Rich Fiscus
3 Jul 2008 12:19
On June 11 the DVD Forum's Steering Committee met for the second time this year. Their biannual meetings usually result in boring discussions about bureaucratic matters, but not so this time around. That's not entirely surprising considering it's the first meeting with an agenda set entirely after HD DVD's demise at the hands of Blu-ray earlier this year.
You might think Blu-ray's victory in February would have immediately halted any serious discussion about new HD DVD development, but you'd be wrong. In fact a format called C-HD DVD is still in development. The C stands for China, which is where it's being developed and expected to be sold.
Don't expect this to mean the return of HD DVD in the rest of the world, at least not any time soon. It's not in the studios' interest to rekindle the format war. And it's hard to believe the executives who were apparently blind sided by Toshiba's decision to suddenly drop HD DVD are lining up to repeat that experience.
Of course things aren't exactly decided yet. If Blu-ray hasn't made significant progress toward mainstream adoption in the next couple of years the studios could become restless. If C-HD DVD were already established in China it's hard to believe the studios wouldn't at least consider jumping ship again.
Toshiba is already rumored to be targetting Blu-ray with better upscaling DVD players. The adoption at this most recent meeting of the DVD Download DL logo could also be a sign that HD DVD technology is going to be re-used in the older format.
Even if C-HD DVD doesn't ever come to market it looks like Toshiba may be in the best position to benefit if Blu-ray fails. Right now that's not looking like a bad place to be.