All of the recent, and mostly detrimental policy changes and other developments aside (see Related Articles), I’ve found that there seems to be a significant shift with eBay in placing more and more advertising in front of its customers. [Read more…]
eBay Vice President Jim Ambach announced today that eBay is discontinuing its Live Auction format services at the end of the year, citing an effort to improve “buying and selling experiences”. The “Live Auction” format differs from eBay’s traditional business model of scheduled, “online-only” auctions, and typically (as it relates to original props, wardrobe, and memorabilia auctions from movies and television) provides collectors the ability to bid on items auctioned “live” over the Internet, in real time, in lieu of being present at the actual auction event with people bidding in person, with the auctioneer recognizing “floor” bids, telephone bids, absentee bids, and online bids. [Read more…]
As reported Saturday, Toshiba has decided to abandon it’s HD DVD in the format war with competitor Sony and it’s Blu-Ray Disc. [Read more…]
Reuters and others are reporting the end of the HD format war (LINK to full story), with Toshiba expected to make a formal announcement regarding their exit of the HD DVD business this coming week. This concludes the format war with the Sony-backed Blu-Ray Disc. [Read more…]
I know it’s only been a few days since my last update of the HD format war between Blu-Ray Disc and HD DVD, but there are more articles and developments on the tech sites (Engadget: “Toshiba gearing up to drop HD DVD?“; Home Media Magazine: “HD DVD Format on Death Watch“; Gizmodo: “Toshiba Finally Taking HD DVD Off Life Support“; The Hollywood Reporter: “Toshiba to drop HD DVD, sources say“.
All articles report that sources claim Toshiba will drop the format in the coming weeks. [Read more…]
As reported previously (see “HD Format War Developments“, “More HD War Developments Out of CES“, “HD Format War – More Bad News for HD DVD“), Toshiba’s HD DVD format has suffered some severe blows of late, particularly since the start of the new year.
As a quick update, the latest two unfavorable developments for the format come from Best Buy and Netflix. [Read more…]
As reported previously (see “HD Format War Developments“), Warner Bros. Entertainment will be releasing its high-definition titles “exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year”. A few days later the Financial Times reported on rumors that Paramount was set to follow suit (see FT.com, “Paramount in HD blow“), though Bloomberg.com (see “Paramount Denies Report It Will Drop Toshiba’s HD DVD (Update2)“) reported shortly after that Paramount was denying those rumors, though the official statement was carefully worded.
My last report (see “More HD War Developments Out of CES“) covered rumors that Universal (which, along with Paramount, represents the two remaining major studios supporting the HD DVD format exclusively) may change its decision to back HD DVD, including an excerpt from a story published by Variety (see “Blu-ray could win high-def battle“).
In the last week, I’ve read some more news of interest to those following this story. [Read more…]