I still think HD-DVD was better for consumers, but at this point I'm just glad it's over. That said, I'm going to wait a couple years for players and content to hit a sensible price.

I look at the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray as potentially the most pointless format war ever. The winner is still the loser, since I've yet to see either format come into high demand with consumers. The prices are prohibitively expensive, and I don't think Blu-ray will stand long in the face of digital distribution, which is becoming an increasingly viable option for consumers.

I think you're wrong. People still want to own a physical copy of things, and you'd need some pretty big hard drives to hold a decent movie catalogue in Hi-Def. There's a lot of money to be made from this generation, and Sony's going to make it. It's strange to see them win one for a change, particularly as the key to victory was a console that's losing the battle in its own arena.

Bandwith and compression are not an issue with video on demand. This is why everyone is coming out with set-top boxes. Technology like media center, appletv and netflix watch now, will take the lead away from digital downloads. Log onto the service, pick what you want to watch when you want to watch it, no waiting for a d/l. Digital download is fine for music. Instant streaming is the way for video.

What sort of "machines" does one have to buy for flash play? Stick the card in your computer and stream to your tv or watch the movie through the hdmi out on your phone.

Also if there is anything you HAVE to buy a machine for it's blu-ray. Why go with a format that i need another player for when i can stick a flash card into every media device i own? The price is high now but prices drop as technology advances much the way it has with hd-dvd and blu-ray and dvd and floppies and every other form of media storage. I can easily see people buying movies on flash in the near future, maybe even usb sticks. and people can touch them!

I mourn the death of album sleeves. We lost something there.

It's amazing how many people said that about DVD players when they came out too.

The prices for the actual machine will start to drop now. I think a good reason that they are so high right now is because no manufacturer wanted to start producing a machine in mass that had the potential to be abolished in a year.

It's a common trend, when VHS came out and Beta was challenging it, top loading VCR's were still $1,000, when the debate was over VHS players dropped considerably in price.

When DVD's first came out, they were extremely costly, and i think you can pick one up now for like $29.00.

Sure, I'll go pick up a flash drive that's comparable to a Blu-Ray disc. Oh, wait.

I'll be happy with my wheezy old DVDs for a good while yet.

The difference between a dvd player and an internet streaming/downloading set top box is that Time Warner will give you a internet streaming/video on demand set/downloading set top box as part of their bundling service. Time Warner will not give you a dvd player.

Right. Prices stay the same. Always.

All we lost was a place to to easily separate stems and seeds.

Yeah, because that's totally the only cost issue in play.

That may have been all you lost. The rest of us lost a whole genre of (commercial) art - which had to be themed - with text. And, you know, it wasn't exclusively commercial; it was allowed to make you think, because some people would actually look at what was there.

Yeah, but compare it with this. Optical media is much, much cheaper to manufacture than solid state media, and it will continue to be for quite some time.

This issue has already been addressed.