What to do if you bought HD DVD

If you woke up in the last few days feeling slightly ill, then you've either got the flu or you're the ultimate victim of the ridiculous industry politics that gave us the HD format war. Early adopters should be given medals for the risks they take in advancing the cause of a new technology; compensation for the risks of being at the bleeding edge.

Anyhow, HD DVD is now a dead format, so where does that leave you, its once-proud owner or wannabe-owner? Let TechRadar be your ray of sunshine as we review your options moving forward.

The first thing you could consider, is buying a Blu-ray drive, but where does that leave your expensively-assembled HD-DVD collection? You could convert your HD DVDs to Blu-ray by ripping, converting and burning them, although it's bound to take ages.

An alternative is to buy a hybrid, or dual format, drive like LG's BH200 Super Multi Blue player (see our review of its predecessor). This is a pretty expensive option, although it does future-proof your existing collection.

Finally, you could always see this as an opportunity to grab yourself a bargain HD DVD player - let's face it, it's never going to be cheaper to get into HD. While Curry's Digital wasn't listing anything other than Blu-ray drives today, Laskys had a Toshiba going for just a touch over a ton, although we'd recommend you sit tight - those prices are certain to drop further.

Good luck!