Toshiba VP on HD-DVD: We've Been Declared Dead Before
By Chris Boylan
In the wake of Friday's
announcement from Warner that they are withdrawing support from the HD-DVD format, Toshiba's CES press conference this week was a fairly somber affair. Rather than celebrating their significant growth in the player market in 2007, Toshiba was instead circulating press releases with last minute changes and expressing their disappointment in Warner's decision.
Akio Ozaka, president and CEO of Toshiba, kicked things off citing strong HD-DVD sales in Q4. Ozaka-san is still convinced that HD-DVD is the best product for consumers, and they are "disappointed" with Warner's decision.
Ozaka-san quickly shifted gears stressing Toshiba's commitment to the environment, creating environmentally conscious products and launching EnergyStar-compliant displays and other gear in 2008. Toshiba's commitment extends even to the creation of a new company (along with partners Panasonic and Sharp). The Electronics Manufacturers' Recycling Management company (MRM for short) will oversee and promote environmentally sound recycling practices for electronics gear in North America, something that is important now and will become even more so as consumers upgrade their analog television sets to digital in preparation for the digital broadcasting transition of 2009.
Toshiba's V.P. of Marketing for Digital A/V Products, Jodi Sally expressed disappointment in Warner's announcement but showed no sign of throwing in the towel.
Next up, Jodi Sally, Toshiba's VP of Digital Audio/Video Marketing took the stage. Jodi's product line responsibility includes HD-DVD so the beyond-capacity crowd of press and analysts was anxious to hear her take on the Warner announcement. At times visibly shaken and clearly agitated by the current situation (and who wouldn't be?), Ms. Sally stressed the fact that over 1,000,000 dedicated HD-DVD players are now installed in the North American market alone and software sales have also improved over the past year.
Jodi expressed disappointment with the "pundits" who have announced HD-DVD's demise saying "we've been declared dead before." But this time, this particular HD-DVD supporter has seen the writing on the wall and it does seem to me that it's written in Blu.
After some more happy news from VP, Scott Ramirez on the state of Toshiba's
LCD television business (as well as news on the upcoming new REGZA models), the press conference concluded, without the traditional Q&A session. Needless to say, there were no new HD-DVD player models announced.
I believe many meetings and discussions will be happening behind the scenes in the coming days and weeks but it's hard to imagine that the HD-DVD format will be able to survive such a blow from one of their strongest content providers.
