The high definition DVD format war is over. HD DVD, championed by Toshiba, has been beaten by Blu-Ray, invented by Sony. The competing formats fought for years to attract both movie studios, retail distribution channels, and hardware makers.
As late as last month, the struggle was far from over. Of the 7 major US movie studios, 3 supported HD DVD and 4 Blu-Ray and most major retails offered both formats. But in early January Warner Brothers switched sides. That seems to have led to a landslide of in favor of Blu-Ray. Walmart, Best Buy, and Netflix have all decided to go exclusively Blu-Ray. Blockbuster had already done exclusively to Blu-Ray last summer.
If you have an HD DVD player that you can still return, that would be a good idea, if not, at lease it will still play regular DVDs. You can’t rent HD DVDs from the major rental stores or mail order services and soon you won’t be able to buy any HD DVD movies either.
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