I follow tech news pretty closely, but I had missed this news for all of you who, like me, picked the wrong horse in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle. (After the Betamax fiasco, really, who could blame me when Sony came out with another proprietary format that was more expensive and provided only a nominal benefit over its competitor.)

Warner Bros. -- one of the original HD-DVD backers -- is going to try to soothe the pain for all of you with HD-DVD discs that are only good for as long as your HD-DVD player survives. For $4.95 a disc and a flat fee for shipping, they will send you the Blu-ray version of whatever movies you've got -- and you even get to keep the HD-DVD.

Warner Bros. should be applauded for doing this, and the other movie studios that sold HD-DVD discs should come up with similar programs.

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