I'm with you, but good luck arguing this to most people. It's a tough crowd out there...

I am so relieved this thing is over! Sony/BDA needs to release some positive statements about HD-DVD and the excellent competition it provided, as soon as possible. They won this thing, but at times they seemed to be leading by the skin of their teeth. Who could overlook such a valiant effort by Toshiba, when they clearly didn't have much momentum behind them to start with? Universal showed loyalty, and even though I've been waiting on them to go Blu, there's really something to be said for that as well. Then of course there's the Paramount deal that almost evened the war out (just ask Howard "Stalemate" Stringer). As a Blu-ray supporter, HD-DVD was a pesky competitor, but it simply couldn't be ignored!

I don't know about anyone else, but the rise, fight, and fall of HD-DVD will vividly remain in my memory, unlike the Betamax's and Divx's of the world. Today I have nothing but high praises for Toshiba and HD-DVD, but I'm not neutral- I'm 100% Blu and it's a beautiful thing!

I've been a Blu-ray supporter since late 2006, when I purchased my 20 gig PS3 from Wal-Mart for the low low price of $500. My original plan was to wait until the format war was over, but when I saw the PS3 sitting there on the shelf, I decided I'd buy it, then let it sit for a week before I opened it. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time at all the media forums (here, HTF, AVS) reading about the pros and cons of each format. Just from a technological standpoint, I liked Blu better, and at the time, had the hunch that it would eventually win, but would be awhile.
Anyway, I finally went ahead and cracked the box of the PS3, and haven't regretted it since. I still mostly watch titles I rent from Netflix, but have bought around 25 or so titles as well. Even if it's an incomplete format (still), I've been greatly impressed with it.
Early this year, after the Warner announcement, and the subsequent firesale on HD-DVD players, I also picked up a Toshiba A30 player. I figured that as a format, it would hang on for at least most of 2008, and I would just rent titles I wanted to see from Netflix. That plan went out the window of course, so now I have an HD-DVD player with 3 titles (300, The Bourne Identity, and Zodiac), that I'll probably put on eBay as soon as I can't rent HD titles from Netflix anymore (I'd like to at least get through S1 of Battlestar Galactica, which I haven't seen yet). I have to say I haven't been terribly impressed with the durability of HD-DVD discs... 3 of the 5 discs I've received from Netflix have had issues.

In any case, I'm very happy this format war is over. I'm hoping we see announcements from Paramount/Dreamworks and Universal announcing their move to Blu, and hope that all the studios start to step up their release schedule, and for some studios, drop the MSRP on new titles (I'm looking at you, Fox!). I don't really expect Blu-ray to take over from DVD, but I think it'll be more than just a niche product, too.

I think will Bill Hunt, people didn't hate so much of what he said as how he said it.

+1

Well, I bought an HD-DVD player duing the Amazon sale last Christmas, and I don't regret my decision. For around $150 I got a perfectly good upscaling DVD player that can also play some high-def movies, plus 10 free HD movies. Sure, I won't be able to buy any new movies in this format, but I take a Buddhist view of these things. Nothing is meant to last forever, although more than 2 months would have been nice.

Still to quote another bit of entertainment that died much too soon, "I may have been on the losing side. I'm still not convinced it was the wrong one."

Did Hillary drop out of the race? Opps, sorry...wrong forum.

Hey, after a few years of this back n forth we're entitled to do the blu-ray happy dance.

HIP HIP BLU-RAYYYYYYYYYYY!
HIP HIP BLU-RAYYYYYYYYYYY!
HIP HIP BLU-RAYYYYYYYYYYY!

Please, we all called it when the format war started. However, many of us took the chance on HD DVD and it was a chance worth taking with the lower cost and Blu-ray's terrible 2006. HD DVD battled much harder than many of us thought it would when this war began.

I have zero regrets and will continue to use my remaining HD DVDs.

How many standalone BluRay players were sold (so far)?

I guess the question now is, how long will the remaining studios put out HD DVDs? Or will they stop immediately due to this announcement?

There were still a few releases like "I Am Legend" that I was looking foward to.

At this moment?

Yeah, you can bet they will have Blu player out by 4thQ. No doubt. They are not going to announce that HD DVD is dead and annouce their upcoming Blu Ray plans on the same day!

The press release states that will continue to "Support" HD DVD owners. I don't know what that means, but it doesn't look completly unlikley that Tosh will make a BR player that supports HD DVD.

If you're into HDM, you might as well continue to support it through Blu-ray. "I Am Legend" has several Blu-ray exclusive bonus features on it. Though to answer your question, I can see Warner releasing all the HD-DVD titles that they've already begun pressing. I would be more certain of getting "IAL" on HD-DVD than "Twister".

Now that HD-DVD is officially phased out, let's hope that the new Blu-ray player chipsets will drastically reduce the cost of players so we can get Profile 2.0 (BD-Live) players under US$250 by this fall.

With HD-A3 price going down to $100 and it being a great upconvert machine, I just may get one. HD movies can be had for $10 and they are dropping with people getting rid of their collections and stores clearing out. Now is the time to start a collection like what happened with Laserdisc. There is some great stuff currently in HD that has not yet been put on BRD. I've been thinking about getting a machine and the 2+5 free and clean up on some of DDD sales on HD with another $100 or so. I've been thinking about this for a week and still have not decided. Note: I already have a BR machine and about 40 movies.

I don't regret getting an A2 back when they dropped to $100, plus I got 10 free movies with it. Do I wish this would've turned out another way? Sure. But I invested in a PS3 in January to prepare for the day to come. And it has. At least I can still enjoy HD movies that aren't available in BD yet.

Needless to say I'm happy with the news and look forward to getting Para/Uni titles on Blu. However, with the Toshiba announcement I just went and ordered an A3 from Amazon along with the three HD-DVD's I can't wait to have brought over to Blu, The Thing, The Breakfast Club and Dawn of The Dead (2004). Everything else I will wait on.

Agreed! Didn't realize how much Paramount and Universal actually controlled until I was forced to consider titles that until now would never make it to Blu-ray. Serenity NOW!

Both Blu Ray and HD DVD make the Google top 100 trends.

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

Come on Paramount. Get yr blu-rays sorted out before There Will Be Blood is due.

Exactly.

Hopefully, there will be a mass selloff of HD-DVD titles now that I can scoop up. Too bad there was such a poor selection of titles.

I just hope that there is a cheaper Blu-ray player on the horizon.

When this war began, I was really on the fence about what I wanted. On the one hand, I have a strong disdain for Sony (crappy products, high prices, impossible customer service) and it seemed early that HD-DVD was going to dominate.

Gradually as this continued, Blu-Ray was showing major advances (Profile 1.1/2.0, "scratch proof" disc, 50 GB of storage), which as a techno geek intrigued me. So I went into Best Buy and checked out a demo of both. To me it became clear Blu-Ray was the better option...but HD-DVD had some nifty tricks (U-control and the like). Then when the muckraking started, you could see both camps were reaching at straws. The prices of HD-DVD dropped and that to me signaled the end.

So now after not making a move, I can safely say I will go Blu once Paramount/Universal announce Blu titles. And that will let prices on players drop (I hope) and I am all set.

Just heard the news of Toshiba officially euthanizing the HD-DVD on this morning's news. Now the ever-present red "stand-by" light on my HD-A3 just stares back emptily at me, taunting me.

I didn't and don't like Bill Hunt simply because he has a holier than thou attitude on everything he writes. It isn't so much what he writes, it's how he writes. He's annoying.

That all said, bummer, but as long as BD stays alive, I'm a-ok.

Well, I was in a Walmart last night and they FINALLY have a Blu Ray display and the one I frequent most often. They used to just have two small shelves that would hold about 3 discs as their selection. The only HD title I saw there was Ocean's 13 (I think).

The Best Buy I visit was definitely low on stock on the HD DVD, so I guess they already started the non-restock process.