Apparently, they haven't learned what happened to Sony's Betamax.
(Sidenote) I have been generally happy with the Toshiba products I have bought over the years, but wasn't there some deal where technology was (illegally?) sold to the Russians back during the Cold War?
Toshiba sold submarine propeller machining technology to the USSR in violation of a treaty with the US.
Yup, if I recall it had something to do with submarines or propellors or something.
Anyway, the individuals involved in that are probably long dead or retired.
I don't look down on anyone who buys a VW or Mitsubishi, yet both of those companies made products that killed a lot more Americans.
Toshiba illegally (?) shared technology related to submarine propeller design (as I recall).
Milling machines for making submarine propellors that were more efficient with less cavitation.
Toshiba sold Russia some sophisticated CAD/CAM machining equipment that was aptly suited to manufacturing extremely "quiet" submarine propellers. I have not bought anything from Toshiba since the day I learned that almost 20 years ago....
Your Betamax comparison is way off the mark. There is no compatibility or programming availability issue here.
This is a matter of buying a fantastic screen and hooking it up.
Oh, and being totally blown away.
Completely different situation. Betamax was incompatible with other media formats. Since that format did not become the standard, nobody produced their material on that format. In this case, this TV is not dependant on any format. It just displays signals that all TV's receive better. Toshiba would be dumb to give away this technology.