Jodi Sally, VP of Marketing at Toshiba, described HD DVD unit sales in Q4 as being the best to date, with nearly one million dedicated HD DVD players in the market, saying that "only HD DVD has delivered on its commitments to the market, bringing advanced functionality and affordability."

The exec went on to caution those sounding the death knell for HD DVD. "We've been declared dead before," said Sally. "HD DVD has always put the interests of consumers ahead of companies."

Not sure but those kind of sound like fightin' words to me...

Maybe I'm wrong on this but isn't the DVD based on that Toshiba proposal? It was a compromised disc structure based on the Toshiba design, no?

A follow-up from Digital Bits about his goodwill idea:

Quoting Bill Hunt :

Quote:
One last note this evening: That idea I floated yesterday, that the BDA should offer an olive branch to HD-DVD consumers? I mentioned it to senior BDA executives this evening, and I think you can safely say that they're going to move forward with something along these very lines in the weeks ahead. We'll post more when we can, but the idea was definitely warmly received. In fact, plans are already in the works. We'll post more on this as things develop.

Umm...This is a new one.

"We've typically been recession proof," Warner Bros Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara said in an interview at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"But the thing that we saw in the fourth quarter...was gas prices beginning to affect sales. And since we're considered an impulse purchase, it's beginning to impact us," he said.

I swear, every time someone at WB says something, anything for that matter, about the switch to exclusivity it becomes a little stranger. Like I said from the start, something isn't quite right about all of this.

Maybe they are going to give every HD customer (both sides) a check for gas money so we can all go drive around looking for our favorite films.

Listen, I'm not really pissed that they moved Blu but I think they could handle the situation a little better than they are. From a PR standpoint I think they're losing points and credibility pretty quickly by continuing to do this. Besides, gas priced didn't exactly skyrocket IN the 4th quarter. They fluctuated a bit (at least here in Orlando, FL) but nothing so drastic as to lend any bit of credence to this at all.

What exactly is in that blue pill?

I think there are plenty of consumers out there like my parents who saw two competing formats to replace DVD and figured there's no point buying more DVDs when they are about to be outdated, but also wouldn't get intot eh frmat war because they didn't want to get stuck with the next betamax.  Hell, I was like this for about eighteen months.  Between the end of 2005 and mid 2007 when I got a Blu-Ray player, I probably spent total on DVD what I used to spend in a month, most of which was on TV shows I figured would never come to high def anyway.  Besides the fact that the combined HD DVD/Blu Ray market was smaller than either format likely would have been by itself, it's more expensive to keepproducing three versions of everything than two.  Ending the war was in everyone's best interest.  Warner could have gone red and made it into a 50/50 split that would hae dragged on forever or at least until another studio got bribed or go Blu and end it.  There's really only one choice that makes sense there.  Region coding is not nearly as widely used on Blu-Ray as it was on DVD.  It seems to be pretty much American new releases only.  Add to that the higher capacity and better physcial durability and you have a winning format.

as soon as I get some more you'll be receiving one. 

Thanks Erik... this helps me a lot.

I also gave him a . I like handing those out when they are deserved.