marketshare while disc will keep up to 75% in the next few years.

So can take those BD rips and burn them to a BD at a reasonable cost?
And if you did, you still need a BD player to watch them.
If they burn them to DVD, then they won't get the same PQ since the DVD output bandwidth is limited.

Or are you making another assumption that J6P is a savvy PC user and knows how to hunt, download these illegal rips and project the BD rip to his HDTV.
(*If this were true, I believe they call this digital media theft.)

I voted "Never".

I don't see that Blu-ray will ever be anything other than a niche product for videophiles. I sincerely doubt Blu-ray will ever see as much as 25% market share and more likely less than 20%. I personally am happy with that - both Blu-ray and HD DVD are the new laserdisc - and I loved laserdisc.

Toshiba saw the writing on the wall last year and is the smarter corporation for it. They knew that disc-based media's day were coming to a close and made other plans.

I do believe that physical media will continue to be available, but more likely memory-based solutions where there are no real limits to the capacity and bandwidth. I'm not much for renting and would rather own, so streaming is not for me.

Um, no need to. Play them back from most PCs, laptops and now streaming devices (PS3, Xbox, WesternDigital, etc), or burn them to a DVD-R for a few pennies. I haven't looked for a while, but I remember last fall when I saw The Dark Knight ripped from a BD down to 8 GB so that it could fit on a cheap DVD...AND I saw it posted about 2 and 1/2 weeks before it was offically released. I am told that just about every big budget movie is available on the Internet at least 2 weeks before it release data and THAT is what studios hate. If you are going to copy an illegal version of a movie, do you go with the SD or HD version?

Anyway, that all off topic. Toshiba can do just fine without releasing a BD player. IMHO, I think they still might in about a year. My bet is that if they do it won't be a good one, and will stream HD video and be great at upscaling DVDs. Then, they will promote the heck out of the fact that DVDs and HD streams look just as good as BD.

Really?
I thought it had to do with losing billions on getting Paramount to be HD DVD exclusive then Warner going blu-ray exclusive several months later.

Wow. You really like to bury your head in the sand don't you. You may want to checkout the Nielsen thread sometimes. You might be pretty surprised how much marketshare many Top 20 releases are getting on Blu-Ray this year.

At any rate, I really don't think it matters at all if Toshiba makes a Blu-Ray player as the vast majority of CE's are making them (Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Sony, Pioneer, Sharp, Magnavox, Phillips, Sylvania, Oppo, Denon, Marantz, Vizio, etc). Plenty of choice from some solid companies. Blu-Ray is clearly here to stay and at some point CE's and most retailers will only be pushing name brand Blu-Ray players and perhaps some generic DVD branded players. In a couple of years you will most likely find Blu-Ray players for $49 and higher and point will be moot. CE's and retailers will make the decision for the consumer.

And OP. You forgot to add the choice "who cares?".. So I didn't vote.

I do read the Nielsen thread about once a week - I think that it is hilarious. Talk about obsessing over a format!