Jonn Berg

Toshiba announced today that “it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.”

Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida said that “his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.”

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver super clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing standard definition video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs.

There you have it.

This coming Monday, the 18th, is the end of life day for the last bastion of Analog Cell Phone signals. What this means is that not only will non-digital cell phones stop working, but the older versions of products like GM’s OnStar and some physical security systems will also not work.

For the majority of people, this won’t be a big deal. Sprint, Nextel, and T-Mobile’s networks are already all digital. When I say the majority of us, I mean all but the half-million, according to Ars Technica, people that haven’t upgraded yet.

This speaking of Analog networks got me thinking about the Analog TV cut-off next year and how many sales people are clueless about how it really will work.

February 19, 2009 is the last day that any analog television signal shall be broadcast over the air. Notice how I said “over the air”? That means that if you get your television signals over Cable or Satellite, you DO NOT have to upgrade your TV to be able to get signal. Unless the cable or satellite companies decide to discontinue standard definition programming, you do not have to worry.

Now, for those of us (yes, myself too) that don’t actually have cable or satellite television, we will either need to upgrade our TV to an HDTV or we can get a $40 coupon from the federal government to go towards a converter box that will take the digital signal and down-convert it to the analog signal that a standard TV can handle. I am not sure the actual cost of a converter box, but I think that it will be more than $40.