Blu's Clues

Toshiba has collected all of the paw prints, done it's time in the Thinking Chair, and has decided to remove HD DVDs from the market.

The first clue was that High-Definition media only represented a half of a percent of the total consumer purchases of all movie formats. Basically consumers have not bought into the Hi-Def marketing blitz. We think DVD's work just fine.

The second clue came from the hands of Sony and Nielsen. 81 percent of the Hi-Def disc sales were Blu-ray. The overwhelming market share sent Time Warner out of the HD DVD camp and into Sony's Blu-ray loving arms.

The final clue, of course, is Apple's iTunes, ATT's U-Verse, XBox Live, Netflix's Watch Now etc. These represent the front line of movie digital download. The future of personal media libraries is not on DVD silicone discs, but on the aluminum platters in your hard drives.

Toshiba's decision is a good move. What makes it a great move is that they are shifting all of their HD DVD funds into a partnership with SanDisk for two new flash memory plants. Toshiba has lost this format battle, but they intend to win the war.