Sunday, February 17, 2008

Blu-Ray wins ! Bye, bye HD-DVD

The tech headlines blared around the world the past few days. HD-DVD is dead. It is.

If you were like me, and trying to take a few 'holiday' days, you may have missed it.

Toshiba (along with a variety of others) threw their support to Blu-Ray and here in the US so did Wal-Mart. As of this morning, Wal-Mart's website is still showing lots of HD-DVD titles so evidently there's still a little inventory :)

Unlike the Sony BetaMax days of years gone by, it seems certain that HD-DVD is DEAD and Blu-Ray has won the home theater disc war. Sony can declare a much needed victory for now, at least until memory gets cheaper and digital downloads probably replace everything.

So, you can either grab those disc deals as the prices begin to plummet, or start thinking about a new player if you were an 'early adopter'? It doesn't look like you're going to have much of a choice.

Something tells me there's going to be a few more (more than a few) surprises before analog TV goes off the air in the US next February. Stay tuned :)

Update Feb 19: It's official. Toshiba pulls suppport. The Press Release is here