Toshiba may push its HD DVD format by installing appropriate optical drives into its notebooks. Toshiba’s senior vice president Hisatsugu Nonaka said that the company would integrate HD DVD optical drives into “all” of its laptops next year: “The demand is there: people want to watch their favorite movies in high-definition on the road.” According to Gartner market researcher, Toshiba commanded 4.1% of the global PC market in Q1 2007, up 0.3 points year-over-year and increasing its shipments by 15.3% annually. The total available market of personal computers (which includes desktop PCs, mobile PCs and x86 servers) was approximately 62.719 million, which means that Toshiba supplied about 2.57 million of computers in Q1 2007.
HD DVD supporters like Acer and HP, the world’s third (6.8% with 4.26 million systems shipped in Q1) and first (17.6% with 11 million machines supplied) makers of computers, have much larger market shares and have not announced support of HD DVD for all of their systems next year. The only computer maker who supports only Blu-ray among the Top 5 makers is Dell (13.9% market share, shipped 8.7 million of systems in Q1 2007). Given that HD DVD drives are more expensive compared to typical DVD/CD devices, installing them into all systems may increase prices and eventually decrease their market share.
News source: Xbit Laboratories
HD DVD supporters like Acer and HP, the world’s third (6.8% with 4.26 million systems shipped in Q1) and first (17.6% with 11 million machines supplied) makers of computers, have much larger market shares and have not announced support of HD DVD for all of their systems next year. The only computer maker who supports only Blu-ray among the Top 5 makers is Dell (13.9% market share, shipped 8.7 million of systems in Q1 2007). Given that HD DVD drives are more expensive compared to typical DVD/CD devices, installing them into all systems may increase prices and eventually decrease their market share.
News source: Xbit Laboratories
That's almost the same market share that Apple has of the whole computer market.
Guess Toshiba is fighting a losing battle too.
Or maybe not....
Unfortunately, until HDRW comes out, I think the move is slightly redundant. DVDs are still strong in being a practical media. And of course, they can fit *AHEM AHEM* 1080p in H264 (playable in lots of PCs now due to CoreAVC) on a double-layer without sacrificing much quality (sound is affected though).
Yes, all that the average Joe currently cares about is playback. Burning can come much later along in the market (hd-dvd burning that is).
Yes, all that the average Joe currently cares about is playback. Burning can come much later along in the market (hd-dvd burning that is).
Not exactly. There's a lot more people picking up into computers than you may think. Hell, a lot of people in my area (and let me tell ya, I live in somewhat of a very poor area, hell someone stole our $5 weed eater last night) know all about burning CDs and movies. If it can save them money, then they definitely want it. While I don't seem them getting an HD burner anytime soon, it's one aspect that they'll definitely look at. Why read when you can burn?
Not so obvious.
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