TOSHIBA GIVING UP END OF HD-DVD

TOSHIBA IS QUITTING THE FORMAT WAR END OF HD-DVD

HERE IS THE PRESS RELEASE FROM TOSHIBA ON THE DEATH OF HD-DVD:

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

UNIVERSAL GOES BLU!!!!

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS GOES TO BLU-RAY

HERE IS THE ARTICLE FROM HOME MEDIA MAGAZINE:

The high-definition format war is officially over. Toshiba Corp. Feb. 19 announced it will discontinue developing, manufacturing and marketing HD DVD players and recorders.

The announcement ends a two-year-long battle with Blu-ray Disc to succeed DVD, and was welcome news to both retailers and industry analysts. Also, former HD DVD stalwart Universal Studios announced it would begin releasing its titles on Blu-ray. Fellow HD DVD backers Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks were expected to follow suit.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba. “While we are disappointed for the company and, more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass-market opportunity for high-definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

He added that Toshiba has no plans at this time to adopt Blu-ray.

Toshiba will stop shipments of HD DVD players and recorders by March, and will stop production of HD DVD drives for computers as well. The company added it would continue to provide product support and services for current HD DVD owners.

“Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP,” stated a press release.

“Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.”

How HD DVD died

Michael Pachter, media analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles, said HD DVD’s demise was inevitable since Toshiba couldn’t compete with Sony on sales volume. Sony included Blu-ray playback on the PlayStation 3 game console, which has sold more than 3 million units in the United States alone, according to research firm The NPD Group. Toshiba revealed during its announcement that only 1.03 million HD DVD players, including the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on, had been sold worldwide.

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group, said a combination of things killed the HD DVD format. “I think there were a number of suspects, but you can’t quite pin down one murderer,” he said.

First at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Warner Bros. stunned the home entertainment world by announcing it would exclusively back Blu-ray, leaving HD DVD with Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Studios Home Entertainment as the only major studios supporting the format. Hardware sales data the week after Warner’s announcement showed 93% of high-def players sold were Blu-ray, according to The NPD Group.

Toshiba responded by significantly lowering its player prices, and Microsoft dropped the price of its Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on by $50 earlier this month. Toshiba also bought a 30-second Super Bowl ad for a reported $2.7 million. But apparently the moves were ineffective in boosting sales or digging into Blu-ray’s lead.

Nielsen VideoScan data has consistently shown Blu-ray software outselling HD DVD by a 3-to-1 margin or better, and earlier this month both Wal-Mart and Netflix announced they would only carry Blu-ray product, and Best Buy announced it would give preference to Blu-ray.

“Wal-Mart’s decision certainly was impossible to bounce back from,” Rubin said.

On Feb. 14, industry sources told Home Media Magazine that Toshiba was about to call it quits, due to the rapid loss of support for the format and the piling financial losses the company was incurring on its standalone players.

Reaction

Retailers expressed relief following Toshiba’s decision.

Noah Herschman, director of audio and video for Amazon.com, said that while HD DVD players were among the retailer’s best sellers during the holidays, its death will make things easier on customers.

“We believe both of them were viable high-def formats for people with HDTVs,” he said. “Now that there is one format, we hope consumers embrace that.”

However, he added, the price points for Blu-ray players are too high for some consumers, and there has been less supply than of HD DVD. He said Amazon.com will continue to carry HD DVD until “they’re no longer made,” and will be marketing its lowest-priced HD DVD player in stock, the HD-A3 ($109), as an “upconverting DVD player.”

“We still have a lot of customers who have purchased HD DVD players, and we want to accommodate them,” Herschman said.

Best Buy spokesman Brian Lucas said the retailer’s decision on when to stop selling HD DVD products would be dictated by consumer demand, however “at a certain point we’ll start pulling them from shelves.”

“From the beginning we thought the format war was not good for anyone, not good for any retailer,” he said. “But (one high-def format) is great for consumers.”

Bo Andersen, president of the Entertainment Merchants Association, the nonprofit international home entertainment trade association, said Blu-ray’s victory is a relief for everyone in the industry.

“Now that consumer confusion concerning dueling formats has ended, it is time for suppliers and retailers to redouble their efforts to bring home the message that Blu-ray Discs deliver the finest viewing experience for the world’s best entertainment,” he said. “The marketplace has spoken. It is time that consumers hear the message … We believe there is pent up demand for high-definition optical discs in thousands of applications.”

What’s next?

At least one of the two studios exclusive to HD DVD is already gearing up to join the other team.

“While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate.”

Paramount and DreamWorks Animation, which went HD DVD exclusive in August, had not made any announcement regarding its plans. Both Universal and Paramount have titles announced for HD DVD in the coming months. It’s unknown what the status for those releases is. A Warner Home Video spokeswoman said the company had no comment regarding its plans at this time. Warner had planned on ending its HD DVD releases in May, and has several titles announced.

Analysts said the industry could expect an uptick in consumer adoption of high-def now, but warned that just because Blu-ray has won the battle, it hasn’t won over everyone’s living room.

“This certainly clears an obstacle for Blu-ray,” Rubin said. “The format will become more appealing to consumers, and the economies of scale kicks in and player prices should go down. But the technology is still sandwiched between consumer satisfaction with DVD on one side, and the growing number of digital distribution options on the other.”

Rob Enderle, media analyst with The Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif., said players are too expensive and need to drop below $200 for wider consumer adoption. In addition, current standalone Blu-ray players will soon be obsolete and can’t be updated to play all the features on some Blu-ray Discs. HD DVD had fewer compatibility obstacles, as all players required the same specifications from day one.

“The current technology was rushed to market incomplete and is different than the typical technology update cycle,” Enderle said. “It seems like most of the Blu-ray and HD DVD supporters on the content and technology sides have moved to downloads as the next big thing suggesting that this fight took too long and may have missed a market which is in the process of moving on.”

Wedbush Morgan Securities’ Patcher said to expect Blu-ray player sales from 20,000 to 30,000 units over the next several months, and that retailers like Best Buy would aggressively cross sell the PS3 in order to up-sell consumers video games in addition to movies.

“They will not focus on entry-level $200 Blu-ray players,” Pachter said.

DEFINITELY, MAYBE NOW AVAILABLE

DEFINITELY MAYBE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE DEFINITELY MAYBE FROM IMDB

Romantic comedy: Will Hayes, a 30-something Manhattan dad is in the midst of a divorce when his 10 year old daughter, Maya, starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love. Will's story begins in 1992, as a young, starry-eyed aspiring politician who moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the Clinton campaign. For Maya, Will relives his past as a idealistic young man learning the ins and outs of big city politics, and recounts the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women. On the campaign, Will's best buddy is Russell McCormack. They not only have similar political aspirations, they share the same type of girl problems, too. Will hopelessly attempts a "PG" version of his story for his daughter ad changes the names so Maya has to guess who he finally married. Is her mother Will's college sweetheart, the dependable girl next-door Emily? Is she his longtime best friend and confidante, he apolitical April? Or is she the free-spirited but ambitious journalist? As Maya puts together the pieces of her dad's romantic puzzle, she begins to understand that love is not so simple or easy. And as Will tells her his tale, Maya helps him to understand that it's definitely never too late to go back...and maybe even possible to find a happy ending. Written by Orange

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE DEFINITELY MAYBE FROM DVDTALK

I can swallow many preposterous ideas in a romantic comedy, but "Definitely, Maybe" contains a whopper that stands head and shoulders above them all. You're telling me that the script dreams up a main character who attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, and he has no idea who Nirvana is? The screenwriter clearly wasn't doing his homework.

On the eve of his divorce, Will Hayes (an immensely likable Ryan Reynolds) is trying to sort out what went wrong in his love life. When Will's daughter (Abigail Breslin) requests the story of how her parents met, the frightened father instead makes the tale a game, where he takes the three relationships of his adulthood (a trifecta of feminine perfection with Isla Fisher, Rachael Weisz, and Elizabeth Banks) and mixes them up to confuse the child. While explaining the tangents of his broken heart, Will inadvertently stumbles upon rather painful memories, which compel him to reconsider his bad decisions and missed romantic opportunities.

After being chained to the theater seat watching swill like "27 Dresses," "Maybe" feels like a cool breeze; an intelligent but gracefully sappy romantic comedy that understands relentless formula is not the cornerstone of charm, investing in multifaceted characterization and a sympathetic tone. Perhaps this is due to filmmaker Adam Brooks, who is not a barcoded Hollywood drone, but an idiosyncratic filmmaker ("The Invisible Circus") who's been making some scratch in recent years writing such enjoyable mainstream fare as "Wimbledon" and the "Bridget Jones" sequel.

Brooks is committed to these characters; he doesn't view them as meet-cute speed bumps, but people with the tartness of big screen romantic archetypes and the heaviness of real-world longing. "Maybe" is a rom-com in the loosest of definitions, preferring to use Will as an exploration of heartbreaking missed opportunities and emotional maturation. He's not a just a stick figure waiting to chase the girl, and that little tweak of intent makes all the difference in the world between putting the audience to sleep and challenging them to embrace characters who are fallible.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE DEFINITELY MAYBE.

DAY OF THE DEAD NOW AVAILABLE

DAY OF THE DEAD NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE DAY OF THE DEAD FROM IMDB

When the world is overrun by the flesh hungry dead a small group of survivors head to an underground military bunker in a last ditch effort to stay alive.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE DAY OF THE DEAD.

FOOLS GOLD NOW AVAILABLE

FOOLS GOLD NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE FOOLS GOLD FROM IMDB

A new clue to the whereabouts of a lost treasure rekindles a married couple's sense of adventure -- and their estranged romance.

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE FOOLS GOLD FROM DVDTALK

A sandy romantic adventure unable to find its way out of first gear, "Fool's Gold" can't help but feel like one of the larger disappointments found in this new year of filmgoing. I mean, how often does a seafaring actioner come along, and then the guy hired to direct it is Andy Tennant?

Finn (Matthew McConaughey) is an absent-minded treasure hunter scouring the Caribbean for Spanish gold and jewels left behind 300 years ago. After sinking his ship, getting in over his head with rapper/crime lord Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart), and newly divorced from his exasperated wife, Tess (Kate Hudson), Finn talks an elderly millionaire (Donald Sutherland) and his dim daughter (Alexis Dziena) into funding another go at the fortune. Now, with a rival hunter (Ray Winstone) on their tail, Tess and Finn plunge into the deep water to unearth their treasure, finding danger every step of the way.

Sliced from the belly of "Romancing the Stone," "Fool's Gold" doesn't quite have the vision or the scripted mischief to rise above mediocre misadventures. It's a bland motion picture, but what could anyone expect when handing excitement and peppered banter to the man who gave the world "Hitch," "Sweet Home Alabama," and the Olsen Twins' "It Takes Two." Tennant doesn't have the muscles for this level of play, staging lethargic chase sequences and failing to locate a heartbeat of tension throughout the entire film. "Gold" is game to bust out of the box and distribute some merriment, but Tennant doesn't know how to maneuver the picture properly.

While the action calcifies to "Baywatch" displays of beach bravery, the comedy isn't too far behind. Why "Gold" isn't sharper and funnier is beyond me, since both McConaughey and Hudson are quite good in their roles, sharing agreeable chemistry along with vivid displays of tanned flesh that will surely make the film a popular Valentine's Day rental for years to come. The script relies on stupidity for the laughs, and that level of writing tends to dry out quickly, leaving the actors all keyed up for big punchlines, only to be left hanging awkwardly in mid-sentence. Dziena deserves special credit for sinking her teeth into the nubile twit role, but even she loses her voice near the end when the script has nothing more to offer her.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE FOOLS GOLD.

BLU-RAY HAS ALMOST WON WALMART GONE BLU

WALMART TURNS BLU

HERE IS AN ARTICLE THAT STATES THE WAR IS ALMOST OVER WALMART WENT BLU.

Things have gone from bad to worse for HD DVD in the space of one week.

Wal-Mart Stores announced on Friday morning that it, too, has chosen a side in the battle for high-definition video supremacy: by June, it will stock only Blu-ray Disc players.

A buyer in Wal-Mart's video division wrote this morning on her Wal-Mart Checkout blog that the retail giant had made the decision following Netflix and Best Buy's high-profile announcements that they will exclusively stock Blu-ray products.

Wrote Susan Chronister of Wal-Mart: "By June, Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines and, of course, standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players."

"So," she continues, not mincing words, "if you bought the HD (DVD) player like me, I'd retire it to the bedroom, kid's playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard-def movies, and make space for a (Blu-Ray Disc) player."

That might be the best option at this point, as the dominoes keep falling in Blu-ray's favor. While Netflix and Best Buy were pretty damning evidence that the end was near, now it's glaringly obvious: it's over for HD DVD.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that consumers will automatically start buying Blu-ray players. As mentioned many times before here, prices will have to continue to fall on both Blu-ray players and packaged media for there to be any sort of mainstream adoption of the format.

There are rumors that Toshiba might soon be declaring defeat: The Hollywood Reporter has sources telling it that Toshiba, the main backer of HD DVD, might drop its allegiance with the format in the next few weeks.

Toshiba denies it, but stay tuned. There's likely much more to come in this drama.

MEET THE SPARTANS NOW AVAILABLE

MEET THE SPARTANS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE MEET THE SPARTANS FROM DVDTALK

OK, I get it now: Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are agents of Satan himself, and their recruitment video is "Meet the Spartans," the latest in their own private franchise of head-slappingly awful parody product.

You'd think after "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie" I would've flown to Los Angeles and violently snatched the camera away from these guys myself, but hey, I got busy. I'm sorry. In my vigilante absence, these amateur filmmakers somehow conned a profit-hungry 20th Century Fox (a studio this close to greenlighting "Ass: The Movie") into bankrolling another satiric jaunt; this time an elongated riff on last year's blockbuster, "300."

As if "300" wasn't already a parody of itself.

As witnessed in the prior efforts from goofballs Seltzer and Friedberg, the "jokes" tend to punch out in a thousand different directions; most of the targets being the latest, fattest big screen hits, but also whatever happens to be cooking in the immediate pop culture stew. "Spartans" is no different, lampooning "Casino Royale," "Happy Feet," "Transformers," "Ghost Rider," and "Spider-Man 3," while making room for Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan gags (absent panties, of course). There's also considerable television game show ribbing with "Deal or No Deal," "Dancing with the Stars," and several "American Idol" stings.

It's worth mentioning for the third year in a row that Friedberg and Seltzer are nitwits with no discernable filmmaking aptitude to speak of. Their movies are grotesque menageries of monotonous moronic mumbling; it's cinema for the pea-brained who find Larry the Cable Guy too "challenging." The filmmakers obviously know this, but they insist on aiming as low as they can: pointing out every single reference like total clods and dodging genuine wit as though they owed it money. "Spartans" is a new low even for these diseased buffoons, piling on the excrement and genital humor while turning sections of the picture into literal commercials, for the likes of Subway, Dentyne, Budweiser and Gatorade. They're not even trying to hide it, folks: this feature film has commercials in it.

The main thrust of "Spartans" is the "300" parody, and the depth of cleverness can be summed up easily: gay, gay, and more gay. While the visual extremity is another facet of "300" that "Spartans" likes to poke with a stick, the feature is made up almost entirely of variations on the homosexual subtext of Zack Snyder's original film. Here, the Spartans prance around, greet each other with kisses, and boogie to "I Will Survive." "Spartans" really clings tight to the gay panic material, to a point where franchise regular Carmen Electra (as the Spartan queen) has found herself with a major role in this picture, perhaps as a way to offer comfort to the pre-teens who can't stomach the trite homophobic humor.

It's a sad day when Carmen Electra, slithering around the movie with next to nothing on, can't even brighten up a solitary moment of this repugnant film.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE MEET THE SPARTANS.