Taking the plunge into High Def DVDs with a Toshiba HD-DVD

Well, I finally took the plunge into the world of high definition DVD. I have to admit, I've been a bit hesitant about forking over the cash for this. After all, no one who went through the whole VHS-BETA thing wants to repeat that sort of mistake (yes, I had a beta and to this day I think it was the better format--but the best don't always win, eh?).

And, frankly, I've made more than one mistake when it comes to formats. I have a PSP (playstation portable) and, aside from games, I bought it to play movies on UMD (universal media disk). Well due to poor marketing and ridiculous pricing, movies on UMD have already gone the way of the dinosaur. Kind of sucks.

That's a great beat (sorry, was distracted by "Lady Marmalade" playing in the living room).

BTW, Sony was involved in both of those format failures. Are we seeing a trend here? Does anyone remember the vaunted Sony Minidisc? Ugh. They still sell those in Japan, but here they're a footnote in the history of poorly executed ideas.

Sony is actually an amazing company. They revolutionized gaming with the playstation and PS2, but the PSP, despite its great chops, is lacking, mainly in the area of games-that-are-fun-to-play (an essential for a handheld game device, I would say). And they had the walkman too. But, as I said, they've also had some stinkers.

Which brings me to why I bought a toshiba High Def DVD player. It uses the HD-DVD format (supported by Microsoft, among others), not the blu-ray format being pushed by Sony and Samsung (which is a great company and, IMO, makes the best TVs--I own a 40 inch LCD and the high def picture is amazing...though on analog I'm not impressed, but that's not why I bought it). Frankly, I just don't have that much faith in Sony's ability to succeed in this format war. Mainly due to cost and pricing issues.

The Toshiba HD-DVD player was $299.00. Sony's blu-ray player was about a thousand last time I checked and there's no way I'd toss that kind of money into something that may become a doorstop.

But here's what pushed me to make a choice. The Matrix Trilogy was just released---and on HD-DVD, not Blu-ray.