What in the HD World?

Sony's 27" OLED Prototype

It's been too long since I reported about the events spinning around us in this HD World, especially those in our neighborhood.

To do a quick recap of the rapidly passing 2008, CES was its usual whirlwind of glitzy booths full of shiny new products. Though the real eye catcher among all of the yard-wide HDTVs was Sony's 11" OLED TV. You can read all about CES here.

As far as what's new on our HDTV Solutions site, last week I posted our HDTV Buyer's Guide, which we will update as new products and trends emerge.

You also may have noticed that we have begun to review high definition DVDs, both HD DVDs and Blu-rays. Don't worry, we will continue to focus our attention on reviewing HDTVs. (In fact, we have a couple of more rolling down the pipeline right now.) But we decided to add this new content category because high definition DVDs are a perfect complement to your new HDTV.

Now about the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD, Blu-ray struck a major blow in early January when Warner Brothers decided to shift from distributing their movies in both formats. Starting in the Spring, WB will be moving exclusively to the Blu-ray camp. Back then, many pundits rung the death knell for HD DVD, but Toshiba (the main backer of HD DVD) has not thrown in the towel.

They have fought back by aggressively pricing their HD DVD players. For example, I just checked Amazon and the Toshiba HD A30 is selling for about $152 (discounted from an MSRP of $199). For comparison, about the least expensive Blu-ray player I see is the 1080p Sharp Aquos BDHP20U for a discounted price of $312.

But alas, Netflix just announced this week that it also is shifting totally to Blu-ray and will not be buying any new HD DVD titles. You may be concluding that if you can't get your favorite movies, then what good is the player? That's a reasonable question. And I admit that unless there is a tectonic shake-up in the market, that the safe bet going forward would be to buy a Blu-ray player.

Though at $152, the HD A30 does a fine job of upconverting standard definition DVDs to 1080p output. And as a bonus, it plays HD DVDs, which by last count there are over 400 titles available. And if the format war is won by Blu-ray, I imagine we will see a lot of those HD DVDs in the clearance bins. Hmmm.

St. Valentine's Day

In case you believed that I lured you in to reading this column with false advertising, Reuters reported that in a survey, 47 percent of the British men polled said that they "would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma TV."

Since the survey was performed for Comet, an electronics retailer, we take the whole concept with a grain of saltpeter. We also wouldn't wish to impugn the British libido. Though it was interesting that about a quarter of those surveyed said they would trade cigarette smoking for that smokin' plasma. And about 25% offered to give up chocolate.

Now I'm not a smoker, never have been; but chocolate, sex and plasma HDTVs – call us hopeless romantics – but that's a choice no one should have to make.

In that spirit, we give you our second annual Valentine's Day feature. Last year, we offered a long list of DVDs to kindle the passion. This year we combine two out of three of our favorite pastimes, eating chocolate and watching movies. What activity follows – that is up to you.

Stay tuned.

Happy Valentine's Day.