Audio Video News

What a difference nine months can make. At CES 2005 in January the HD-DVD group hosted a gala event at a posh Vegas strip nightclub to unveil its plan to be the first HD disc format to market with the most- Toshiba said they’d have a $999 player in the fourth quarter of 2005 and representatives from major studios such as Warner, Paramount, and Universal strode to the podium amid swirling lights and pledged their support for the format to the tune of 90 HD-DVD titles at launch. All the elements seemed in place for a strong pre-emptive strike against Blu-ray, which has yet to announce a US launch date of either hardware or pre-packaged movie titles. The splashy 2005 holiday season launch was to be one of HD-DVD’s key advantages over the rival Blu-ray Disc format.

Thursday at CEDIA is press day. The floor isn't open, but the day is usually filled with activities. This year things thinned out with the cancellation of several events, notably Toshiba. I suspect HD-DVD was going to be Toshiba's featured attraction, but
the word is out that this year's scheduled launch of HD-DVD has been put off until spring, where the battle will go toe-to-toe, or bit-to-bit, with Blu-ray.

The second day of the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference 2005, held on August 24 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, began with a session on the current state—and future—of the HDTV market. The presentations from DisplaySearch, Samsung, and Panasonic were heavy on statistics. I won't report them in eye-glazing detail here, but a few will inevitably be scattered throughout this report.