People who frequent message boards and blog comments crack me up. If you were to read some of the comments on posts about the HD format war, you’d think it was bigger and more important than Iraq. People defend their format of choice so jealously that they’ll get into ridiculous spats, call each other names, call each other’s mothers names, etc. Then there are the people in the middle; the fence-sitters. They’ll say things like, “AHH I can’t WAIT for this war to be OVER!” and “This has gone on long enough. Can we please just call one a winner so that I can start spending all my money?!” Ok that was an exaggeration, but that’s what they might as well be saying. Seriously though, let’s step back for a second and analyze this. (more…)

Wal-Mart announced today that it plans to phase out HD DVD products completely by June. Seriously, it’s like salt in a wound. I would love for this format war to be called by someone official so that I can stop reading about it and hoping that HD DVD drops a nuke on Blu-ray. Engadget has already called it and supposedly Toshiba is on its way. It’s probably a matter of hours before there’s a press release. Then maybe I’ll start searching for a backwards-compatible PS3 on eBay.

[Hi-Def Digest]

Apple has always had a stranglehold on the music industry with their iTunes Store. Their latest target: Hollywood. They upped the ante at this year’s Macworld conference when they introduced movie rentals through the iTunes Store. Users can now rent from a growing collection of movies from all of the major studios on their computers and transfer them to their iPod or iPhone. That alone is pretty cool, but what really makes this a huge deal is Apple’s often overlooked Apple TV and its ability to rent many of those movies in HD. (more…)

Just in case you’ve recently read our Dumbass’s Guide to the HD Format War and made a decision on which format you prefer, you may want to reconsider. Warner Bros., the last studio left releasing movies on both formats, announced that they will exclusively support Blu-ray. Does this mean the end for HD DVD? (more…)

As another year comes to a close it looks like we take another small step toward a pure digital society. It appears 2007 will be the first year Americans spent more on cell phone service than land line service. (more…)

So you’ve read through our Dumbass’s Guide to the HD Format War and you’ve decided to take the leap, huh? Well I commend you, brave soldier. If you’ve got an XBox 360 and you’re looking to get into the HD game without breaking the bank, then Microsoft’s HD DVD Player is the best and quite possibly the cheapest way to do it.
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Editor’s Note: As of February 19th, 2008, the HD DVD format is dead. Blu-ray has won the war. I liked this guide though, so I’m going to leave it up.

There’s a war going on right now, only it’s not the kind that’s fought overseas with guns and tanks (not yet, anyways). Its battles are fought with marketing dollars, on message boards across the internet and on store shelves. It’s the worst kind of war, besides those ones mentioned before with the guns. Those are worse.

It’s a format war, and it’s causing mass confusion and apathy.

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