By now you’ve probably heard that Toshiba has thrown in the towel and will stop making HD DVDs. That means Sony has finally won a format war! Good for them, I guess. Not so good for the consumers who invested in HD DVD, however. What are you supposed to do with the player and all those discs that you bought?

One option would be to convert your HD DVDs to Blu-ray. Wired has created a “how to” specifically for that purpose:

By converting your movies to a more enduring format, you can ensure your movie collection survives the death of the machine that plays them.

The process is simple in principle but excruciating in practice, thanks to the complexity of the technology, the myriad of applications needed and the predations of an industry that doesn’t want you format-shifting at all.

The three basic steps are ripping, transcoding/authoring, and burning. Converting your discs will take time, and it will definitely cost money. Lots of money.

I’m not sure it’s worth it. You haven’t bought that many HD DVDs yet have you? And if you have, you’re probably better off trying to track down a dual-format player. It’ll save you a bunch of stress, that’s for sure.

Your HD DVDs may be salvaged, but your player is almost certainly a glorified paper weight now.

Read: Convert Your HD DVDs to Blu-ray