Here's one good thing about the postmillennial movie format war: It lasted less than two years, instead of dragging on for a decade, like the struggle between VHS and Betamax videotapes of the 1980s.
As a result, there are less than a million "victims" of this conflict. And don't feel too bad about them. They ignored every warning (including several from yours truly) to hold onto their money until a clear winner emerged in this stupid fight over incompatible formats for high-definition movies on disc.
That winner turned out to be Sony and makers of compatible Blu-ray DVD players, along with the customers who bought those players and Blu-ray movie titles. When Toshiba backed out of the market this week, it stranded early adopters who bought its competing HD DVD players and the handful of movie titles issued in HD DVD format over the past year.
Bottom line: Yesterday, I found Toshiba HD DVD players offered on eBay for as little as $50, including a half-dozen recent movies - and these were straight sales, no bidding. Luckily, the losers didn't have enough time to amass large collections, which cost far more over time than the players themselves.
Now for the questions I've been getting:
Does the victory of Blu-ray as the format mean it's time to buy a Blu-ray player?
Not necessarily. In fact, this format war matters far less than the last one, which defined the market for commercial recordings for two decades.
There are two reasons for this. First, the public - young movie fans in particular - seems more interested in getting films online than in buying them on a particular physical medium. Second, cable TV, satellite and fiber-optic providers are working frantically to increase their libraries of high-definition, on-demand videos.
As a result, owning a movie on disc may not be as important in the future as the ability to watch it whenever you want for a few dollars - or as part of a subscription service.
Why do I need a high-def DVD player in the first place?
Right now, you don't, unless you have an HDTV set and want to buy or rent new titles in a format that takes advantage of your TV's enhanced resolution.
By way of background, the original DVD format - a smash success because everyone in the industry agreed on it ahead of time - provided far better quality than VHS videotape. But it was still designed for normal TV screens with 480 horizontal scan lines. The movies recorded on DVDs were likewise encoded for optimal display on those sets.
