The format war is over. Blu-ray is the winner just as I predicted at the outset of hostilities. Luckily, I took my own advice and never sold a single HD-DVD unit.

A few months ago, I wrote that Toshiba HD-DVD players were being sold in the US for £50. As this did not even cover the cost of the components, it was obviously bound to fail.

Unfortunately, some dealers did sell them and now their customers will be hearing that its main supporters, Toshiba and Microsoft, have abandoned the format.

There has been no word of refunds or recompense for UK customers who bought HD-DVD units.

However, one firm has publicly acknowledged its “shame” at selling HD-DVD players. Needless to say, this is not a UK firm.

Mr Mashahiko Kitani, the president of Edion, a stores group in Japan with more than 700 outlets, has announced that it will offer a full refund against the purchase of any Blu-ray model.

Edion sold seven different HD-DVD models and customers who paid high prices early on even get a refund if the Blu-ray replacement costs less.

This does not surprise me, as I have been in Edion stores and they really do emphasise personal service and that big posters promise that the customer “will never be let down”.

I remember being in one of their Osaka stores and seeing a store video that showed Edion staff donning long white socks and gloves before delivering a washing machine to a customer’s home.
Edion really does care.

Discs have had a long run, as it is well over 100 years since Edison and Bell stored sound on a wax record. Over the past century, there have been a variety of discs.

Even Baird recorded pictures on disc back in 1927. Despite all the advances since then, I am quite convinced that the next storage systems will all be solid-state devices with no moving parts.

Last week, I had a visit from my 16 year-old nephew, who enjoyed serving in the shop, but a quarter-of-an-hour after we closed, he announced that he was bored. 

I suggested we could go to the new multiplex cinema, but this was soon ruled out as “I’ve already seen all those films”.

Actually, going to the cinema is apparently for “oldies” like me. 

He had already downloaded and watched all the newly-released films on his PC.

Of course, he had downloaded the films illegally via peer-to-peer file sharing websites.

Just as the music industry has lost out to “downloaders”, it seems teenagers think nothing of also sharing the latest movies and TV programmes.

I started to give my nephew a little lecture about “copyright”, but typical of his generation, he fired straight back by reminding me that he had sold hundreds of blank DVDs and memory sticks that very afternoon.

He made me admit that I knew they were being used to store downloaded audio and video.

Of course, he was right – customers buying 100 blank DVDs are unlikely to be creating their own home videos and it is far more likely that they will be archiving all the episodes of Scrubs or The Simpsons.

Then he posed a really difficult question: “Is it legal for me to copy a CD for my little sister?”

Teenagers say the damndest things.