In every conflict, one player has to come out victorious. In the high-definition format war, the winner was Blu-ray.

Derek Jensen, sophomore in aerospace engineering and owner of a Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player, said if he had known Blu-ray was going to come out on top, he would have bought a Blu-ray player.

“I’ll probably keep using [the HD DVD player],” he said. “[But] I’ll probably get a Blu-ray player when the prices go down.”

Nick Hodne, sophomore in biology and former Best Buy employee, said the race took shape in 2002 when the Blu-ray Disc Association, which went on to develop the Blu-ray format, was started by various companies, including LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony. The HD DVD Promotion Group included RCA, Toshiba, Microsoft and Sanyo. HD DVD and Blu-ray movies and players went on sale in 2006.

In November 2006, Sony took a gamble on the format war, deciding to include a Blu-ray player with all of its Playstation 3 consoles. Microsoft, on the other hand, offered an add-on HD DVD player for its Xbox 360 for about $199.

Sony’s decision proved to have a huge impact on the format war. As of last month, 10 million Playstation 3s had been sold, compared to 1 million HD DVD players. Microsoft has since ceased production of the Xbox 360 HD DVD player.

In 2005, Blu-ray and HD DVD had roughly equal support from film studios, Hodne said, but that changed Jan. 4, when Warner Bros., which has the largest market share of DVDs, decided to stop supporting HD DVDs starting in June.

Toshiba stayed loyal to HD DVDs and implemented a last-ditch effort by cutting prices by up to 50 percent, but the Warner Bros. move had started a domino effect. Soon, rental companies like Netflix and Blockbuster moved toward exclusive Blu-ray support. Most major retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy, have moved primarily to the sale of Blu-ray movies and players.

On Feb. 19, Toshiba announced it would stop production of all its HD DVD players, resulting in an apparent victory for Blu-ray. Universal Studios, once HD DVD exclusive, also decided to start releasing movie titles in Blu-ray.

For those who have already bought an HD DVD player, Hodne recommends either selling it on eBay or buying as many cheap HD DVDs as possible. But unless you’re getting a good bargain, choosing an HD DVD player over a Blu-ray player now would be a lot like buying a cassette player for the price of an iPod.