HD DVD firesale begins on eBay
Defunct format sell-off
eBay said today it expects to an increase in listings for HD DVD products following Toshiba's announcement yesterday that it is going to ditch its optical disc format.
"With a large variety of now defunct entertainment formats, including Betamax and Mini Disc being regularly traded and ultimately becoming collecters items, [we] expect to receive an increase in listings for HD DVD products," an eBay spokesman told Register Hardware.
Toshiba's announcement effectively marks the death of the format, since the electronics company was by far the largest - in some markets only - supplier of HD DVD hardware.
Many consumers who backed HD DVD will now be looking to offload their kit, possibly to fund the purchase of kit to play the winning HD format, Blu-ray Disc.
Looking at eBay, we found 2414 auctions for HD DVD movies, including a collection of six brand new, unopened discs which would normally sell for about £125, though had only notched up bids of £55 with seven minutes to go. The Ultimate Bourne Collection boxset was at £26.55 with 1 hour 49 minutes left (normal retail price £50), Transformers for £6 with 3 hours 51 minutes left (normal retail £25)... and so it goes on.
As for players, well, you can snap up some serious bargains among the growing number of machines on offer. The Toshiba HD-EP30, which normally retails for just over £200, can be yours for £135 plus two films. Read our review of the (not at all bad) HD-EP30 here.
Similarly, Toshiba's HD-E1 player, which normally retails for £450, is just £243 with four hours left. The multi-format Super BH-100 dual-format player from LG, when launched, would have cost you a thousand of your hard-earned pounds - but now it's £160.
COMMENTS
Upscaling ?
Umm, does the embedded DRM in all these new formats allow for that ? I've read that, in order to get the normal HD-size on your screen, all the components had to have the proper, certified, nanny chip in, otherwise it would be downgraded to VHS-quality or even not displayed at all.
That's what put me off either formats, that and the fact that my hardware could apparently be remotely shut off by the Central License Coordination Agency if they thought I had pirate hardware, or if my hardware phoned home to tell the CLCA that I was reading pirate content.
I don't condone piracy, but I'll be damned if I accept that my hard-earned money can be blown off by some jerk with a kill button without my having a say.
Add Alert
This to me seems like ebay trying to make friends with the register
when you consider the facts that they are at a loss at the moment due to people not taking kindly to some of their new rule changes
I think personally there must come a time when people will notice that eBay is a snowball guided by all the wrong people
maybe one day we will see peoples feeling make a difference for now i say this is nothing but eBay trying to drum up business
following current boycott by many of its users
EP30 Multi Region for SD DVD
Sadly not... i have an Ep35 and am waiting on that.
The E1 (1080i only) EP10 and XE1 can all be modded via a leaked Australian firmware v2.5.1 to be multi region for SD DVD, they even handle RCE disks too.
LG have confirmed continued support for the hardware too, so lets hope a BH300 comes out that is BR Profile 2 compliant and has 5.1 analogue outputs and is MR for SD... then i'll be happy :D
Collectors items?
"Betamax and Mini Disc being regularly traded and ultimately becoming collecters items"
I just looked, $12.99 for 10 minidiscs, that's less than I was paying for them brand new 6 years ago. I'm not exactly sitting on a goldmine made out of L@@K R@RE, am I?
Maybe in another decade or so! Yeah! Throw in all my old audio cassettes and those half-a-dozen 3" CF2 floppies I still have somewhere and that's my retirement plan sorted, according to eBay. Sweet!
Oh wait, betamax tapes are only going for B.I.N. of $2/each. Bugger, looks like it's back to playing the lottery.
Sounds like eBay trying to drum up some business off the back of others' misfortune if you ask me.
X-Box may still be the saviour
It wouldn't surprise me if MS took the tech off Toshiba's hands and carried on integrating it into the X-Box. It would suit them perfectly, vendor/tech lock-in, $$$'s not wasted on X-box HD-DVD development and they could ship it to desktop/server machines as removable mass storage. Sell it cheap for PC users and slow down Blu-Ray integration into the desktop machine for years to come.
MS have been sparring in the home entertainment arena for years so having their own DVD format would just be the next logical step.
