Scott Wilkinson

According to a report today from NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, Toshiba has decided to stop production of HD DVD players. The company said it would continue to sell its current products, but there will be no further development, and its related factories in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan will be closed. Market analysts expect the company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

Despite Toshiba's attempts to keep HD DVD alive by cutting prices on their players, the format received two crushing blows today. First, Netflix announced it would drop its support for HD DVD and offer only Blu-ray titles to those seeking to rent high-def discs. The existing stock of HD DVDs will continue to be made available until their life cycle is over.

When analog over-the-air (OTA) broadcasting shuts down on February 17, 2009, analog cable subscribers probably won't notice thanks in part to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is requiring cable operators to carry local stations in both analog and digital format for three years after the OTA cutoff date. This has many major cable networks, such as C-SPAN, Discovery Communications, A&E, and The Weather Channel concerned that they will be pushed off cable systems to make room for the dual carriage. As a result, these and other cable programmers are suing to block the FCC from implementing the mandate.

At MacWorld Expo last month, Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised that an upgrade of the Apple TV software to allow online movie rentals would be available by the end of January. But, as with so many things tech, the release of that software will now be delayed by "a week or two" according to a company statement issued on January 31. The software will be made available as a free download to existing Apple TV customers when it's finally deemed ready.