While most of the mainstream media was cluing into the fact that HD-DVD was dead over the weekend, it’s led to panic on the part of some readers and writers that Toshiba didn’t formally announce its death today and made a few comments perhaps to the contrary.

Just to placate everyone I’ll repeat for the 784th time: HD-DVD is dead. Dead, much like how a body is dead before the coroner officially pronounces it as such.

That cornoner, Toshiba, is still expected to declare the format dead tomorrow despite rhetoric like “We are currently assessing our business strategies, but nothing has been decided at this moment.”

That is business-speak. Nothing more, nothing less. Look at it this way: see how far they’ve come since their Baghdad Bob stance last month?

It’s over. HD-DVD is dead. Repeat: Dead. No hope. Don’t listen to today’s rhetoric, listen to tomorrow’s announcement that production will halt and all sales could end as soon as March.