I got in the office this morning and the first thing that was on my mind was the official death of HD-DVD. We knew HD-DVD was on life support, but last night marked the end of life for the high-definition format.

Looking at the loads of laptops from Acer, Gateway, Toshiba, and HP we have reviewed in our offices with HD-DVD drives I could only think of all those individuals who recently shelled out an extra $500 - $800 bucks for a notebook with a soon-to-be-outdated drive. Sure the notebooks will play back high quality video, but will their owners be stuck watching old Mission Impossibles and James Bond flicks.

So what are the notebook manufacturers doing about it? Will they refund the money?

Probably not. When will they take the HD-DVD models off the market? Like Gateway’s P-171XL (see picture to the right; we removed from the garbage). Or HP’s dv9500t. The answer: they don’t know. I reached out to Acer, Gateway, Toshiba and HP this morning. I have heard back from a number of the companies but they are saying they are investigating and will get back to me. Did they not see this coming?

What will you do with your HD-DVD playing notebook?

P.S. The WaterWorld HD-DVD placement is no coincidence.