Blu-ray.com had this quote:

Peter Faricy, vice president of movies and music at Amazon.com commented, “The high-definition landscape is rapidly changing, and consumers are looking for guidance on how to make the best high-definition buying decisions. Our customers have clearly voiced their support for the Blu-ray format. Blu-ray titles have increased from just over half of our high-definition sales to over three-quarters of our high-definition sales since early January. In order to best serve our customers, Amazon is recommending Blu-ray as the preferred digital format and will continue to carry the ‘Earth’s Largest Selection’ of Blu-ray products.”

Great to see Amazon stepping up as a leader in the market and taking a stand by making Blu-ray their ‘preferred digital format’. You know, as opposed to, say, HD DVD.

I mean, I love Amazon and all, but they could’ve just said “Me too!”

Now that Toshiba has pulled the plug on HD DVD and all, the only studio to have been 100% HD DVD throughout the format war, Universal, made the obvious announcement - they’re going to start releasing films on Blu-ray. Home Media Magazine had this:

“While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate.”

I’m actually a bit surprised. Not that Universal is supporting Blu-ray, that was obviously coming, but that they made the announcement before Paramount - who still hasn’t done so, from what I can tell. Since Paramount, and DreamWorks Animation, were formerly format neutral, releasing both Blu-ray and HD DVD, I kind of expected them to be the first to jump on the news. Paramount probably still has warehouses full of Blades of Glory Blu-ray discs, and other titles they’d already pressed for release on BD before their sudden shift to HD DVD exclusivity. They could start by give those discs a new street date. I’m sure they’ll announce their plans soon.

Via Blu-ray.com.

Ben Drawbaugh over at EngadgetHD wrote up a quick overview of the ins and outs of the Blu-ray / HD DVD format war. He beat me too it - I’m thinking of writing up my own perspectives as well, since I’ve been blogging about the war since 2004 - and following it since well before then. (I’ve been a little lazy since I’m on vacation - plus I was sick as a dog Monday (food poisoning I think, unfun in any case) and busy helping my folks with stuff Tue-Wed.) If you have any interest left in the history of the war, and aren’t just trying to forget it already, check out his post. And read the comments, there are some very good comments that add some more details and perspective - and I don’t just mean my own.

The press release says it all:

ALVISO, Calif., Feb 20, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO) announced today that it will release fourth quarter and fiscal year ending January 31, 2008 financial results after market close on Wednesday, March 5, 2008.

TiVo will also host a conference call and webcast to discuss the fourth quarter and fiscal year end financial and operating results as well as guidance outlook for the current quarter at 2:00 pm PT (5:00 pm ET) on the same day. To listen to the discussion, please visit http://www.tivo.com/ir and click on the link provided for the webcast. The webcast will be archived and available through March 12, 2008.

Barnabas, thank you for the TiVo Rewards Referral.

I’m not much of an Apple fanboy, but I am something of an iPod fanboy - I highly recommend them in general, based on my personal use. And Apple today dropped their pricing on the 1GB iPod Shuffle to only $49 - with free shipping! They’ll also be launching a 2GB iPod Shuffle for only $69 soon.

And if you’re interested in the MacBook Air - it is now shipping. But if that’s too rick for your blood (it is for mine!), they do have refurbished Macs.

I’ve been a bit behind on blogging - I’m actually on vacation 2/9-2/23 so I haven’t been online as much as I am normally - so this actually dropped earlier this week. The Palm Centro smartphone is now available for AT&T customers at the Palm Store. Pricing starts at $99.99 with a two-year plan and goes up to $349 for the Treo with no commitment. There is also free Ground Shipping through 03/02/08.

It is currently only available in ‘Glacier’ (aka white) with green keypad accents. But in about a month it will be offered in ‘Obsidian’ (aka black - but not the same black as Sprint’s ‘Onyx’ Centro). The official Palm Blog also touted the AT&T Centro launch, including all of the features and bundled applications.

There are also some new features the AT&T Centro will be sporting right out of the box including:

* XM Radio Mobile - Allows you to stream commercial free music from just about any genre (hip-hop, pop, jazz, country and more); all for $8.99 per month.
* MusicID (a personal favorite!) - Helps you identify unknown songs by simply holding your Centro smartphone up to a speaker - it’s a really cool way to figure out song information for tunes you aren’t familiar with (title, artist and cover art, if available, etc.); all for $3.99 per month.
* AT&T Mall - You can buy ringtones, wallpapers, and other multimedia content and download over the air to the device.
* Push to Talk (PTT) - Not really new to the AT&T Centro since it was recently made available on the Treo 680 Update 2.11 for AT&T, but new and cool enough to be worth mentioning again! PTT works like a walkie-talkie to talk to an individual or a group of up to 29. The app also includes “status” icons so you can tell which of your family and friends are available before you call. Users can purchase unlimited PTT minutes with Nationwide Plans for $9.99 per month per line and with FamilyTalk for $19.99 per month per group (two to five lines). Customers also can use PTT on a pay-per-use basis for $0.15 per minute.

Personally I’ll stick with my AT&T Treo 680 - same OS, most of the same features (I have the latest firmware) and not much bigger. So I don’t have a real incentive to jump to the Centro. (And, frankly, if I was thinking about it, I’d wait for the Obsidian version.) But I have played with the Sprint Centro and it is a nice phone. If you’re thinking about getting a smartphone, definitely give the Centro a look. Especially if you’re getting a new plan, since it is hard to beat at $99.99. I’ve tried WinMob and Symbian phones, but they haven’t won me over from good old Palm OS.

Though I am feeling the siren call of Android. We’ll have to see how those phones look when they finally ship, but I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far.

That’s all folks! The fat lady has sung. The curtain has come down. The format war is over! Yes, really for real this time - it is official. Toshiba has called it quits:

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

Toshiba will cease all production of HD DVD by the end of March:

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

I’m thrilled to see the end of this war, doubly so to see Blu-ray finally carry the day. I’ve been calling the war for Blu-ray since before either product shipped, and I was sorry to see a war develop in the first place. Now that the war is over and we’ll have one format going forward I look forward to more Blu-ray title releases and player advancements. There are definitely a few Universal & Paramount titles I look forward to picking up on Blu-ray.

I’m also hopeful that Toshiba will join the BDA and devote their product development expertise toward producing top-notch Blu-ray players. Toshiba’s HD DVD players were decent hardware, and it gives hope that they’ll be able to produce some nice BD decks. I do think they’ll join the BDA, since the alternative is to sit out the next-generation disc market completely. And while Toshiba may have a healthy DVD business, I can’t see them yield the high-def market to the competition without any response. They’re statement seems to indicate they plan to remain a player:

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Of course, there are still some unanswered questions. Will those who invested in HD DVD players recently get any compensation? (I’d guess no.) How many HD DVD owners will return their players before the return window closes? Will we see a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360? Would Microsoft consider bundling Blu-ray into a new model of the 360 now that there is one format, to compete more directly with the PS3? (That’s probably a stretch - but I think a BD add-on drive will happen.)

Press release picked up via EngadgetHD.

EDIT. Engadget Japan is at the Toshiba press conference. From the Q&A session:

Q: Any plans to adopt Blu-ray?
A: No plans at all, not at this moment.

Q: Are there no plans for next gen optical disc at all?
A: We don’t have any plans to announce at this time.

Of course, keep in mind that just yesterday Toshiba was stating that no final decision had been made to exit the HD DVD market. So not having any plans at this moment likely means just that - they haven’t decided exactly what they will do going forward and won’t have anything to announce until they’ve had time to formulate those plans.

Interesting to see their figures for HD DVD players sold - since it is quite a bit short of the ‘one million’ figure that the HD DVD camp oft repeated previously:

Q: How many HD DVD players and recorders, exactly, did you sell?
A: 600,000 players in the US — 300,000 of which were Xbox 360 HD DVD drives. 100,000 units were sold in Europe. And about 10,000 players and 20,000 recorders in Japan. So about 730,000 units worldwide.

EDIT 2: I see that, sometime today, Engadget edited their post and it now reads:

Q: How many HD DVD players and recorders, exactly, did you sell?
A: 600,000 players in the US and 300,000 Xbox 360 HD DVD drives. 100,000 units were sold in Europe. And about 10,000 players and 20,000 recorders in Japan. So about 1,030,000 units worldwide.

It looks like they updated it to list the 300,000 Xbox 360 drives *in addition to* the 600,000 standalone players, and not as part of that 600,000. Which puts the total just over the one million mark.