GadgetReview

I don’t know why you’d buy one of these, but perhaps you’re opening up a museum.

Xbox 360 HD DVD Player available here for $56.94 shipped.

According to Dealerscope, Sony paid Warner Home Video a purported $400 million to go Blu-ray in January. That isn’t to suggest that Toshiba wasn’t trying to payoff Warner, but simply lost in the end when Netflix and Best Buy sided with the Blu-ray camp.

After heavy Internet rumor mongering, Toshiba has finally conceded defeat and announced the official death of HD DVD. Toshiba plans to discontinue HD DVD manufacturing on all levels by the end of March 2008.

Official announcement here.

At a glance, the title of this article has complete credence given HD-DVD’s recent demise. Heck, Netflix just signed on to do Blu-Ray only. But the reality of it, is that Cargo Cosmetics launched this line of make up specifically to mask the flaws that high def does so well at pointing out. According to CNET they ’skirted copyright’ by replacing the ‘-’ with a ‘_’. So it’s Blu_Ray, not Blu-Ray Mr. Lawyer pants! Is that legal?

Paramount has dropped Blu Ray in favor of HD DVD. One, its cheaper to produce HD DVD discs. Two its more “market ready� – whatever that means. And three, HD DVD offered (allegedly) $50 million and $100 million in marketing dollars.

Paramount Opts for HD DVD Format [MarketingVox]

In the hopes of keeping rival Blu-ray at bay, Toshiba, developer of HD-DVD, has announced its 51GB capacity HD DVD. Blu-Ray has long been regarded as the technically superior disc with a 50GB capacity. Previous HD DVD discs only held 15GB or 30GB of data. The extra capacity is accomplished through a 3rd layer. It remains to be scene if the “3rd layer� will increase cost and production time significantly.

51 GB HD DVD disc rivals Blu-ray capacity [TGDaily]

Jake Ludington compares the Xbox Marketplace’s HD movies to that of HD-DVD. His verdict? Both pictures are almost identical but the Xbox’s HD movies are slightly brighter.

Check out Jake’s full comparison here.

Mediablab: Xbox Video Marketplace and HD-DVD Comparison [EhomeUpgrade]

Well, it looks like we now have confirmation that Microsoft will release an add-on HD DVD player for the Xbox 360. In the past add-on peripherals such as this have had poor adoptability in the video game system space. To make the slope even more slippery for Microsoft, Sony will be releasing the PS3 with a built in high-def DVD player (Blu-ray format). As we reported in December , it’s thought that the add-on HD DVD player will be for movie playback only, and won’t read games. No word on price or when it will be available.

Via PCWorld