HDTV | HD DVD

HD DVD sales still solid despite format’s failure

Toshiba may have canned production of HD DVD hardware, but that didn’t stop US consumers buying into the format last month, new market stats reveal.

According to US market watcher Redhill, 81 per cent of the next-generation optical disc players bought by Americans were Blu-ray Disc machines. That means 19 per cent of them used the rival format.

A sign that folk were buying cheap DVD upscalers - an application Toshiba began highlighting towards the end - or taking advantage of the post-termination HD DVD firesale?

Well, during the first three months of 2008, some 4.9m next-gen discs were sold, 3.8m of which - 77.6 per cent - were BDs, the rest HD DVD. That imbalance between the two formats’ hardware and software sales, suggests a fair few folk took advantage of lower prices to build a quick HD DVD collection. /reghardware.co.uk