Toshiba has thrown in the towel and it looks like Blu-ray will be the one and only high definition DVD format for the time being. Is it time to buy a Blu-ray player? Maybe not.
The Blu-ray group has been a little behind on approving the Profiles that provide features like picture in picture commentaries, and intenet connectivity. Since the features haven't in place on the players the studios haven't been including them in the discs. To make matters worse it hasn't been possible to upgrade firmware on older players. All that should change but it should take another couple of months before we see Blu-ray players with Profile 2.0 which adds those features and should be good for awhile. At that point, momentum should build and everything will look blu'ish from then on. It remains to be seen what the prices are going to be like on players now that there's no incentive to sell players below cost to acquire customers.
Right now the player that most people are recommending is the XBox 360. It costs about the same as a stand alone player, is upgradeable to the latest Blu-ray profiles, and is a great game console to boot.
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