In October Toshiba Australia will roll out a brand new DVD player that up scales a normal DVD to HD quality and when compared to a Blu ray offering there is very little difference except for the price. The Sony Blu ray player is $699 and the new Toshiba DVD device $199.
It was only 8 months ago that Toshiba quit the HD DVD Vs Blu ray battle losing millions along the way now industry analysts are raising serious questions about the future for Blu ray with Andy Griffiths, a director of consumer electronics at Samsung, the second-biggest seller of Blu-ray players, claiming that Blu will be dead in five years.
In other moves several Hollywood studios have teamed up with consumer electronics manufacturer's to deliver Full HD movies and other video over the Internet in competition to Blu ray discs which need a player.
On Sept. 12 several Companies including Intel and Hewlett-Packard announced they would collaborate with Hollywood movie producers on open standards designed to make it easier for consumers to download and view copyrighted content on all manner of devices. "It's all about consumer freedom and consumer choice," says Mitch Singer, president of the consortium, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem.
