The Death of HD-DVD

Well its official, the high definition format war is over. I’m certainly happy its over, but I’m not very happy about the outcome.

This all started earlier this year when Warner Brothers decided they were no longer going to support the HD-DVD format. Originally they were producing both HD-DVD and Blueray movies. This came just days before CES. This, of course, burst the bubble of many of HD-DVD’s supporters.

Recently major retailers, such has Wal-Mart and Best Buy, have decide to no longer support HD-DVD and push the sale of Blueray players and discs. When you consider that those two stores alone account for the majority of movie sales alone, thats another pretty big blow to HD-DVD.

Now finally, according to an article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/technology/20disc.html?ref=technology), Toshiba has announced that they will no longer produce HD-DVD players. Good-bye HD-DVD.

I, of course, am upset about this because last year it seemed as if HD-DVD was a sure fire winner. HD-DVD was much easier to produce, there were more duplication facilities available so it would be much easier for film companies produce HD-DVDs for sale. Also it was cheaper. I personally have the HD-DVD player add-on for my XBox 360. Also, before the end, Toshiba was selling players for as low as $100!

Oh well. This time Sony wins. The good news is that for the rest of us (who didn’t jump the gun and invest 100s of dollars in the wrong format) we can now go out and confidently buy blue-ray players and movies without fear of blue-ray being washed away.

~ by AJ on February 19, 2008.