A few days ago, my Canon PIXMA MP830 stopped working—it just wouldn't turn on. A little over a year ago, I had it repaired for other problems; it was actually three months out of warranty at the time, but Canon fixed it for free anyway. Now with it being a year and a half out of warranty, there's no way Canon would be that generous. After deciding that paying to get it repaired would be pointless, I went looking for a new one. I started the way I usually do—I looked at various printers on the Best Buy web site and looked up reviews of them. Since the Canon went through ink quickly (it even used colored inks to print black), I decided to look for a laser printer. And since I rarely have a need to print anything in color (for photos, I just use Walgreen's), I decided a monochrome laser would be fine.

As a Christmas present to myself, I purchased an Onkyo TX-SR705 A/V receiver. I've been very happy with it, especially since I can utilize the three HD audio options on Blu-ray Discs: uncompressed PCM, Dolby True HD, and DTS-HD Master.

Fast forward to now....

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered an HDX-401E 4x1 HDMI switch from Monoprice, as I intended to get an HDMI Xbox 360 to replace the non-HDMI one in my entertainment center (four HDMI devices and only three ports on the receiver). I connected the [first] switch to my receiver, and connected my DVD player to the switch (with the intention of plugging in the Xbox 360 later). The DVD player only worked with ports 2–4, so I assumed the switch was bad and requested an RMA. Monoprice immediately shipped me a replacement and also e-mailed me a UPS label to send the

While on a family vacation to Disney World recently, I realized how bad the battery in my laptop had gotten—it would only work for about an hour of DVD watching, so I explored some portable power options. I found a few, but none that added more than a half hour to a laptop's battery time. Discouraged, I said "WTH" and looked at portable DVD players. I found a unique one listed on Circuit City's web site, so I had to get it - the LG DP889 "Portable DVD Player & Digital Photo Frame" (8" widescreen; $229, but I saved some with a 10% coupon). Instead of a lengthy discussion, a list of positives and negatives would be better:

POSITIVES

• Can view photos.
• Has a USB port; you can connect flash drives to view photos and listen to music. The manual is not accurate, as it states that a direct camera connection is not supported

It's done. For those of you who have been hesitant in buying one format or the other, now you don't have to decide. From High Def Digest:

Following several days of rumors, Toshiba has confirmed that it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders, effectively ending the high-def format war.

In a just-issued press release, the company said that it reached the decision following "recent major changes in the market." Toshiba emphasized that it will continue to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

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“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.

If you've been following my high-def disc news (here, here, and here), you'll notice that I've been busy. After more research, I found out that there are now three "profiles" for BD players; more info here. Since the standalone player I had was a 1.0 unit and had no way to update to the new profile, I returned the Sony BD player and got the safest one—the PS3. Of course, not only is it a great BD player, it is also a good media center and can be loaded with Linux and used as a computer. Software updates for the PS3 are a click away. Oh, and it plays games, of course.

If you read two of my previous entries concerning HD DVD and Blu-ray, you'll note that—due to Warner Brothers dropping support for HD DVD—I returned a Toshiba HD DVD player and got a Sony Blu-ray one.

My inital e-mail to Toshiba was for my HDMI–DVI issue (didn't work). Toshiba added my TV model to the list of ones where this didn't work, but had no further advice at the time. My second e-mail to them was for them to close my case; I told them that I returned the unit due to Warner's recent announcement. Here is their response to that e-mail:

Thanks for writing!

I am sorry to hear that Sir. I will note that while Warner's announcement was somewhat of a surprise, it does not change Toshiba’s commitment to support our consumers and HD DVD. The HD DVD format still enjoys the support of major and independent film studios in addition to Microsoft.

You may want to read this. With Warner dumping HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray, that will leave HD-DVD with only about 25% of the market. I'm pretty sure the remaining studios will follow suit.

Immediately after reading the article, I went searching Circuit City's web site for a Blu-ray player; I found a Sony BDP-S300 on sale for $299.99. I unhooked my Toshiba HD-A3, boxed it up, and headed to the store. They returned the HD-DVD player no problem (with an additional $100 for the price difference). As as a matter of fact, they even exchanged the HD-DVD version of Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix I had for the Blu-ray version free of charge. I won't be able to return The Bourne Ultimatum, but at least it has the regular DVD version on the other side of the disc.

The Blu-ray took a while to first start up, as was indicated in the manual. Lo and behold, I got a picture using the HDMI

It seems Microsoft didn't anticipate the sudden increase in users this holiday season. A few days ago, Matt had problems just getting into Xbox Live. Today, I had to end my Call of Duty 4 session due to intermittent XBL issues; other people confirmed they were having the same problems. Oh well...I need to go work out anyway.

Since HD-DVD drives are in their third generation, I figured it would be pretty safe to purchase one. I got the add-on HD-DVD drive for my Xbox 360 a day before I got a Toshiba HD-A3. Bourne Ultimatum looked great, but since the eject button on the drive wouldn't work, I had to return it, and I didn't want to take the chance of getting another bad one. Target (where I bought the 360 add-on drive) doesn't price match, so the best deal I found locally was $249.99 (minus an additional 10% for in-store pickup) at Circuit City.

Immediately after connecting the unit to my receiver and TV, I noticed a problem: no picture. I used the same HDMI–DVI cable I used with my upscaling Sony DVD player, so I knew that wasn't the problem. A firmware upgrade (via the internet) for the unit didn't help, so I just connected it using component cables. The problem with that: no upscaling of regular DVDs, but at least I still have the other player for that.