Toshiba officially threw in the towel today. It’s, there’s nothing left but the crying. I did my rant this weekend about the pending death of HD-DVD. I think the format war has ended too soon, but hey, what can you do? Several people emailed me and said that my post was some anti-Sony screed and that I have buyer’s remorse. Actually, I don’t. I have both formats and never committed to either so it isn’t like I have hundreds of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies lying around the house. I have exactly 15 HD movies, but I’ll benefit from having a single format because it means all the studios will eventually be able to send me Blu-Ray disks. Not a bad deal for me, I get everything basically free. Except I did buy the Harry Potter set on HD-DVD. Doh! Anyway, I digress, I still believe that – at least in the short term consumers will lose on this because the Blu-Ray group will not come down in price anytime soon. I’m hoping they prove me wrong and start slashing prices now that the war is over and they still have to convince people that the HD format is worthwhile. I like the format, but don’t see HD as much of a leap from a good DVD.
It’s just good that it’s all over and the HD format can move on.