Will Toshiba offer support for discontinued players?

Yes. According to Toshiba, it will continue to support its existing HD DVD players for the foreseeable future.

Apple is a Blu-ray backer. Any ideas whether it'll put Blu-ray drives in their computers?

Mum's the word -- so far. Though analysts have speculated that it makes sense for Apple to do so, the company is notoriously quiet when it comes to talking about upcoming plans. Officials could not be reached today for an official "no comment" comment, and there's a complicating factor: Apple is pushing hi-def movies over its own Apple TV using its iTunes store. In fact, that could be the next hi-def fight.

Is there any chance this means the price of Blu-ray players will fall.

Don't look for it right away. The price of Blu-ray players has already been dropping in light of increased sales, but consumers shouldn't expect to see Blu-ray player pricing dropping to HD DVD price levels anytime soon, according to ABI Research. "None of the Blu-ray vendors, except Sony, have shown any propensity to drive player adoption through lower prices. They are more likely to let the studios wrap the box with Blu-ray discs as an incentive," ABI Research states in a research note.

More Taiwanese vendors picking up Blu-ray will help bring down prices, but it will be another 12-18 months before the Blu-ray format reaches the maturity and value of that offered by HD DVD. Consumers are the losers in the short term, ABI Research says.

Take heart, though, if you've waited. Early, early adopters spent US$999 in early 2007 for one of Sony's first Blu-ray players. Sure, he got ahead of the tech curve and even backed the right format. But someone buying a player now can find them for between US$300 and US$500. And with time, even those lower prices will fall.

How else can Blu-ray Discs be used?

Hitachi has already demonstrated a 100GB Blu-ray Disc, which combines four layers, each offering 25GB of capacity. TDK and Panasonic have also announced 100GB Blu-ray discs. Not only will single platters be able to hold additional movie content, but the Blu-ray Disc format makes an excellent medium for data archives. It's very likely that in the future, corporations will use the optical media to store long-term records.

In fact, if you're sitting at a computer with less than 100GB of data on your hard drive, you could back up the whole thing to just one of those disks. And Sony recently announced a US$200 Blu-ray drive for computers. Whether computer makers will start actually using the drives remains to be seen.