HD-DVD is OVAH!

Nothing like being woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call telling you that Toshiba officially announced the end of HD-DVD. Thanks KTRH. Now throw away my phone number.

But I did do an interview early this morning with thoughts on why Sony's Blu-ray format outlasted Toshiba's HD-DVD. The Japan electronics maker will end its HD-DVD business by the end of the month.

Not that I preferred either format but it good news for consumers. Instead of waiting to see which format emerged as the last one standing, now everyone can go out and get a Blu-ray player, Blu-ray discs and watch movies until they are blue in the face.

Even Fidel Castro is excited. He up and resigned so he could spend time in his media room.

If you have an HD-DVD player watch out for fire sales on discs for your machine. Best Buy, Amazon.com and other stores will almost be giving them away.

UPDATE: Several readers have asked for more details. Here is the press release from Toshiba. Don't count them out of the industry just yet as they look to be latching their energy and money onto movie downloads. That, as we have discussed before, may be the new and better way of getting movies rather than buying a Blu-ray player and discs.

[In related news, Universal Studios Home Entertainment just announced it will drop its support of HD-DVD. Really? Watch out for that iceberg we just hit, Captain!]

Speaking of downloads, Microsoft and Netflix seem to be snuggling up to each other as the rumors persist of a partnership. Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, was put on Microsoft's Board of Directors last year so you knew something would happen. Look for an announcement at the Game Developers Conference later this week. Could be that movies from Netflix could be downloaded onto an Xbox via Xbox Live.