Dear HP: HD DVD is Dead, Please Stop Pushing HD DVD Notebooks

The HD format wars are over and HD DVD is dead, but apparently somebody forgot to tell the guys over at HP’s Product System’s Group. HP is the only major notebook manufacturer that’s actively marketing HD DVD optical drives for notebooks.

Blu-ray and HD DVD are too competing high-definition disc formats. Toshiba was the leading proponent of HD DVD, while Sony is the driving force behind Blu-ray. Last month Toshiba announced it stopped producing HD DVD drives and would ‘evaluate’ discontinuing HD DVD notebooks. Movie studios have stopped releasing HD DVD movies and Toshiba says it will stop manufacturing blank HD DVD discs for HD DVD-R drives.

Instead of having a disclaimer or yanking HD DVD from its notebook configuration pages, HP is touting HD DVD suitable for “top-notch games and movies.”

HP’s not the only company that still sells HD DVD-equipped notebooks, but it is the only one that’s still offering HD DVD drives on customized systems. HP still prominently features HD DVD drives on its product description pages, configuration pages and ‘help me decide’ pop-ups. This bit of marketing is enough to confuse customers and drive them towards a bad purchase. A lot of people aren’t fully aware of the difference between the two formats and there’s no reason to encourage investment in a dead format.

Toshiba, the godfather of HD DVD, doesn’t even promote HD DVD on its notebooks product pages. You have to read the fine print of the specs of a couple of their models to see that they come with an HD DVD player.After months of press releases touting Toshiba notebooks with HD DVD drives, ToshibaDirect.com is all but void of HD DVD enabled notebooks. You can’t configure a Satellite notebook with HD DVD anymore.

Circuit City is apologizing to its customers who purchased HD DVD players in the past three months by letting them return them for store credit or trade them for a Blu-ray player.

So who in their right mind would pay a steep premium to get HD DVD in their notebook?

HP apparently thinks its customers should still have the option of configuring a Pavilion dv6700t, dv6700z, dv9700t, dv9700z or HDX with an HD DVD-ROM or HD DVD-R (recordable) drive for between $75 and $525. On the HDX configuration page the $525 HD DVD-R is highlighted as the recommended choice.

The standard HD DVD-ROM is marked down 50% on the dv9700 series notebooks, a sign that they’re not the hottest item on hpshopping.com.

All of the Intel-based notebooks that can be configured with HD DVD can also be configured with a Blu-ray player. The AMD-based machines can be configured with HD DVD, but not Blu-ray.

I emailed HP’s PR guy that handles consumer notebooks and asked him when HP will be pulling the plug on HD DVD, but he wasn’t sure. He wrote:

Regarding the HD-DVD issue, on the consumer notebook line we have started offering Blu-ray as an option as seen on the HDX. So we are already moving in that direction.

It’s great to see HP ‘moving in that direction,’ but someone over there needs to yank all the marketing buzz off of hpshopping.com ASAP.

I’m sure HP’s marketing folks can put together something more eloquent, but there should be some disclaimers warning people that HD DVD is an obsolete format, like: “NO MORE MORE MOVIES WILL COME OUT IN HD DVD FORMAT EVER AGAIN. GET A BLU-RAY DRIVE IF YOU LIKE NEW MOVIES.”

Next to the HD DVD-R drive there should be a disclaimer that reads “NOT FOR ARCHIVAL USE. YOUR NEXT COMPUTER WON’T BE ABLE TO READ HD DVD DISCS.”

Some people will argue that it’s always good offer choice, but it’s time HP wakes up and burries this dead format instead of letting it rot in its customers’ homes. Does HP really want someone buying a $4,000 HP HDX with a HD DVD drive? What kind of flagship product is that?

There might be contractual obligations, or corporate politics that might slow this process down, but somebody at HP really needs to do something about this. Offering expensive HD DVD options makes HP look like an Industry laggard and is not in the best interest of its customers.

Some people will argue that HP’s just offering choice to its customers.If that’s the case, HP should also offer optional floppy disc and ZIP drives.