Toshiba Stuns CES With HD-DVD Breakthrough by in Technology / January 7th, 2008
Consumer electronics giant Toshiba used the CES tradeshow to unveil a new version of its HD-DVD standard on Monday, leapfrogging the competing Blu-Ray format’s capabilities, in a move sure to send shockwaves through the industry.
“Today we are pleased to present HD-DVD-CX+,” said Toshiba America CEO Grant Morginson to a packed crowd of onlookers hoping to see a grown man cry. “Our engineers have managed to cram over two hundred times the capacity into a tiny plastic cube, and still make it backwards-compatible with the dozens of players we’ve already sold. I think it’s pretty clear who’s won the format war. And it don’t rhyme with ‘pony’.”
The HD-DVD-CX+ “discs”, which are small black cubes approximately 1.6cm x 1.6cm x 1.6cm in size, reportedly have such a high capacity that they are able to hold all 25 versions of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Blade Runner at a resolution beyond human comprehension. Also, due to a breakthrough in the wireless HDMI standard, the cubes don’t even need to be placed into the player to be viewed.
Sony reps were predictably angry about the news.
“It’s a load of crap is what it is,” said Peter Moon, Sony VP of Blu-Ray Propaganda at CES, “Did you see what he had in his hand? It was a pair of dice coloured over with permanent marker. He just made it up over the weekend after we snagged Warner Bros from his rag-tag band of loser studios.”
Toshiba reps were confident that creative talent would flock to the HD-DVD-CX+ standard once its capabilities were demonstrated, including “5400p resolution” and “Dolby 99.5 3D++ Surround Sound”.
“Consumers are going to be blown away by the revolution we’re introducing here today,” pleaded Morginson to a group of skeptical reporters, “Or at least they will be, once we start shipping TVs that can handle all the quality we’ve… uh… packed in these cubes. It should only take about ten years. And a miracle. Please buy our players! Please!”
