Believe it or not Amazon is still suggesting HD DVD purchases to customers on their mailing list who have bought HD DVD products before. I received an email this morning recommending I Am Legend (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) along with 8 other titles that included American Gangster and Batman Begins.

They must have a huge stock of HD DVDs because the titles they suggested are all from the Amazon stash. What’s interesting is the new releases are still priced like a format that isn’t obsolete. I Am Legend is priced at $24.95, 31-percent off the retail price of $35.99 but still up there. Full Story »

I would like to know how Apple counts? When HDTV first came out there was 1080p as HD and 720/780p as ED. Apple TV is Enhanced Definition not High Definition. If ATV were 1080p then there would be something to shout about. As it is, it will be a long time before it is a household device. I have heard this from many others but let’s hear it from Apple!! - Jens24 Full Story »

Amazon has sent out an email to purchasers of HD DVD players offering $50 credit towards most products. However the catch is that it doesn’t include purchases from third-party merchants, according to the email.

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Best Buy will be rewarding customers who purchased HD DVD players any time before February 23, 2008 with a $50 gift card. In addition, regardless of where you purchased your HD DVD player, you can trade in your HD DVD player and movies in exchange for store credit.

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Future Shop of Canada is offering a donation program where you bring your HD DVD into any Future Shop and get $100 towards an LG or Samsung Blu-ray / HD DVD combo player. The donated HD DVD player will be given to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada to use for after-school and evening programs.

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Toshiba Corp. Chief Executive Atsutoshi Nishida sat down with the Wall Street Journal to discuss the death of HD DVD.

Chief Executive of Toshiba, Atsutoshi Nishida, said that HD DVD “was one of 45 strategic business units that we have.” He seemed to shrug of the potential of owning the next gen disc format saying, “This just means we now have 44.”

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This coming Tuesday will bring the last two films from Paramount to be released on HD DVD. “Things We Lost in the Fire” and “Into the Wild” will end a run for Paramount, who, along with Dreamworks, went exclusive with HD DVD back in August of 2007.

The announcement comes after a decision from Toshiba on February 19 to no longer produce HD DVD players and drives. Universal Studios, who was a major backer for HD DVD, quickly followed Toshiba’s announcement saying it would start releasing movies on Blu-ray Discs.

Dreamworks has not made a formal decision to switch to Blu-ray Disc. The last heard from Chief Exec. Jeffrey Katzenberg was that they would continue to release on HD DVD until told otherwise. “We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” he told Reuters.

Virgin Megastore (all U.S. locations) will be selling off their remaining HD DVD stock starting March 4th through the end of April or when the stock runs out. This information comes from a website posting by a Virgin store manager.

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We are going to look back and realize what a foolish war this has been. Fanboys, mainly coming from the Blu-ray said, go on and on about how much better their disc is and about how HD DVD buyers are losers. While HD DVD peeps were probably not the early adopters, and perceptively “not as cool”, they are only guilty of wanting a cheap way into high definition.

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With Amazon and other retailers blowing out prices on HD DVD players and movies, the question is “Should I buy into this dead technology or just save up for a Blu-ray Disc player?” This is a question that you have to answer yourself, but the point of this article is to give you some pros and cons.

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Will Blu-ray prices come down as quickly as they did when HD DVD was around? No. Will consumers buy high definition Blu-ray discs at $29.99 and higher for new releases? No way.

Sure you have the early adopters, the one who bought players for $1200 and didn’t mind paying $35 for a disc. And, you have some who were waiting for the format war decision to be made, and are now willing to pay $399(Sony BDP-S300) for a player. But for the mass consumer, Blu-ray is still too expensive.

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Toshiba announced today it would end production of HD DVD players, as well as drives for computers. They plan on ending any shipments of HD DVD products by March 2008. “We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba.

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According to a Reuters inside source, Toshiba said its planning on ending the high definition war by conceding to rival format Blu-ray Disc. Toshiba would suffer hundreds of millions of dollars if they scrapped production of their HD DVD players, however stock values for Toshiba Corp Quote increased by 6% at one point, indicating share holders concern over losing more money in the format more.

“They made a clear decision, and this was recognized by the market,” said Takeshi Osawa, senior fund manager at Norinchukin Zenkyoren Asset Management. While the move cannot be verified, Toshiba public relations was not taking any calls regarding the matter.

HD DVD suffered from several announcements in the last two weeks. Big box retailer Best Buy announced it would promote only Blu-ray Disc. Online movie rental company Netflix also announced it would follow Blu-ray. And, what may have been the biggest blow to the HD DVD camp was the Walmart decision last Friday to go with Blu-ray.

Could this be the end of HD DVD? Today Walmart announced it would promote Blu-ray Disc as the high definition format. This could possibly be the final blow to HD DVD, as earlier in the week both Netflix and Best Buy announced they would be promoting Blu-ray Disc exclusively.

A Hollywood Reporter article written by Thomas K. Arnold and Erik Gruenwedel says that the “format war has turned into a format death watch.” Industry sources say that Toshiba is widely expected to pull the plug it’s competitive hi def format HD DVD. However Jodi Salli, VP of marketing for Toshiba America says, “Given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.”

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Here is an actual letter to a Netflix subscriber. They are going completely Blu-ray. Looks like HD DVD is on it’s way to a slow and painful death.
Dear …,

You’re receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.

While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.

Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don’t worry, we will contact you before this happens.

-The Netflix Team

Is this the beginning of the end for Toshiba and HD DVD? Today Barnes & Noble announced a 50% sale on its HD DVD collection. Does this mean they are liquidating their inventory and only going with Blu-ray? It seems it would make sense to continue to sell HD DVDs until the demand fades. But with Blu-ray Disc commanding the majority of the high definition market after the Warner Bros decision, we’ll have to see how the other retailers respond before making the prediction that HD DVD will concede.

Today Microsoft announced it will drop the price of the xBox 360 HD DVD add-on player again. The price will drop to $129.99 (about £65). The best thing about this deal is you also get 5 free HD-DVD’s with the purchase. The xBox 360 HD DVD player was originally priced upon it’s release at $199. If HD DVD really wants to make a go of it, they should have dropped it down to $49 and be done with it. HD DVD needs all the help it can get to catch up to Blu-ray sales.

Home Media Magazine writes, “Studio executives are looking at 2008 with guarded optimism. The high-definition disc format war may be nearing its end, given Warner Home Video’s defection from HD DVD. That means they can focus not on fighting each other, but instead on battling consumer indifference toward next-generation media, the success of which all agree is critical to the continued well-being of the home entertainment business.” Full Story

Most people have already declared Blu-ray to be the format war’s victory and our recent talks with Toshiba and Universal seem to suggest that the HD DVD camp might be ready to pull up stakes. The crazy part is this: Just a few weeks ago, it might’ve gone the other way entirely.

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The first signs of HD DVD ultimate demise may be coming from the UK on March 10. After the news on Universal and Paramount abandoning the exclusive HD DVD deal, it seems that Amazon UK is listing three Paramount Blu-ray titles with that definitive release date: Trading Places, Coming to America and Anchorman, the latter of which was never available in Blu-ray before (as far as we can see.) Amazon UK doesn’t list the HD DVD versions, and these are all new Zone 2 releases, not US imports. Could this be an error on Amazon’s part or just a sign of things to come?

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