Best Buy has made an announcement that it truly does feel bad for all of those that bit the bullet and made a decision in the high-def video format war, before it was over. People wanting high-definition video last year and early this year had a tough time making a decision between Toshiba’s HD DVD and the Blu-ray formats, and some chose the wrong one.

Now that Toshiba has stopped making the HD DVD formats and studios have stopped creating HD DVD formatted movies, the players are almost useless and Best Buy is recognizing this by offering a $50 store credit to all that purchased an HD DVD player from Best Buy before February 23, 2008. Some will automatically receive the checks from Best Buy, but if you don’t get it by May you can call them and request it at 1-888-BEST-BUY.

We knew it would happen sometime soon and yesterday Microsoft officially discontinued the production of the HD DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360 game console. If you’re one of the estimated 300,000 folks that already own the player Microsoft said they will still continue to support it and uphold the warranty that came with it, but they won’t be selling any new ones. Now that all of the big studios have gone Blu-ray it’s unlikely you’ll be wearing it out anyway without any new movies to play on it.

Microsoft says it doesn’t feel that dumping the HD DVD format will affect its game console sales, but we’re thinking that adding a Blu-ray player like the PS3 has just might help. Microsoft was previously one of the major backers of Toshiba and the HD DVD format before Warner announced they were Blu-ray exclusive and the whole HD DVD camp came tumbling down shortly after.

After Warner announced its decision just before CES 2008 to go with the Blu-ray disc format exclusively the camp over at HD DVD had to take a step back and rethink their plan. They ended up canceling a press conference and then rumors flew about others heading to HD DVD as well.

It appears now that HD DVD is still coming out fighting, whether it be a strong and somewhat desperate effort to try and gain more HD DVD supporters or just taking the opportunity to unload as much inventory as possible, if you’re interested in HD DVD here is your chance. The big sale might be for both reasons but today Amazon is showing an impressive deal on the Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player.

Just earlier this week Warner Bros. Entertainment, the studio with the industries largest selection of movies, changed the tide in the high definition format war in favor of Sony by announcing that they are going with Blu-ray discs exclusively. Warner’s intention was to end the battle and consumer confusion hopefully resulting in improved DVD sales in 2008. It appears their move just might be working as Variety states they have confirmed information that Universal, who previously has been HD DVD-exclusive, has ended their promise to continue with HD DVD only and could possibly be making a change to Blu-ray.

Paramount along with Universal are two of the big seven studios that have been hanging on with Toshiba and HD DVD, but they too have a clause to produce Blu-ray as well after Warner’s decision. Back in June of 2007 Blockbuster also made a move to Blu-ray over HD DVD which combined with recent news is making things look very grim for the HD DVD future.

Amidst all the technology hype going on at CES in Las Vegas this week, Warner Bros. Entertainment somewhat quietly made an announcement with potentially significant implications on the high-def DVD war between Toshiba’s HD DVD and Sony’s Blu-ray disc formats. Warner made an announcement on January 4 that it would release its movies in only the Blu-ray high-definition format, and no longer would offer any of the rival HD DVD formatted discs.

According to Reuters, in talking to Warner Bros Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara the company chose to go the Blu-ray route due to falling DVD says and a “deteriorating U.S. economy”. Tsujihara said the plan was made with the intention of ending the format war and hence ending confusion and split purchases by consumers between the two formats. This move to Blu-ray exclusively is so significant due to the fact that Warner has the industries largest offering of movies and continues to produce big titles, making 5 of the 7 major studios on board with Blu-ray.

Relatively unknown consumer electronics company Venturer has figured out a way to quickly get on the radar of a lot of people by introducing to market one of the cheapest HD DVD players to date. The new Venturer SHD7000 is priced at in the low $200 dollar range.

The Venturer SHD7000 is typical of HD DVD players, offering compatibility with a number of other disc formats including DVD, DVD-R/-RW, CD and CD-R/-RW. You get typical advanced multi-channel audio support for a variety of audio codecs like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. There’s also HDMI output and Ethernet connectivity.

As consumers start their shopping for another holiday season one of the big questions raised last year at this time still doesn’t have a satisfactory answer: Blu-ray versus HD-DVD? While prices for both players dropped throughout 2007 there still wasn’t any clear indication which new DVD format was reigning supreme with the common man. Sony’s much-hoped for plans that their new Blu-ray PlayStation 3 would lead the charge failed to materialize while Microsoft’s HD-DVD add-on wasn’t exactly flying off of store shelves either. Sales of HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs started off with the latter edging out the former but lately both groups have been selling roughly the same amount of units. So now that we’re well into the next gen DVD war, which side is winning? The answer according to one of Blu-ray’s biggest supporters is no one.

Wow; last week we reported the latest strike by HD DVD in the high-def war against Blu-ray with Wal-Mart offering the Toshiba HD-A2 for under $100 starting last Friday. Well, apparently this was big news to a few more people than we thought it would be. Best Buy also jumped on with the price cut and reportedly so did a number of other smaller, more local retailers to total around a whopping 90,000 of the HD-A2 HD DVD units sold just last weekend. According to Toshiba most retailers sold out quickly. The price reduction was likely due to clear stock for the upcoming Toshiba HD-A3 model, which would replace the HD-A2.

LG has unveiled the second generation of its dual format HD disc player, letting one enjoy both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. The LG Super Blu Player (BH200) is priced at around $1,000 and should be available in October.

The LG BH200 supports HDi Web-connected interactivity available for HD DVDs and also includes BD-Java interactivity. It can output video up to 1080p, including upscaling of standard DVD to this resolution. It also supports a wide variety of audio formats, including MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264 video, MPEG1/2 audio, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+, DTS and DTS-HD.

Venturer Electronics has announced a simple, entry-level HD DVD player expected to ship in the coming months to consumers in North America. The Venturer SHD7000 features 1080i video output through and HDMI connection along with Dolby TrueHD sound to round out the home theater experience.

Also included in this player is a built-in Ethernet connectionwhich allows access to the internet to download bonus features from the studios and can sometimes unlock pre-recorded content available on the discs. The player will also upconvert regular DVD’s through the HDMI connection.

Here’s what looks to be a hearty new media server which can serve up HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc in multiple rooms. The MediaMax HD, constructed by Axonix, runs between $3,500 and $6,000 depending upon configuration.

The MediaMax HD offers the ability to have playback of media stored on its MediaServer component including: HD and SD DVD movies, CD, MP3 and WAV music, photos and downloaded movies and music. This media can be played across a network simultaneously in any room. Axonix says its media server is the first to play via cover art or metadata both next generation optical disc formats.

Onkyo announced yesterday plans to shortly launch its first HD DVD player. The new DV-HD805 is priced at around $900 and should debut this fall.

The Onkyo DV-HD805, said its manufacturer, is one of the first HD DVD players to take advantage of high-bit-rate audio streaming via HDMI version 1.3a. This latest HDMI version also offers technology to reportedly improve color tones and achieve finer color gradation. You’ll also get support for lossless surround sound formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Apperanty the news that Target was going to sell Blu-ray discs exclusively at their retail stores was false. They had made deal with Sony to place end-caps on the isles for Blu-ray products and Sony had worded it as exclusive, but Target will continue to stock and sell HD DVD products as usual. If you’re keeping track of the high-def wars take one point back from Blu-ray.

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Microsoft made an announcement today at Comic-Con International that they will be cutting the price of not the Xbox 360 itself, but the Xbox 360 HD DVD player. Effective August 1 the HD DVD player price will drop by $20 from $199 to $179. In additional to the $20 reduction Microsoft will be extended the “Perfect Offer” from Toshiba, the maker of the HD DVD player, which gives a mail-in offer for five free HD DVD movies.

Microsoft had a couple of other related announcements regarding the launch of “300″ and “Heroes: Season 1″, both on HD DVD. “300″ will be available on-demand through the Xbox Live Marketplace on August 14th and the Heroes pilot episode along with other promotional footage will also be available for download through the marketplace.

Sony Corp. announced today that the major retail chain Target will sell only Blu-ray high definition DVD players in its stores, which brings another big blow to the rivaling HD DVD market after Blockbuster went all Blu-ray last month.

According to the announcement Target will carry the Blu-ray players exclusively at least through the holiday season. Starting in October the company will begin selling the Sony BDP-S300 for around $500 along with expanding the selection of Blu-ray disc inventory.

Although this is another powerful gain for the Blu-ray team the mass …