HD-DVD

February 19, 2008 is Confirm the Obvious Day. Pervez Musharraf finally had to concede that nobody in Pakistan likes him. Castro acknowledged the fact that he hasnt been running the country for over a year. And Toshiba fessed up that theyve lost the high-definition movie war.

As we reported from CES, HD-DVD's death knell as a viable high-definition disc format began to ring loudly when Warner Bros., one of the format's largest major supporters, announced that they would move exclusively to Blu-ray in early 2008. Today, Netflix and Best Buy also declared HD-DVD dead to them—the former will completely phase them out of its rental business, and the latter will now exclusively recommend Blu-ray players to its customers.

HDTV sets are stunning—until you pop in a movie and are reminded that DVDs are not recorded in high definition. At 480 lines of resolution, they don’t even begin to take advantage of a 720- or 1,080-line display. That will change later this year when Toshiba introduces the first high-def disc player for the U.S. market. Toshiba’s breakthrough box, an HD DVD player that at press time was still unnamed, will cost about $1,000 (toshiba.com).