Just in case you haven't heard the news, HD-DVD has given up in the next-generation format war. Well, actually Toshiba has decided to pull the plug on HD-DVD, saying that they will cease production and shipments of HD-DVD players by March of this year. It is the FINAL nail in the coffin for HD-DVD. As a Playstation 3 owner, I had no doubt that Blu-ray would be victorious. I'm not a fanboy by any means, but when Sony took the risk to push a format by integrating it into their newest console, that became the "trojan horse" that played a huge role, even though most critics were skeptical.
Consistently, Blu-ray disc sales outnumbered HD-DVD from month to month. As a Playstation 3 owner, and an HDTV owner as well, it has been a pleasure to watch movies on Blu-ray. Currently, we have over 20 Blu-ray movies. If you are interested in deals, keep Amazon.com bookmarked as they offer pretty good deals. If you are looking for a cheap dvd upscaler, which is a device that adds pixels to simulate a higher resolution, then HD-DVD may be a sweet deal. Blu-ray offers uncompressed resolution, so from a video standpoint, DVD upscaling is not as high of a quality as Blu-ray.
What does this end mean to the high-definition landscape? I believe to begin with, this news will be a boost to the Playstation 3 as it becomes an attractive prospect for consumers looking to jump in the high-definition arena. Also, with manufactures focusing on Blu-ray, it should help drive the prices down on hardware as all of them will be fighting to have consumers choose their product. I don't think that prices of discs will be dropping anytime soon, but here to hope.
Another change for current Blu-ray owners will be the release of movies on Blu-ray from Universal and Paramount. This is probably the best thing for comsumers. This gives Blu-ray a total lock on movie studios. Finally, Universal on Blu-ray. Hopefully now, consumers who were waiting for an end to the format war can now be confident and become proud owners of high-definition players. As for the HD-DVD owners out there, I've got a question for you. How does this affect you?
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