It took Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Netflix about the same amount of time to make a move after the Warner Bros announcement. Giant corporations don't make these kinds of decisions overnight.

Welcome the BLU-ray OVERLORDS...Welcome the WALMART OVERLORDS...Welcome to the USA....now bend over....thank you for your visit, come again...( and we know you will )

I have to disagree on that! Wal-Mart (I believe) within the last 24 months has decided to dramatically "up" the quality of their home electronics offerings, and as a result they have started to really push HDTV really hard. The three Wal-Marts I frequent (including a Super Center) have big home electronics sections where they're sellng 23" LCD to 60" DLP widescreen units. As such, Wal-Mart's decision to go Blu-ray exclusive this summer is one of the final nails the coffin for the HD-DVD format.

I would think Gerry P is right - these companies usually don't move on a moment's notice unless the law's involved.

My point was whatever the reasons were for Walmart waiting until now, you can bet upsetting Toshiba was not one of them.

I can see it now -- the new slogan for Wal Mart's electronics dept.:

"We've Upped Our Quality; Up Yours!"

Of course I kid, but I can imagine that'd be how anyone who bought an HD DVD player there would feel.

I expect my local WM to not only quit selling HD DVDs, but Blu-Ray as well. Neither sells in the hick town where I live. The titles just sit on a shelf. Part of the reason is probably because the titles are all priced at retail. The only time any were discounted was back in November at the time of the $99 A2 sale. My store didn't even have any of the titles that were part of that sale.

Same here. My local Wal-Mart has maybe ten movies for each format and it looks like they don't sell a single one.

Went to my local last night, and there were a few more Blu than usual. Decent prices too. Across the Universe $24.XX and The Rock $18.XX for example

Well, it's interesting you say this. I wonder if Wal-Mart is making more money off the HDTV sales or their software offerings. So, Wally's may treat Blu-ray the same as HD DVD if it isn't popular enough. It's easier to have one format to sell for retailing purposes, but they may not offer a lot other than the latest releases. Will this be good overall for the HD consumer? Not sure.

It will be quite the interesting outlook a year from now and even two years from now. If Wal-Mart says their Blu-ray sales aren't doing so well, other retailers might take Wal-Mart's lead and cut the offerings in favor of other products which are known to sell, have a high profit, and have a low shelf life.

True, we have enough nails in the coffin to call it for HD DVD, but just remember, the focus is now going to be on Blu-ray and whether it is a success in the next few years. If not, I fear it will be a high-end format, few sales and high prices for many more years until it gathers speed and enough of a consumer base to naturally have low prices.

Blu-ray and HD DVD have had it fairly easy because they were competing and most websites and news reports only reported on the competitive numbers. Now that the competition is over, it's more of a survival game than a competition. How this plays out for the following months and few years, will be entertainment in itself.

For now, mostly HDTV sets because well, there is only one standard for HDTV broadcasts (ATSC 720p or 1080i). But now that the confusion over the hi-def disc format is pretty much over, I expect Wal-Mart to start picking up more revenue from Blu-ray disc and player sales for the second half of 2008.

Ray, I have to ask -- what is it with your italicizing of "Blu-ray"?

Well, it is a copyrighted name.

So why not do the same for Wal-Mart or HD DVD? I've just never seen anyone do that before.

Techinically, it's a trademark.

From now on, he will be RayChuang.

Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody RayChuang tonight.

I suppose Wal-Mart will gain more sales if the prices are right, but I'm still a little doubtful of the "HD Confusion" theory. I see more issues coming up. More players, statistically more problems, more posts of problems with players on forums. But time will tell. I can only guess, as well as everyone else. However, Christmas 2008 should be very interesting.

Personally, I do want Blu-ray to succeed, any HD format actually, because I have a lot of movies I'd like to see which I can't at this point because of HD DVD buying, and I can't afford both formats at the moment anyway. But I do see a lot of issues coming up in the future, regardless of HD format.

I may never buy a BD player if they can't produce one without problems. BD killed themselves.

Well, they have sold a lot of hardware (PS3 and non-video game players) and the sales do count for something, but it's what happens after the HD DVD titles are mostly gone, all the studios have officially announced Blu-ray dedication, as well as retailers, will be the time to see if Blu-ray can muster enough support.

Did you buy an HD DVD player? They all had problems as well. There are no perfect players out there for either format. Even the revered XA2 has a shutdown bug for some users.

I have not had a problem playing anything on my A2. I only have a dozen or so titles in HD DVD. Based on other users I would say that HD DVD has far fewer problems than BD. They will have a hard time getting me to buy.

Well, then, don't buy one, if that's how you feel. Were you expecting someone to convince you to do otherwise? Because, really, it's your money to spend how you see fit. If a Blu-ray player doesn't meet your needs, you definitely shouldn't buy one.

I can't say that I agree with that sentiment, but that's just my opinion.

Good for you. I have so many problem with my hd-dvd player playing movies and zero problem with blu-ray player. That's why I stopped buying hd-dvd a year ago. whoopie dooo right? BD killed? The last I checked, I think it's the other way around.

Well said. Both formats got plenty of pub in the media because of the "war." Now that it is coming to an end, this free pub may disappear.

Guys, things are finally starting to cool off. If you really don't have something worthwhile to add to the discussion, don't add anything.

Saying "BD sucks" is only going to rile up some of the staunch BD supporters and then the bickering starts and then even the more levelheaded people get involved.

The posts over the past 24 hours have been phenomenal here. Informational, and without much attack. What it used to be. Let's all do our part to keep it that way.

See that's anecdotal.

My experience has been problems with both my HD DVD players, but none with my BDP-S1 or PS3.

The Samsung players are junk (IMHO), but at least with Blu you can pick your manufacturer. You're stuck with Toshiba or Toshiba rebadges for HD DVD.

I'm sure most people don't have problems with their players, at least not major ones. They're not the ones opening new threads to say "my player works fine". It's the small percentage with problems who are trying to troubleshoot their issues through forums. Both Panasonic models are rock solid players.

Bunkaroo makes a great point. At least you can choose between a Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Pioneer, or Samsuck, I mean Samsung player.

I'm not sure Samsung has even released a player that they have fully designed or built. I thought one of the BD insiders on blu-ray.com said something like "at least now Samsung is working on a player that is truly theirs". I assume he means the BD-1500?

No one will convince me that during the first 2 years of existence, that all DVD players were 100% flawless regarding playback.