Winner By K.O.

Blu-ray VS. HD-DVD is over...

Blu-ray wins high-def war

Toshiba concedes its HD DVD defeat.

Garth Franklin of Dark Horizons has a round-up of the resulting fallout...

The first day after the official concession of the HD-DVD format and things are beginning to change.

Universal's Home Entertainment Division President Craig Kornblau says that "it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray" - effectively turning the longest running HD-DVD exclusive supporter into a Blu-ray backer. It's expected the studio will begin releasing past HD-DVD titles on the format shortly including such films as the 'Bourne' and 'Mummy' series.

The other HD-DVD exclusive studio, Paramount Pictures, has stayed surprisingly quiet in regards to the announcement. Warner Bros. Pictures has said that there are currently no changes planned in its release schedule as a result of Toshiba's decision and will continue releasing HD-DVD titles until May.

LG says it would continue to support HD-DVD in the wake of Toshiba's announcement and plans to continue with its dual-format player series for early adopters as "at this present moment in time, it is necessary to provide a player which supports both formats and therefore create simplicity and convenience for the existing HDDVD consumer."

Toshiba says they have no plans to produce players using rival Blu-ray technology at present.

Up until the clear winner was announced, I was leaning towards buying a multi-format player...I do have a certain loyalty to Sony...That's been the brand of choice for me since buying my first standard DVD player back in 1999. Given that, I was hoping that Blu would prove victorious...but I was not gonna hedge my bets just the same.

My long range plan is to stick with the standard DVD format until the digital TV revolution takes place next year--Allowing time for the Blu-players to come down in price a bit more and the availability of software (Blu-discs) to fully integrate into the marketplace...