h0mi @ Jun 25th 2008 2:33AM

"But at least Toshiba gave us a format that delivered movies in high-def while being as consumer-friendly as possible"

Consumer friendly? Toshiba presented us with a format that started off with buggy, slow loading players that were pretty much guaranteed to have problems with at least 1 disc in your collection, requiring you to boil discs at some point in time. Many firmware updates later, and a move to the 2nd generation of hardware made things better but hardly perfect. This is "consumer friendly" to you?

"with no region coding,"

I am anti region coding. Studios wanted it, and the lack of region coding forced studios like New Line to delay HD-DVD releases whereas region coding allowed blu-rays to be released day/date with DVD. Given that region coding matters very little to consumers in the US, and not at all to any consumer who would never import a title, I would call this a wash at best.

"low prices,"

On low end hardware because quite frankly nobody bought the players. Software prices were even more expensive than blu-ray. For all the hand wringing that anti-blu-ray zealots complain about $40 MSRP on blurays, they had no qualms with HD-DVDs retailing for $30-35.

On 1080p hardware, the price advantage of HD-DVD dried up. $200 HD-A2s meant that A20s were running $300 or so... not that much cheaper than a $400 blu-ray standalone.

"combo discs"

Combo discs were a travesty. At the very least every movie shouldve been released on a combo/non combo format.

"and (sadly unused) TL-Twin discs,"

Vaporware for all intents and purposes. There was no certainty it would work on 1st or even 2nd gen hardware. It probably would have but we'll never know for sure.

"no mandatory encryption"

Which is an issue that matters to nobody except for small studios who don't want to license AACS.

"and online connectivity with every player.

but with a very limited amount of persistent memory, and the tradeoff was a notable lack of 1080p playback support in most players.