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Toshiba says HD DVD "has not lost" despite Warner move (Reuters)

Toshiba Corp insisted on Sunday that its HD DVD high-definition video format is far from dead despite being dealt a major setback by Warner Bros studio's decision to exclusively back Sony Corp's rival Blu-ray technology.

Akiyo Ozaka, president of Toshiba America Consumer Products, told a briefing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that HD DVD "has not lost."

But Ozaka was at a loss to say what Toshiba planned to do next after the decision by Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros, one of the world's largest film studios, to embrace Blu-ray, an optical disk format for storing high-definition video that is backed by Toshiba rival Sony.

Toshiba's defiant remarks were the latest salvo in a long-running battle over which format will dominate the next generation of technology for delivering high-definition movies to consumers.
The winner is expected to inherit a multibillion-dollar industry, although consumers so far have been confused by the standards war. Some analysts say that they have also failed to see the attraction of high-definition.

The rivalry has been compared to the video-cassette-recorder format war of the late 1970s and early 1980s which ultimately Sony's Betamax lost and JVC's VHS won.

Toshiba, the main backer of the HD DVD format, defended the technology on Sunday after the HD DVD consortium, a group of companies of which it is a part, canceled plans to hold its own press conference at the Las Vegas trade show, the industry's largest U.S. gathering.

"We were very disappointed with Warner Brothers' announcement," Ozaka said. "Sales of HD DVD were very good last year, especially in October to December."

Ozaka said Toshiba sold about 1 million HD DVD players in North America in the last year as more consumers downloaded high-definition video onto personal computers equipped with the technology.

The technology debuted broadly in the United States in 2006 but has not become a big hit with consumers yet.

Ozaka declined to comment on Toshiba's next steps, which he said Toshiba's HD DVD partners would have to discuss.

Toshiba marketing executive Jodi Sally told the audience that HD DVD remained the best technology, but acknowledged that the Warner Bros announcement on Friday took her by surprise.

"It's difficult for me to believe when all the pundits declare that HD DVD is dead," Sally said. "Clearly, the events of the last few days have led many of you to that conclusion. We have been declared dead before. The reality is we ended 2007 with a majority of the year-to-date market share."
(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

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Samsung TVs to have built-in games

Samsung Electronics Co. will introduce high-definition TV sets with computer-like features, letting users read news from USA Today, play games or look up recipes, the company said Sunday.

A button on the remote of Samsung's new Series 6 and Series 7 LCD and plasma HDTVs displays news, weather, sports and stocks information supplied by USA Today as a picture within the picture. The TV set needs to be connected to the home Internet connection through an Ethernet port for this feature.

Furthermore, some LCD flat-panel sets will come with content preloaded into flash memory, Samsung said. The content will range from artwork that can be displayed as a screensaver, to fitness programs, food recipes and simple games like Sudoku, said Tim Baxter, executive vice president of sales and marketing for the consumer electronics division of Samsung Electronics America.

"If you think about the TV experience, it has historically been a lean-back experience," Baxter said, contrasting it to the more active "lean-forward experience" of using a personal computer.
"We think there are opportunities to bring very relevant parts of that experience into the living room," Baxter said.

Users will be able to update the preloaded content by downloading artwork or games onto flash drives, which can be plugged into the sets.

Samsung plans to launch the interactive sets this spring. Prices were not immediately available
(Taken from www.tech.yahoo.com)

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