Ok, James, truth time. What should we as consumers be doing now? Buy HD DVD to keep supporting it? Or, is it time to just give in, let the war end, and buy Blu?
I personally will continue buying HD DVD for a while, Blu-ray is more expensive (especially when you want more than one player / drive). The Toshiba HD-DVD ROM drive sells for 100$, the standalone players for 200$. The PS3 for 400$ is a good deal (well, Sony loses 200$ with each, but that's not my problem), but if you want 3 players / drives.... and I already have the players anyway.
Lucky for me, the Universal / Paramount / Warner (and Weinstein) movies attract me more than Sony / Fox / Disney, and a lot of them are available on HD DVD in Europe (Prestige, Terminator2, Resident Evil just to name a few). A lot great Warner movies aren't even released on Blu, like "Matrix", "Grand Prix", "Casablanca" or "Batman Begins". In the past, the HD DVD versions from Warner were often superior to the Blu versions (remember "300"?)
But if you ask me "what should we consumers do"... well... if Warner calls it a day, it is "game over" for HD DVD in the long run. Same would have happened to Blu-ray if Warner & Fox turned red. Paramount & Universal will have no choice but go neutral, Steve Ballmer will throw some chairs and Toshiba will start building dual format players.
As you said it: "It is time to just give in". (I need a beer now... sniff) I am sad...
But that's it, congrats to BDA & Sony, they have won, IMHO no doubt about it. Bye bye HD DVD, it was a fun ride while it lasted. Sad news for the little publishers who cannot afford publishing HighDef on Blu-ray, but could have on HD DVD. Sad news for consumers, who can't get fair use rights even if the publisher *wants* to grant them (leaving out AACS).
The good thing is really, that there will be only one format, so fence watching people will start to invest in the HD technology holiday season 2008, prices for players will drop, small companies (like SlySoft) will only have one technology to take care of...