It looks like Toshiba might finally be throwing in the towel on HD-DVD.

Reports from Japan indicate that Toshiba will be launching it’s own line of Blu-Ray players later this year.

If you are using Netflix’s “Watch Instatntly” streaming service, you may be interested to know some of the technical details about their encoding processes.

At today’s Apple event, Steve Jobs was asked about Apple’s OS support for Blu-Ray.  He replied:

“Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace.”

So basically, we’re not going to see Blu-Ray support any time soon because Apple doesn’t want to pay the licensing fees.

If you need help setting up your home theater game console or other electronics check out Wirewize.

They have helpful guides for many consumer electronics that can show you which cables go where and how to connect it all together.

(Not that our readers would need any help, you’re all smart enough to figure it out )

The rallying cry from many is that the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war was pointless because we’ll all be getting our media delivered over the wire very soon anyway.

I have no doubt that will be true eventually, the real question is when.

In the mean time there are some significant problems to overcome with electronic delivery.

In a recent article in Slate, the author compares using desktop computing applications to software-as-a-service web-based applications.  The problems he runs into are pretty much the same ones you would run into with electronic delivery of video or other media.

For the time being, physical media still offers significant advantages in many areas.  There are certainly projects and applications where electronic delivery is a better choice, but it’s going to be a while before it’s the right choice for most situations.

If you recently purchased an HD-DVD player and are now regretting your decision, Circuit City has good news for you.

The chain is extending their return time on HD-DVD players from the normal 30 days to 90 days.

Now that the format war is over, we can all get down to buying a Blu-Ray player.

Blu-ray.com has a nice list of players, both currently shipping models and upcoming models.

You can sort the list by release date, manufacturer and there is a very helpful comparison chart showing all the features of all the models.

(Blu-ray.com is in no way associated with or endorsed by the Blu-Ray Disc Association.)

Toshiba announced this morning that:

[I]t will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.

So that’s it, after years of fighting, untold sums of money and strong consumer apathy, the HD format war is over. Toshiba also said they have no plans to support Blu-Ray, but will continue to support the existing HD-DVD players.

The end came swiftly for HD-DVD with the recent defection of several big-name retailers and distributors.

I’m sure there will be plenty of speculation about whether the “best” format won or not. In the end, they were actually pretty similar in quality and functionality and it was only because of the stubbornness and egos of the participants that a compromise couldn’t be reached in the early stages of this battle.

This battle was a major factor in the slow adoption of HD. Consumers were afraid of making the wrong choice, and neither format was mature enough to offer all it promised; so they did nothing. Hopefully this will finally get reluctant consumers off the fence and purchasing Blu-Ray players, which will encourage studios and other content producers to ramp-up their creation and production of all types of HD content.

It would also be great if the Blu-Ray camp now worked hard on getting their players to be fully compatible and support all the features and functions they promoted the format with.

The death knell for HD-DVD continues as Netflix decides to no longer stock HD-DVD and only stock Blu-Ray discs.

How many more defectors will it take before the HD-DVD organization throws in the towel?

Sonic Solutions announced today that they are dropping support for HD-DVD and going forward will support ONLY Blu-Ray authoring.

Sonic Solutions, the leader in digital media software, today announced that its Professional Products Group will focus its research and development resources on the creation of new applications for cutting-edge authoring of Blu-ray Disc titles that encompass the interactive and connected-content capabilities of BD-Live. The group will also increase resource allocation on developing its encoding and title creation applications that streamline the process of preparing video entertainment for digital distribution. In order to address these emerging market opportunities and optimize investment return, the Professional Products Group will conclude sales of its Scenarist® HD DVD authoring product line.

Combined with the Warner Blu-Ray announcement, this may be the final nail in the coffin of HD-DVD.

Regardless of what the public wants, it’s hard to encourage people to choose a format where there are few tools available to create content.