Introduction

It took almost two years before the HD format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD finally produced a verdict. Yet near the end, it only took mere weeks for Toshiba, the main advocate for HD DVD, to throw in the towel after the decisive move by Warner Bros to choose Blu-ray over HD DVD. What followed was a chain of unfortunate events for Toshiba, as major retailers defected en mass like falling dominoes.

For some consumers, this is the green light that they have been waiting for while others continued to enjoy the subsequent plunging prices of DVDs. Critics who used to slam Sony for adding the Blu-ray drive to its PlayStation 3 console now had to admit that it was the right decision after all. Meanwhile, Microsoft started to slash the prices of its external HD DVD drive for the XBox 360 and rumors of a future Blu-ray version were circulated. The aftermath of this format war has certainly produced its fair share of drama, with losses in the millions for Toshiba and more significantly, adoption rates for both formats have been quite low.

With Blu-ray apparently the winner of the HD format war, there should be no qualms for consumers about dipping into Blu-ray and here to offer you this option is Sony. But of course.

With Blu-ray media likely to become more affordable with mass production, these previously low adoption rates are expected to increase. Of course, a HDTV is also an important prerequisite for the true HD experience and this is still a relatively high barrier of entry for consumers. The other obviously is a Blu-ray player and with impeccable timing, Sony launched a new internal BD-ROM drive at CES 2008, the venue where HD DVD ultimately suffered its deathblow. Available now, this is the Sony BDU-X10S, which seems to be your basic BD-ROM drive for the PC.