The big news at all the usual places that talk about HD DVD is an article in The Hollywood Reporter suggesting that Toshiba may be closing in on making a decision over their part of the combat in the high-def format war.

The authors of the article are guys who routinely write for a few magazines and sites that cover the home video scene like Home Media Magazine, and obviously Hollywood Reporter. According to their industry sources, financial losses and recent negative news are taking their toll on Toshiba. One of the sources feels that the possible end is coming in just “a matter of weeks.”

That’s what I was able to extract from the article in terms of information directly related to a decision from Toshiba and the HD DVD camp. The rest of the article summarizes news that you’ve already read about here and elsewhere in the past several weeks.

There’s a little bit of conjecture where they’re reading into a quote by Toshiba’s Jodi Sally who said, “Given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.” Their take on this quote is that “something’s in the air.”

There’s also something implied when the authors mention that they weren’t able to get calls returned by Kevin Collins, the HD DVD evangelist at Microsoft, or Ken Graffeo, the VP for Universal Studios Home Entertainment and co-president of the HD DVD North American Promotional Group.

As a whole, it’s really easy to come away from the article and believe that Toshiba is about to call it quits in a few days. But nobody at Toshiba or the HD DVD group actually said so in the article, this is really just talk from some industry sources. Since they don’t name the sources, it’s fair to guess that those sources are Blu-ray aligned people trying to create some bad publicity for HD DVD (although they did say one of them is “close” to the HD DVD camp). This wouldn’t be unheard of, since it’s been people from the Blu-ray camp who have leaked bits and pieces to news outlets in the past and been able to make sure that bad news was definitely getting well distributed.

Let’s step back for a moment and take a deep breath. (more…)

Some HD DVD owners decide to completely stop doing business with companies that announce plans to withdraw their support. A good example is Netflix who announced that they would stop stocking new titles and would allow their inventory to phase out from natural attrition. Warner is another.

I can understand why people might get upset, but I’m not sure that boycotting these companies actually solves the problem. In fact, I think it only helps those companies come up with real numbers later that solidify and demonstrate their initial statements about a weak HD DVD market (whether those statements were well-founded or not). I also wonder if the sacrifice is the right one to make, especially if it feeds into the company’s self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stopping all business with these companies only gives their bean counters some smaller numbers on the HD DVD side to count up. Many months later, they’ll come out and note that demand has fallen off and their decision is now sealed, and they might even consider accelerating their exit.

On the other hand, continuing to get your HD DVD titles from these companies demonstrates that there’s demand for the format. In fact, if there’s enough of a reliable source of income from the format, it’s a little harder for those companies to ignore the money that they’d throw away.

If you don’t believe me, then read this posting at DVDTown.com where a Warner executive said, “If there is product available in HD DVD and there is a request from a retailer, we will provide.” Ronee Sass, VP of Publicity and Promotion also went on to say, “There may be isolated instances that an HD DVD title will be created, but as a general rule our titles will be out in SD and BD only.”

The extremely optimistic might get carried away and interpret that statement as saying that Warner is coming back. No, that’s not what Sass said. What she said is that if there’s a good reason to make a disc, then they will. She didn’t say they’d make brand new movies come out. But she did say that Warner is basically not going to ignore consumer demand for a product.

Lastly, there’s the sacrifice that you have to make when you elect to stop doing business with a certain company. Most boycotts are designed to hurt the company’s financial prospects. If a company has already decided to boycott you, then boycotting them ends up being a one-way loss — yours. Your loss is that you have closed off one additional way to enjoy HD DVDs.

• Warner will restock if needed at DVDTown.com

The release slate for this week is really interesting because of its extremely wide variety. On one end of the spectrum, we have a classical music concert, and another installment in the 3-D sound series. This is the feast for the ears part, and it’s all very well-to-do.

In the middle, we have a The Amateurs (also called The Moguls), a 2005 comedy with some actors you already know. It’s a story about some regular small-town folks thinking they can make an adult film. Well, maybe they’re not all that regular or ordinary, but certainly a little crazy.

The Amateurs has a plot that’s sort of a segue into the week’s release that’s on the other end of the spectrum: the latest Girls Gone Wild video. Some might consider it a feast for the eyes, but we can all agree it’s more rough around the edges than the classical music discs.

I’m not saying that people who like one kind of disc won’t like the other, but just pointing out the diversity of interests that are being represented this week.

Of these four titles, Mountain Winds comes out on Feb. 13, and Vivaldi later in the week on the 16th.

(all links are to Amazon ordering pages)

Vivaldi – The Four Seasons Concertos for Double Orchestra David Juritz and the London Mozart Players Unrated

Mountain Winds Unrated

The Amateurs Jeff Bridges, Tim Blake Nelson, Joe Pantoliano, William Fichtner, Ted Danson, Lauren Graham, Glenne Headly Directed by Michael Traeger Rated R

Girls Gone Wild: Baby Bash Not rated

There were rumblings last week that Netflix might consider raising prices on all high-def rentals as a way to recoup their costs on the discs. While you and I may find it difficult to stomach $30 for a disc, rental stores have to pay even more for their copies – it’s just a rule about how they do business with the studios. It looks like Netflix found another solution over the weekend…

Rejecting the “Long Tail” theory about how you can always find just about anything you’ll need online, Netflix comes out with the news today that while red may be the color of their famous envelopes, blu is going to be the high-def format that they focus on for the rest of the year. They will stop adding HD DVD titles to their selection and let the remaining stock run out on its own through the naturally occuring damage that occurs from the wear and tear of all those discs getting rented out.

The “Long Tail” describes an advantage that online merchants have over their brick and mortar counterparts, namely that their inventory and distribution needs are much less restrictive and thus they can carry products that may not be as frequently stocked elsewhere, and still make a pretty good profit. For example, you can find a lot more books at Amazon.com than any branch of even the largest bookstore.

Compared to Blockbuster, Netflix only has to run (more…)

UPDATE: Just added (Feb 12): Amazon Buy 2 Get the Third Free

Steve Jobs says that people don’t read books any more, but I’m sure that Barnes & Noble would disagree. However, if you have reduced your book reading, or forsaken it altogether because you’ve been spending more time in front of your HDTV, then Barnes & Noble still wants to prove that they can be friends with you. Their gesture is a 50% off sale on HD DVD movie titles.

It’s pretty much the same sale that Amazon had all last week and expanded for this week, except that you can get an additional discount if you’re a Barnes & Noble member. It means that a title that’s on sale right now for $14.99 would only cost $13.49 for members.

Alas, membership is not free. I used to have me one of these memberships a couple of years ago when I was picking up books like crazy. They do save you a lot of money in the end, but only if you’re a frequent shopper.

Here are the links of interest for all of your HD DVD movie shopping for this weekend, including this sale at B&N:

• 50% off HD DVD at Barnes & Noble, even more off with membership. A little birdie tells me that using code Y4R4K7D might save an additional 25% on a single item.
• 50% off sale at Amazon.com
• Buy One Get One Free at Best Buy from Feb 10 to Feb 16
• Movies under $16 at DeepDiscount.com
• Tower has 52% off too, but the movies are not listed in any friendly order

UPDATE: Amazon has now combined the Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks titles into one sales page.

This week started off with a two-for-one sale at Amazon featuring 103 Universal titles. It’s actually a 50% off sale, but the math works out to essentially the same thing as buying two (at full price) and getting one of them free, which is called a BOGO (buy one get one) nowadays.

Paramount/DreamWorks is now joining the fun and bringing about 46 titles on sale for 50% off. I wasn’t able to find a special page for this deal, as there is for the Universal one, but here’s a list of the movies involved in this sale. Most are going for about $15, which is half off their usually $30 price tag.

Two box sets are also included at 50% off: Mission Impossible for $50 and Star Trek for $98.

The sale comes just in time to for all the new HD DVD owners from the Xbox 360’s HD DVD add-on player. You can start off with favorites like Transformers for only $20. Or perhaps movies like Stardust or Failure to Launch for Valentine’s Day.

It’s a long list, so I’ll break this posting into a couple of parts to not clutter up the main page. If/when a dedicated page becomes available at Amazon, I’ll update with a link to it.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to their page, which combines the Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks movies, making for a big selection of 147 titles.

You can hover your mouse over the movie title to see its 50% off price. Clicking will open up a new window (or tab) on your browser, and clicking on any other title will open that page up in the same window/tab.
Click here to see the list of Paramount/DreamWorks titles at half-off

After the recent price changes on standalone HD DVD players, many people wondered when the Xbox 360’s HD DVD add-on would drop in price. After all, $149 for a standalone HD-A3 is cheaper than $179 for the 360’s add-on.

Wonder no more, because the 360’s HD DVD add-on is now listing for $129. Well, it’s supposed to be, any way. Earlier in the day, Amazon had sold these at $79 for a few hours and quickly ran out. When I first checked, these drives were out of stock and being sold through one of Amazon’s partners for a higher price. Upon checking just minutes ago, the drive is back at $79.

The add-on is intended for the Xbox 360, but it can also be attached to your PC via USB, thus allowing you to view HD DVD movies on your PC for a lot less than some of the other HD DVD internal drives available. The drawback to using this drive with a PC is that it will need to be plugged in separately, whereas an internal drive would just get its power from inside the PC. On the other hand, this 360 drive is eligible for the 5 free movie offer, and it also comes with King Kong in the box.

• Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on player at Amazon.com

If the price is not $129 or less, then it means Amazon is out of stock and you’re seeing a product from one of their partner vendors.

• $119 at Best Buy

Movies, movies, movies! We need more of them and we need them now. The new theatrical releases pretty much come out on time just a few months later, but the slowdown in the last quarter of 2007 has taken its toll on the HD DVD releases for most of January and the start of February. The proverbial ball will get rolling in the weeks ahead, but if it wasn’t for the 50% off sale to keep us all busy with titles that came out months ago, I think many HD DVD owners would be extremely upset right around now.

A couple of sites are reporting that we have three titles released this week, but in my poking around I only found solid evidence of two of them. The big name title for this week is Oscar-nominated Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a sequel to 1998’s Elizabeth (which was also heavily Oscar nominated) starring many of the same actors, including Cate Blanchett as the Queen. A proper review of this movie is coming in the days ahead, so I’ll save some of the details for later. If you can’t wait, then click through to the links and read the product description at Amazon.

The other HD DVD title this time around is a box set of a Discovery Channel favorite, Deadliest Catch. This is a series that follows crab fishermen in the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast, as they undertake what is among the most dangerous jobs in the world. I’ve watched a few episodes of this series and was spared from seeing the ones that featured some really nasty things, such as crippling injuries and death. You won’t have to miss out on any of that gory stuff in this season 3 box set, though.

That third, phantom title? It’s the horror film, Naked Beneath the Water which is being listed at High-Def digest as releasing today, and re-reported as such by EngadgetHD. But Amazon says this one comes out along wth American Gangster in a couple of weeks on the 19th.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) Cate Blanchett, Jordi Molla, Aimee King, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen Directed by Shekhar Kapur Rated PG-13

Deadliest Catch Season 3

Here’s a typical clip from Deadliest Catch. (more…)

HDDVD.com is a place for people who are into HD DVD. One of the things we do to make the site a useful resource for HD DVD owners is round up the weekly deals, and it’s about that time of the week again.

Considering that the Superbowl Sunday commercial is likely to generate some interest in HD DVD this week, I took an early look around to see what kinds of promotions the various retailers have planned to complement the marketing push. These are likely to be geared towards new owners, but there around a million of us existing users who thrive on the same kinds of deals and specials.

I’ve seen the following sales on players and movies so far, and this post will be updated as more are unearthed. If you come across anything, then email me (check out the ‘About’ page to find out how).

HD DVD Players
A list of players is always there on side-bar to the right of these articles, and you can click-through to the popular retailers that usually have sales of some kind. The suggested list prices on players are $149 for the HD-A3, $199 for the HD-A30, and $299 for the HD-A35. If you see anything less, then it’s obviously on sale. Amazon is notorious for dropping the price for a few hours or days, while the B & M (bricks and mortar) retailers set their pricing on a weekly basis.

This is probably a good opportunity to let people know that Circuit City is NOT clearing out their HD DVD players. There was some kind of pricing mistake last weekend, and some store managers provided hasty explanations. That’s not just me making stuff up, it’s the official word from a corporate spokesperson to at least two websites. Read about it here and here.

HD DVD Movies
Best Buy’s two-for-one deal, also known as a BOGO (buy one get one) ran out yesterday, and word on the various forums indicates that a lot of people came away with slightly larger HD DVD libraries last week.

Amazon.com has all the BOGO action this week. It’s actually a 50% off sale on 103 titles from Universal. While not officially a BOGO, getting a disc at half-price achieves the same purpose without any extra steps to sign up for or request that second disc.

Amazon’s earlier sale is still on, and some of the movie sales from last week are still active. Online retailers rarely announce when a sale begins or ends, so if you’re at all interested in these titles showing up at $15 or $16, don’t miss your chance.

• 50% of on select HD DVD titles at Amazon.com
• Up to 53% off on select titles at Amazon.com
• Buy.com has a similar 53% off sale but with an extra buck off.
• Movies under $16 at DeepDiscount.com
• Tower.com has movies up to 52% off, go through the list and find your gems

UPDATE: Planet Earth for $54.95 at Amazon. The most popular HD title of all time, your hd collection is incomplete without it.