Toshiba Blu-ray Player?

What is meant by BD 18, or is that the model number?

Of course they're going to embrace Blu-ray. Even Sony eventually made VHS players. But before that happens, there will probably be some more crow eaten in Toshiba board meetings.

Jim

The audio setting goes to 18 man! 18!!! That is way more than 11!

Engadget originally stated it as the model number based on the Google translation of the Japanese article but they have recently removed it. The Google translation "BD 18 to enter the market, sources said" makes it sound like a model number while the Yahoo translation "entering into the BD market on the 18th, became clear" makes it sound like the Japanese date when the newspaper heard this news. It looks like the Yahoo translation for that statement was more accurate and note that the article was posted online in Japan early in the morning on July 19.

They would really be smart to launch a combo player or have one in the lineup!

Dual format backward compatibility would be a wise move on their part.

I just emailed a senior Toshiba contact I have and they must have been online at home or in the office as I got back almost immediately a formal " I cannot comment at this time subject " response which was out of character very short.

The Google robo translation would probably get the "read only" part right so that implies he is taking about a Toshiba Blu-ray player, and not just a recorder for the Japanese market. They got the part right on that any Blu-ray machine Toshiba to be considering would have some streaming and upconverting capabilities built in.

I just emailed a senior Toshiba contact I have and they must have been online at home or in the office as I got back almost immediately a formal " I cannot comment at this time subject " response which was out of character very short.

If its in the Japanese press, it will increase the odds Toshiba will do this and once they release any Blu-ray capable device in any worldwide market they will have a lot of pressure to bring it to North America and Europe as well.


http://translate.google.com/translat...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

I do not think there is a chance in hell that they would offer a combo HD DVD and Blu-ray player.

They might like to but the cost of getting the component combo drives would be excessive and they are just not available anymore.

The combo SoC is just frozen in R&D and unless Toshiba just bought up all the Broadcomm dual format motherboards that were made for one model years production run and searched the globe for combo HD DVD Blu-ray drives its just unlikely to happen. No manna in it to continue HD DVd support I'm afraid at this point in time. That may have made sense last year but not now or in the future.

Toshiba's branding and price points are below the top tier and costs are a concern. The most likely reason Toshiba would probably do this is not only the incremental money from the Blu-ray hardware but that retailers and dealers that support Toshiba products want a Blu-ray player to match with the higher end higher margin Regza line of Toshiba LCD HDTVs.

Toshiba just launched a LED local dimming backlight 240Hz Regza LCD HDTV and they got some immediate comments on not having a Blu-ray player to match with it. TACP executives know the issue is real.

Related Article:


Link

Finally.

From what I have read that is what it sounds like and both the Google and Yahoo translations use the term "playback" for what Toshiba is planning to release.

For comparison here is the Google and Yahoo translations of the Japanese article:

Certainly doable but they would have to design the hardware themselves or license an older design as none of the previous makers of DVD\\HD-DVD\\Blu-Ray chipsets are making them anymore.

Now all of you go out and buy it when it becomes available because you know it will be better than any other BD product since Toshiba knows what they are doing and all those others especially Sony don't!

Sony started making VHS VCR's long before the VHS/Beta format war could be considered finished (although the handwriting was on the wall). Sony made both VHS and Beta for a number of years.

Also, two years ago Sony chair Stringer basically said that they would enter the market with HD DVD players if they lost the format war. He made a number of very candid statements.

The retail sector is increasingly pushing Blu-ray.

If Toshiba wants to continue to sell players and HDTV's, they are going to have to be competitive and offer Blu-ray players and HDTV's with builtin Blu-ray. Stores are gearing up to replace DVD with Blu-ray in their offerings. I would not be surprised if Best Buy has given Toshiba something close to an ultimatum.

Toshiba actually has some good offerings they could make. A Blu-ray player with Toshiba's upconversion plus a truly universal streaming video subsystem would be a marketplace winner. Both of these things are products Toshiba has been interested in.

By next year, the same thing will be happening in the computer market. The differential cost of adding a Blu-ray drive instead of a normal DVD drive is now about $80 at retail. As this falls, Blu-ray drives will become common, first in the high end and then it will trickle down. Toshiba presumably does not want to lose the computer market.

So now, all of those people (we know who you are) that repeatedly made excuse after excuse for why Toshiba didn't need bluray, what say you now? Especially in light of this:

Can anyone honestly look at these two lists and tell me that Toshiba hasn't, up to this point, bypassed a decent chunk of change by not making a bluray player? All of the people making all of those comments about how bluray is not profitable, and how Toshiba didn't need the money, blah blah blah. Here we clearly see that bluray players made more money than DVD players and that Toshiba got absolutely NONE of that money, while their competitors in the area ate it all up. Not good to let your competitors pull away from you.

Toshiba is the #2 seller of DVD players. Look at that list of bluray CEs and tell me they couldn't have easily been in the top 3, just like they are with DVD. The majority of their direct competitors on the DVD list have been making MORE money on bluray.

Now my question is, in light of these facts, is anyone willing to make anymore excuses at this point????? It seems pretty clear to me that any and all of those previous talking points have been absolutely blown out of the water at this point in time. Clearly Toshiba has been missing out. Which is probably why we have this thread:
"Toshiba launching BD 18 Blu-ray player by year's end"

So, is there anyone out there still holding the torch?? Any more talking points??

Hmm... Well, at least they're making an attempt to admit that Blu may be the way to go, so we'll need to see what they'll wind up having to do... I mean, at least they provided the Cell technology to Sony for their PS3, so it's only fitting that they promote that in their Blu players, whether or not that happens.

Threads merged. Play nice. There's already been someone banned from the thread for making silly posts (no, not the ones about a dual format player. )

larry

Can't wait to see this in the store. Not to buy it, but rather to reminisce about all the folks (who know who they are) who said this day would never come.

Consumers won this war.

First of all there is no need for the in your face attitude in the part I didn't post. Next Toshiba sells big in DVD for a few reasons. First they developed the technology so they understand it better than most. They have incentive to do more with it because of the royalties they make any time they can drive sales. As well they can under cut any one else because the largest cost in a $40 DVD player are the royalties which Toshiba can wave for them selves. Toshiba also had relationships with manufacurers, pressing plants and studios. Finally they own a big chunk of the market because many others have already gotten out.

While there is still some DVD tech in a BD player and royalties still need to be paid for the DVD patents there is a lot of tech involved that Toshiba wanted nothing to do with, They can't wave the royalties on the BD components, they are behind the curve on the design side as well. Worst of all there is a lot of bad blood between Toshiba and consumers over many things in the format war that will keep at least some of the hard core people away. Sony and Panasonic have moved big into the mastering and pressing space. So saying because Toshiba owned a big part of the DVD market means they will own a big part of the BD market is a stretch.

People are giving Toshiba too much credit in the realm of DVD. Just do some research on 3C and 6C patent holders. The same is true of Sony and Blu-ray, just do some research on MPEG LA. You may be in for some surprises in both cases.

As before this kind of thread is hard to figure out. Toshiba via its relationships with Samsung was already involved in blu-ray. The idea that any of these companies are not able to reposition themselves into different technologies easily is an inaccurate read of the way these companies make things and how technology comes to market.

YES Sony would have made hd-dvd players if HD-DVD had won. YES Toshiba will make a blu-ray player.

So? That's the way this stuff works and these companies operate. What's the issue and what about any of this is the kind of thing to get anyone excited?

For a lot of people this was basic economics and Toshiba releasing a stand alone Blu-ray player is not surprising though that doesn't mean that it isn't interesting to see how they go about it. Also based on the results of this poll some people thought that this was something that would never happen.

Yea, but can't you just renumber it to make 10 the highest?

Richard,

"...interesting to see how they go about it."

I agree with you. Will be watching them. If Toshiba approachs sd-dvd they way they did with the XA2/A35's may be an OPPO killer. But its just not that big a deal nor controversial. If folks are getting excited about this, they need to get out more.