Not the sort of proclamation you’d expect from a Blu-ray backer, but then, Samsung’s always been one to hedge its bets. For a time, the company backed both horses in the next-generation DVD race, launching a dual-format high-definition DVD player that supported both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

So what’s Samsung hedging its bet on this time? OLED displays, according to Griffiths. Which presumably means the company sees HD streaming video and low-cost holographic storage hitting the mainstream sooner than you might think.

The Toronto Globe and Mail reports that Sony paid Warner Bros. as much as $400 million to throw its support behind Blu-ray and abandon HD-DVD. An interesting little footnote to the DVD format war, since Warner’s decision all but sealed HD DVD’s fate.

So it was a reported $400 million well spent, then. For the time being, anyway. “People are saying Blu-ray won the war but who cares,” Seagate CEO Bill Watkins said last year. “The war is over physical distribution versus electrical distribution, and Blu-ray and HD lost that. In this, flash memory and hard drives are on the same side. The war is over and the physical guys lost.”

The Toronto Globe and Mail reports that Sony paid Warner Bros. as much as $400 million to throw its support behind Blu-ray and abandon HD-DVD. An interesting little footnote to the DVD format war, since Warner’s decision all but sealed HD DVD’s fate.

So it was a reported $400 million well spent, then. For the time being, anyway. “People are saying Blu-ray won the war but who cares,” Seagate CEO Bill Watkins said last year. “The war is over physical distribution versus electrical distribution, and Blu-ray and HD lost that. In this, flash memory and hard drives are on the same side. The war is over and the physical guys lost.”

“The high-definition landscape is rapidly changing, and consumers are looking for guidance on how to make the best high-definition buying decisions,” said Peter Faricy, vice president of movies and music at Amazon.com, who apparently didn’t receive Toshiba’s HD DVD press release until early this morning. “Our customers have clearly voiced their support for the Blu-ray format. … In order to best serve our customers, Amazon is recommending Blu-ray as the preferred digital format and will continue to carry the ‘Earth’s Largest Selection’ of Blu-ray products.”

“This was a very difficult decision to make … but when we thought about the trouble we would cause to consumers and our partners, we decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence,” Toshiba Chief Executive Atsutoshi Nishida told a news conference, adding that Warner Bros.’ decision to back Blu-ray had made the move inevitable. “That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Investors: We Come Not to Bury HD DVD, but to Celebrate Over Its Lifeless Body
• Bring Out Yer HD DVDead
• Will the Last Person to Leave the HD DVD Camp Please Turn Off the Blu-ray Player?
• There’s a Singing Fat Lady Here to See You, Sir.
• Ah Yes, a $2.7 Million Super Bowl Ad Will Fix Everything …
• Mistah HD DVD–He Dead …

Shares in Toshiba (6502.TO) moved sharply higher in early trading today as investors welcomed reports that the HD DVD champion is itself planning on abandoning the format and throwing its support behind Blu-ray. “We have entered the final stage of planning to make our exit from the next generation DVD business,” a nameless source inside Toshiba told Reuters over the weekend.

Publicly, however, Toshiba claims it’s still considering its options. “Toshiba has not made any announcement or decision,” a company representative told the BBC. “We are currently assessing our business strategies, but nothing has been decided at the moment.”

Well, perhaps not at this particular moment, but certainly at one in the near future. As Koichi Ogawa, a chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments, notes, the consumer electronic industry has been echoing with HD DVD’s death rattles for quite a while. It’s time to put the old boy out of his misery: “It doesn’t make sense for Toshiba to continue putting effort into this,” said Ogawa, “It needs to cut its losses and focus its resources on promising businesses.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Bring Out Yer HD DVDead
• Will the Last Person to Leave the HD DVD Camp Please Turn Off the Blu-ray Player?
• There’s a Singing Fat Lady Here to See You, Sir.
• Ah Yes, a $2.7 Million Super Bowl Ad Will Fix Everything …
• Mistah HD DVD–He Dead …

By June, Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines and, of course, standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players.”

–Susan Chronister of Wal-Mart sticks a fork in HD DVD.

HD DVD may soon join Betamax in the consumer electronics industry’s Museum of Failed Formats. Though publicly HD DVD champion Toshiba professes its commitment to the next generation DVD standard, privately it’s plotting its demise. Sources close to the company tell the Hollywood Reporter that the continued marginalization of HD DVD by movie studios and big box retailers like Wal-Mart has driven Toshiba to concede defeat in the DVD format war. The company plans to pull the plug on HD DVD in a matter of weeks. “An announcement is coming soon,” said one source close to the HD DVD camp.

But not soon enough for some, who are finally seeing their predictions of an HD DVD rout borne out. “Blu-ray’s better, and I told everyone,” said film director Michael Bay. “I was very vocal about it. I knew HD [DVD] was not going to make it. Am I thrilled? It really wasn’t my fight, but remember what I said in the press? I was kind of saying HD [DVD]‘s going to lose… No one believed me.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Will the Last Person to Leave the HD DVD Camp Please Turn Off the Blu-ray Player?
• There’s a Singing Fat Lady Here to See You, Sir.
• Ah Yes, a $2.7 Million Super Bowl Ad Will Fix Everything …
• Mistah HD DVD–He Dead …

Best Buy (BBY) has added insult to the injury Netflix gave HD DVD this morning, announcing plans to endorse Blu-ray over HD DVD. “Best Buy will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format,” said Brian Dunn, Best Buy’s president and chief operating officer. “Our decision to shine a spotlight on Blu-ray Disc players and other Blu-ray products is a strong signal to our customers that we believe Blu-ray is the right format choice for them.”

And not for much longer, says Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer. “The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition,” Sarandos said. “We’re now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def.”

And not for much longer, says Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer. “The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition,” Sarandos said. “We’re now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def.”

We need a new DVD player but are completely confused about the Blu-Ray versus HD DVD war. We want to purchase something that will last us many years, but I’m afraid to splurge on it when it’s still unclear what the preferred format will be. One option looks to be buying a DVD player that can “upscale” to high definition. How much worse is this in terms of quality?

The good news is that the war appears to be winding down. Because I never saw any significant quality difference between the two high-definition formats, I never recommended one over the other. But most of the major studios have defected to Blu-Ray, so industry experts believe HD DVD is likely to recede as a movie format, though it may find a market as a data format for computers. However, the companies backing HD DVD haven’t given up, so the battle isn’t formally over.

Meanwhile, I have found that, for everyone but videophiles, “upscaling” DVD players are effective at making most regular DVDs look better on high-definition TV sets. And name-brand models can be found for as little as $45, which is less than Blu-Ray players are likely to commonly cost for quite awhile.

In your review of the new MacBook Air laptop, you said it lacked a wired Internet jack but that Apple plans to sell an adapter. Did you test this? When will it be available? And is there any way to use the MacBook Air with a cellphone network for Internet access?

Apple says the $30 wired Internet adapter will ship when the laptop does. I tested an early unit and found it worked fine. As for working on the cellphone data networks, you can use a cellphone modem from one of the network operators that connects via USB instead of a card slot. Unfortunately, I tested one of these, the Novatel USB727 from Verizon, and found that it was too wide to fit in the cramped space around the MacBook Air’s USB adapter. So you will need an extension cable, making for an ungainly attachment.

There are two other options. If you already own a cellphone data modem meant to fit a PC Card or ExpressCard slot, you can buy an adapter that allows these cards to work via a USB port. I tested such an adapter, a $40 model from a company called Siig that allowed me to use my older Novatel V640 ExpressCard modem with the MacBook Air. It worked well but is relatively large and is attached by a cable, so it is also bulky and ungainly.

The final option would be to pair the MacBook Air with a Bluetooth-equipped cellphone that is able to act as a wireless modem. No cables are required for this, but there is some setup. Ironically, one of the phones that lacks this capability is Apple’s own iPhone.

What happened to the Tablet PC version of Windows? Since Vista has come out, I can’t find a Tablet edition.

Microsoft decided to drop the separate tablet edition it produced for Windows XP and build its capabilities into Vista. Unless you have the least expensive version of Vista, called Home Basic, the full Tablet PC capability should be usable on any tablet PC running Vista. But there’s no longer a specific edition labeled that way.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Woolworths’ decision came after it found Blu-ray movies outsold HD DVD by 10 to 1 in its 820 stores. “Sales figures clearly show that the market is moving toward one format of high-definition DVD,” said Woolworths’ DVD buyer Steven McGunigel. “The main reason is the success of Sony’s PlayStation 3 machine. Because it plays Blu-ray discs, there are over three-quarters of a million homes in the U.K. that can view the new high-definition format. There is no where near that number of HD DVD players around.”

Another nasty blow for the HD DVD, which appears to be fast losing the support of its initial backers. Last week, Warner Bros., New Line and HBO all abandoned HD DVD. And according to Variety, Universal’s exclusive commitment to HD DVD has expired. Toshiba, HD DVD’s, main backer, is soldiering on in spite of such setbacks. It’s even gone and purchased a 30-second TV spot during next week’s Super Bowl. But as Andy Parsons, senior vice president of the Blu-ray Disc Association points out, it’s no silver bullet. “I certainly admire [Toshiba’s] chutzpah,” Parsons told Home Media Magazine. “They can certainly choose to do as they please with their marketing. Running a Super Bowl ad is not likely to convince consumers that HD DVD will win the format war.”

And in the end, is this particular format war even worth worrying about? Isn’t physical media doomed? “People are saying Blu-ray won the war but who cares,” Seagate CEO Bill Watkins said earlier this year. “The war is over physical distribution versus electrical distribution, and Blu-ray and HD lost that. In this, flash memory and hard drives are on the same side. The war is over and the physical guys lost.”

Though Paramount Pictures has denied reports that it plans to abandon the next-generation DVD format, news of an escape clause in its HD DVD contract allowing it to release films on Blu-ray has the industry wondering aloud about the format’s continued viability.

And for good reason. Earlier this week Universal’s HD DVD-exclusive contract ended. And last Friday, on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, Warner Bros. stunned the industry by announcing plans to end support of the format entirely in June. “[That] maybe the pivotal event that resolves the format war,” said Thomas Coughlin of Coughlin Associates. “It certainly changes the rules and the playing field. I think everyone is trying to reassess what this means–including the HD DVD guys. [If Blu-ray does come out on top] it would be poetic justice after the Betamax vs. VHS war. That time, Sony lost.”

But is it truly the format’s death knell? Ovum analyst Carl Gressum says no. “There is a lot of speculation whether this is the end of HD DVD,” he said. “It is not, but we are getting dangerously close to a ‘chapter 11’ for the group. If the other supporting studios now decide to drop HD DVD, the situation will turn dire, and HD DVD could become more of a replacement to DVD on the PC client than as a movie-distribution playback format.”

UPDATE: Universal Pictures flatly denies it’s abandoning the HD DVD format. Said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, “Contrary to unsubstantiated rumors from unnamed sources, Universal’s current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format.”

Digital Cameras

Megapixels: This term describes the highest resolution photo a camera can take. Often mistaken as the most important factor in a digital camera, a high megapixel count — such as 10MP or more — isn’t necessary for the average user unless he or she plans on heavily editing or enlarging photos. Most new digicams offer between five and eight megapixels, which is usually more than enough.

Optical or Digital Zoom: Optical zoom, determined by the physical movement of a lens, matters much more than digital zoom, which digitally alters an image using the camera’s internal computer. Camera companies still try to confuse potential buyers by listing a camera’s total zoom, or the optical and digital zooms multiplied together. Ignore total zoom numbers and instead focus on optical, which now averages around 5x for many new cameras.

Image Stabilization: When generously sized LCD viewing screens started replacing optical viewfinders, they also forced users to hold their cameras at arm’s length, making for plenty of blurry photographs. To remedy this, camera manufacturers have added image stabilization, tools once found only in high-end SLR models. Optical (also called “mechanical”) and digital image stabilization correct for unsteady hands and moving subjects, respectively. Cameras with both types advertise dual image stabilization, which corrects for both situations and costs more.

Mobile Devices

HSDPA and EVDO: HSDPA, or High Speed Downlink Packet Access, is the name for AT&T‘s 3G, or third generation, mobile network that operates at roughly the speed of a slower DSL in a home. HSDPA is available in most major metropolitan areas and is seen as the competitor to Verizon and Sprint’s EVDO (Evolution Data Only) networks, though the popular iPhone runs on AT&T’s network using Wi-Fi and EDGE technology rather than HSDPA.

Multi-Touch Technology: Most popularly found on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, multi-touch is starting to show up in other products, such as in Microsoft‘s Surface, a coffee-table-like computer. Rather than just responding to on-screen touches, this technology enables moving, resizing and zooming pictures and Web pages using one or more fingers simultaneously. Look for many more devices — mobile and otherwise — to incorporate multi-touch in the future.

GPS: Global Positioning Systems are most often found in cars — either built-in or on portable devices from companies like Garmin and TomTom. These gadgets use satellite technology to determine geographic location, and high-end models even display Web content like news and weather along with directions. GPS integration in mobile devices can be used to plot routes in cars, can help users find nearby businesses while on the go and can link friends by showing one where the other is located and what they’re doing.

Digital Music

DRM: Digital rights management is a set of standards that protect the intellectual property rights of online content like music and videos, preventing it from being illegally distributed across the Web. In the past year, Vivendi‘s Universal Music Group, Apple and (most recently) Sony BMG said they will start selling DRM-free versions of songs, often for a higher price. In Apple’s iTunes store, these files are called “iTunes Plus” and aren’t restricted like other iTunes content.

MP3: MP3 files are open, without any DRM restrictions. Files that you rip (copy) from your own CDs are usually converted into MP3s, though iTunes users can automatically rip tracks into that program’s special format, called AAC. MP3 files can be uploaded to social-networking sites for sharing with friends and online communities.

These file types are protected by rights that tie them to specific players. Generally, AAC files make up the majority of tracks sold on Apple’s iTunes store and play only on Apple’s iPods; WMA files are Microsoft’s version of proprietary files.

Wi-Fi

The popularity of Wireless Fidelity, or Wi-Fi, brings this technology to more and more portable devices like the iPod Touch and Microsoft Zune and gives companies good reason to incorporate Wi-Fi receivers in new computers — laptops and desktops alike. While available in many flavors, different letters like b, g, a and n stand behind Wi-Fi’s more technical name, 802.11, to help discern one version from another according to characteristics like speed and compatibility. The latest version, “n,” offers the greatest range and speed, and “n” devices are usually compatible with earlier versions.

Televisions

HDTV: High-definition television has now become the standard, capable of displaying vastly better pictures, provided the source is also HD. Today’s more popular flat panel HD televisions are LCDs, or liquid crystal displays, though plasmas still hold their own. Recording HD content can’t be done with a regular digital video recorder; instead, a special HD recorder is required to capture this higher quality content.

480p vs. 1080i vs. 720p vs. 1080p: These numbers refer to the resolution, or sharpness, of a digital display, while “p” stands for progressive and “i” stands for interlaced. A resolution of 480p, known as EDTV or Enhanced Definition TV, is found most often in low-end plasmas or LCD screens. A TV with a resolution of 1080p is currently considered the Holy Grail, and costs the most. But 1080p pictures usually can’t be distinguished from less expensive 1080i or 720p pictures by average viewers at the typical distances from which most folks watch TV.

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: Blu-ray and HD DVD are incompatible high-definition disc formats that continue to fight a seemingly endless battle to replace the DVD. The Blu-ray camp is led by Sony and the HD DVD camp is led by Toshiba. The two formats aren’t so different, technically speaking, but their very existence is confusing to consumers. The recent decision made by Time Warner‘s Warner Bros. to use Blu-ray gives Sony’s side a boost, and now Viacom‘s Paramount is rumored to be switching to Blu-ray from HD DVD. Dual-format players from Samsung and LG offer some solace.

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

So, here’s my annual spring buyer’s guide to desktop PCs. Most of what I say below also applies to laptops, although with laptops there are additional factors, such as size, weight, screen size and battery life. As always, these tips apply to mainstream users doing typical tasks, not hard-core gamers or techies.

Last fall, I advised average consumers with aging PCs to hang on until new Vista PCs emerged, rather than trying to upgrade existing models. I still believe that was the right course, because Windows upgrades are so tricky. But it turns out that even new Vista PCs have two big downsides.

First, Vista isn’t all that exciting a replacement for Windows XP. It’s much prettier and has much better searching, and Microsoft claims it has much stronger security, although you still need add-on security software.

Second, to an extent that amazes me, makers of Windows software and hardware have failed to update their products to work smoothly, or to work at all, with Vista. In my house, for example, the only built-in Vista printer driver I can find for my printer doesn’t allow the two-sided printing I can do with Windows XP and Apple Macintosh computers.

So, if you desperately need a new Windows PC, be prepared to be underwhelmed and to be frustrated by incompatible software and hardware. And if you’re not desperate, you might wait another six months or so for the software and hardware to catch up — and for Microsoft to issue some bug fixes.

Or you could buy a Mac instead. I still believe the best desktop computer on the market for mainstream, nontechnical consumers is the Apple iMac. It has gorgeous hardware and superior built-in software. Its operating system, Mac OS X, includes most of the key new features of Vista. And the iMac can even run Vista, along with its own operating system, if you need the occasional Windows program.

Apple has delayed until October the release of its new operating-system version, Leopard. But it’s almost certain that any Mac you buy now will upgrade to it smoothly. (See my Mossberg’s Mailbox for more details.) And the Mac is still largely free of the security problems that add such hassles to using a Windows PC.

But if you’re going for a Windows PC, here are my buying tips.

Vista Versions: The cheapest PCs will have only a stripped-down edition of Vista called Home Basic, which lacks Vista’s flashy new user interface. To get the full Vista experience, you’ll need more expensive machines that come with Home Premium, which also has more media features and is probably best for most average consumers.

If your company recommends it, you may need a different version of Vista called Vista Business, which lacks some of the media features, but can connect to some types of company networks that the Home versions can’t. Or you can buy a machine with the costliest version of Vista, called Ultimate, that includes all the features of the other versions. If you want to shun Vista altogether, you may still be able to find new PCs with Windows XP, though these machines may not be as secure as Vista models.

Memory: No matter what Microsoft or the PC makers say, I strongly suggest one gigabyte of memory, or RAM, for Home Basic, and two gigabytes for all other Vista versions.

Video: Vista Home Premium, Business and Ultimate will work best on machines with a separate, or “discrete,” graphics card with dedicated video memory. Some integrated graphics systems — built into the computer’s main circuitry — will also work, though they will drain some of your main memory through a scheme called shared memory.

Processor: For Home Basic, any current Intel or AMD processor in a new brand-name PC will work. For other versions, I suggest a “dual core” processor, like Intel’s Core 2 Duo, or AMD’s Athlon 64 X2, which pack the equivalent of two chips into one. Even if your processor can handle so-called 64-bit software, average users won’t find that capability useful today.

Hard drive: If you’re not much interested in video, music or photos, 80 or 100 gigabytes should be sufficient. If you are, 250 gigabytes or more is best.

Disks: Don’t buy one of the competing new high-definition disk drives, Blu-ray or HD-DVD, until the war between these competing formats is settled. Stick with plain old DVD.

Junky software: Nearly all Windows PCs are packed with “craplets” — the useless, annoying trial versions of programs. In a retail store, they may remove these for you for a small fee.

Price: You can get a bargain, brand-name desktop with Home Basic and a slow processor for under $400. But for a versatile desktop with two gigabytes of memory, discrete video, a large hard disk and a dual-core processor, you can easily spend $800 or more, without a monitor.

Just don’t buy more, or less, machine than you need.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.