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Will DVD be inheriting HD DVD's web features?

3 July 2008 13:15 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 5 comments

As the primary backer of HD DVD, Toshiba spent a lot of money developing technology that they didn't get a lot of use out of. Some features from HD DVD players, like upscaling, fit nicely into standard DVD players. Others, like web-enabled content, aren't quite as applicable. Sure you could put the same capabilities into a DVD player, but with no official standard you'd be hard pressed to get anyone to take advantage of it.

Now it looks like they're hoping to establish such a standard as DVD Download. At their last meeting in June, the DVD Forum's steering committee, headed by Toshiba, approved a logo for it.

Although it's not a definite sign that Toshiba will be adding any type of web-features to their DVD players, as one of the last major companies to seriously support the continued development of actual DVD technology (Blu-ray is separate from the DVD Forum), they may be in a position to push for adoption of HD DVD features in the DVD specs.

Combined with the continued work on China's extension of HD DVD, China HD DVD (C-HD DVD), it's possible they didn't actually give up on the format war with Blu-ray. Maybe they just figured Blu-ray would probably fail without any competition and are positioning themselves to pick up the pieces afterward.

Maybe if the industry as a whole had taken this sort of evolutionary approach from the beginning we would be talking about the amazing growth of DVD now instead of speculating on the future of Blu-ray.

Permalink to this article | Topics: Blu-ray HD DVD Home Theater

Web-enabled components will triple in five years, says ABI (13 November 2008)

Toshiba debuts "near-HD" XDE players (18 August 2008)

Sony's Glasgow speaks out about Blu-ray, IPTV (12 July 2008)

Blu-ray production to get a boost in China (12 July 2008)

HD DVD coming back from the dead in China? (3 July 2008)

Toshiba set to launch "Blu-ray killer" DVD technology (30 May 2008)

Anonymous Toshiba source confirms HD DVD's demise (16 February 2008)

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Discuss this article!
core2kid (Senior Member) 3 July 2008 13:22
This means new DVD players... No DVD player, except consoles/PCs, supports online. [ + quote]
Hunt720 (Junior Member) 3 July 2008 13:45
.. thus making current DVD players "last gen" in comparison and incompatible with the newer features... if you are going to buy another DVD player for "web features" you should save your money. [ + quote]
Vr0cK (Newbie) 3 July 2008 14:04
Sounds like they're really trying to keep DVDs alive. Its time to gradually move onto new technology. Its inevitable. Its how the world works. If the price of DVD players increase like 50$ due to these features its not worth it. [ + quote]
emugamer (Member) 3 July 2008 14:15
New DVD players aren't a bad thing now, especially if yours is old and you've been looking at getting one that upscales to avoid having to sink money into bluray. As for keeping DVD's alive, I think anything Toshiba does has a hidden agenda against bluray - the longer they can keep people from investing in bluray, the better. And at what cost? The technology is already mostly developed. [ + quote]
nobrainer (Inactive) 4 July 2008 4:57
Lets hope not as these web features are what are going to be used to snoop on our usage and control media playback. Lets keep DVD a privacy haven please. The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI. The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI. The IFPI Are: The same anti consumer lot as listed above! The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4 July 2008 4:58