Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 318
High-Def Format War: The Week That Was
2/1/2008 at 4:04 PM
"Fri Feb 01, 2008 at 01:00 PM ET:
On the Blu-ray side, the fallout from Warner's decision to drop HD DVD support continued, with distribution partner National Geographic confirming that it would follow Warner to Blu-ray exclusivity, and Gartner research predicting a Blu-ray win in the format war by late 2008.
On the HD DVD side, Toshiba announced plans for a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad, while format backers touted gains that saw HD DVD increasing its hardware market share for the week ending Jan 19 to 34% (up from just 7% the week prior).
Internationally, Blu-ray supporters pointed to an announcement from UK retailer Woolworth's that it would stop selling HD DVD discs as a major European victory, while HD DVD fans trumpeted word that two Italian distributors (Dolmen Video and Mikado) would back HD DVD only.
Meanwhile, back here in the states, steep discounts on HD DVD players at Circuit City lead to a series of reports that the retailer was planning to drop support of the HD DVD format. (A rep for the retailer was later quoted as saying the company planned to remain platform agnostic.)"