HD DVD

Now that the war between HD DVD and Blu-ray is finally over, I bet you're still wondering what to do with that dummy DVD player that you sunk your cold hard cash into. Thankfully, there is a silver lining to your HD DVD raincloud. For all you hard core Best Buy customers, rejoice! If you bought a Toshiba HD DVD player from the home of the Geek Squad before February 23, you're entitled to a nice $50 gift card to replace your defunked player. And if you are an Xbox fan and bought your HD DVD add-on, the refund applies to you as well. Best Buy president Brian J. Dunn, hopes that the gift cards will come as a nice consolation prize for choosing the wrong side in the format war:

"Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the right technology for their needs,"

This coming on the heels of Circuit City offering full credits for HD DVD players within 90 days of purchase. To find out how to get your Best Buy refund, read more

As the Blu-ray/HD DVD war continues with Netflix and Best Buy recently making the switch to Blu-ray, things are certainly looking gloomy for the future of HD DVD products. The hardest hit came today, with Wal-Mart announcing that it would be pulling the plug on on HD DVD and moving exclusively toward Blu-ray format movies and players.
By June, 4,000 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores will offer only Blu-ray movies and hardware machines, as well as standard definition movies and DVD players. In the meantime, Wal-Mart will slowly be selling off the rest of its HD DVD products. If everything looks as good as Beyoncé in Blu-ray, then I may also have to make the switch!

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The battle of Blu-ray versus HD DVD continues with the two technologies facing off at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next week in Las Vegas. There are however, a few neutral products that bring the best of both worlds together and should delight gadget lovers.

LG Electronics announced that it will launch the world's first dual-format high-definition disc player, capable of playing both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD content. The company said the unit will be released in the United States in early 2007, and that it "expects this technological breakthrough to end the confusion and inconvenience of competing high-definition disc formats for both content producers and consumers."

Warner Bros. followed with the announcement that it would launch a hybrid disc that works in both Blu-ray and HD DVD players. According to the AP, Warner Bros. developed the "Total HD Disc" to help break the stalemate between HD DVD, developed by a consortium led by Toshiba Corp., and rival Blu-ray, backed by Sony Corp.

HD DVD and Blu-ray offer resolutions that are much higher than standard-definition DVDs, and offer brighter contrast and color, sharper sound and higher levels of interactivity.