Tech Tok

High-Def Digest reports that HBO — publishers of fine series like The Sopranos and The Wire — is dropping HD-DVD.

The dominos look to be falling, spelling the end of HD-DVD..

It’s here! And all for the low, low price of … $1,500!!!

Okay, you can put your wallet back now. :-)

According to enGadget HD, the count now stands at HD DVD 158 vs Blu-ray 159.

To add insult to injury, another enGadgetHD article says:

High-Def Digest has already updated their release page which is shows that Blu-ray has more titles with dates for February than HD DVD has for all of 2007.

HD-DVD still has the lower price though.

HDMI 1.3: Better DTV images, sound in 2007
Why today’s best HDTVs aren’t worth buying
Blu-ray / HD DVD stalemate boosting interest in combo player?

The first two posts concern HDMI 1.3, which ups the ante from 8-bit to 16-bit colour (!), as well as uncompressed, 3 Mbps audio.

The last post posits that Blu-ray and HD-DVD are tied in the race to consumers, who seem not to care very much about the whole thing. It is my sincere hope that Blu-ray vs HD-DVD will become just as meaningless and wasteful as the DVD-R vs DVD+R debate was a few years ago. Who even looks to see if they are buying -R versus +R these days? I sure don’t. Actually, all I look for is “DL”.

Update @ 2006-12-22 10:18:
Found these on Slashdot — very interesting!

HD-DVD movies sorted by picture quality
Blu-ray movies sorted by picture quality