HD DVD and Blu-Ray have been battling to become the pre-eminent format for next-generation DVDs for the last couple of years.

Toshiba had its HD DVD format approved by the DVD Forum back in 2004 and the first products hit the market in the US in April 2006. The same year Sony came out with Blu-ray.

Initially the two formats seemed to have an equal number of backers although there was general dismay in the industry that a new format war could slow down developments of a nascent market and be confusing for consumers.

So what is the big deal? Well the big deal is that is the company’s that distributes the content who will control which format wins. Studios like Disney, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and 20th Century Fox. Together these studios represented over 70% of home video market share.

The final battle as it turns out that was the tipping point is when Warner Brothers decided to back Blu-Ray.

Around the same time HD-DVD lost several key retailers like Wal-Mart who announced that it would phase out HD DVD products and chain Best Buy also came down firmly in the Blu-Ray camp. Even Netflix said it would also focus on Blu-Ray.

What does that mean to you when you want to go by a player for your cool HDTV that you got for Christmas? Nothing really, except that it is still expensive and the format will be Blu-Ray. I bet you might be able to pick up a HD-DVD player on the cheap and some discs too. The only downside is that there will never be any new movies on HD-DVD ever again.

So when will the world have forgotten about the HD-DVD format and begin calling Blu-Ray by the same name? I bet really soon, since consumers call things whatever they want even if it is not correct. Coke, means soda weather you want a real Coke, Pepsi, or whatever.

This is going to be very cool. For those who get Netflix today, you may not know that you can stream movies to your home PC already, this is going to make that awesome. It will allow you to hook up a setup top box, made my LG, to your TV and stream movies from Netflix using the Internet.

I watch movies on my TV today but it is not as slick as this would be. I first have to hookup a PC to the TV. This is not a big deal for me cause I am such a computer geek. Then I just use my wireless keyboard and go to Netflix and click on “Watch Now” and am off and running.

This works but just using the remote control would be nice too!

The company wants to strike deals with electronics companies that will let it send movies straight to TV screens over the Internet. Its first partnership, announced Wednesday night, is with the South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics to stream movies and other programming to LG’s high-definition televisions.

Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, said he hoped to strike other such deals and that Netflix would soon be viewed as a movie channel that might appear on myriad devices.

“We want to be integrated on every Internet-connected device, game system, high-definition DVD player and dedicated Internet set-top box,” he said. “Eventually, as TVs have wireless connectivity built into them, we’ll integrate right into the television.”

The move could help transform Netflix from a successful company with a cumbersome dependence on physical media and the Postal Service into an important player in a rapidly emerging digital media landscape.

Mr. Hastings said the new service would combine the benefits of an Internet browser with the luxury of watching movies and TV shows on large, high-definition TV screens. He said subscribers would be able to go to the Netflix Web site to create lists of movies they wanted to see. The Netflix service on the TV would offer a simple way to watch those movies.

“We think we have solved the real fundamental problem, which has been that choosing movies on a television has been extremely challenging,” Mr. Hastings said. “Video-on-demand companies worked at it for a long time, but choosing movies on the TV just doesn’t have the power of the Web.”

Netflix Partners With LG to Bring Movies Straight to TV

This is the very funning video to anyone who has done tech support for anything.

A comedy about medieval tech support, learning how to use a book. It’s from a show called Øystein & Meg (Øystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel (NRK) in 2001. The spoken language is Norwegian, the subs in Danish. It’s written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad.

DevilDucky - Introducing the Book

Cool video — does it make me want to take “treadmill dance” classes? Perhaps.

Are you ready? Could you “cut” the cable or knock down your dish and rely on the Internet for all of your watching?

It was the ultimate challenge for any lifelong TV watcher. Wired News asked me to cut the coax cable snaking into my HD-ready television, and for 30 days rely solely on legally available internet content to satisfy the video entertainment needs of my family of five.

We posed the question: Is the internet finally ready to kill old-school television?

The rules were simple: Anything I could download was fair game, but there’d be no TV signal via cable, satellite or the airwaves. We decided that watching television that had been cached on the family’s TiVo box was also cheating, so that went into the closet. At my editor’s insistence, I physically severed the cable between the wall and my television with wire clippers. And on a blustery November day, my cable company came and took my set-top box away.

Wired News: Goodbye TV, Hello Broadband

When I’m Yawning

Music Video Channel Winner. Thirsty Mc. Worst fantasizes about the milkman’s wife. Composed completely of 35mm photographs, this video will excite you, disturb you, and blow you away.

“When I’m Yawning”