We all knew Toshiba’s HD DVD format was dead when Warner Bros. announced early this year that it would no longer support the format. Everyone was a titter at Toshiba’s press conference to see what they would say (which was, that they would persevere, despite the difficulties ahead) But, on Tuesday, Toshiba made out HD DVD’s death certificate. HD DVD is officially gone.
It’s bad news for anyone who rolled the dice and bought an HD DVD player (no, Toshiba is not issuing refunds… hey, you can still use the device to play the discs you have and DVDs).
It’s good news for Blu-ray owners (now we can expect to see every new movie released in Blu-ray).
And, it’s great news for those who have been sitting on the fence, afraid to join the early adopters and possibly get stuck with a proverbial Betamax.
For car audio, HD video is a bit of a moot point. After all, how can you appreciate great picture quality on a puny 7-inch in-dash screen or headrest monitor? But, with their monstrous capacity, Blu-rays do have lots of cool special features that may be worth your while. Panasonic showed a prototype Blu-ray player for the car recently. With the end of the high-def format war, maybe we’ll see it come to market soon.