The argument continues to rage, with no end in sight. HD DVD was winning last week, with rumors of cheap HD DVD players flooding the market via Wal-Mart (who else?). Augmenting that was a sales spike in HD DVD discs, though one that was caused by an artificial (or at least, unsustainable) sales spike caused by fervent fanboys.

This week, the Blu-ray camp is reclaiming some lost ground on the battlefield of public opinion.

Reporters are citing research by Home Media Magazine that says Blu-ray movies outsold HD DVD movies 70% to 30% in the first quarter of this year. (The research was apparently backed up by Nielsen VideoScan data.)

In addition, Wired's Gadget Lab ran an article with this fairly jingoistic headline: "Let the Price War Begin: Pioneer Announces $300 Blu-Ray Player". It turns out, the "player" is actually a BD read-only PC drive that's available in China and, they suggest, assorted gray-market vendors.

Highlighting the ambiguity was last Friday's coverage by TG Daily's Mark Raby. At around noon, Raby posted a news story entitled "Blu-ray edges out HD DVD yet again". By 5:30, however, he went with an opinion piece, "Blu-ray not even close to winning format war". Is this bet-hedging doublespeak? Not at all. If you think about it, there's no contradiction at all, just understandable confusion.

I say we find out the winner of this mess right around the time that we learn who will be the next US president. What do you say? – Wilson Rothman

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD [Gizmodo]

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