Loss of HP puts end to Wal-Mart's video download store

The retailer decided to silently walk away from its planned video download service after HP ended its participation.

HP was providing the back end to the service, but apparently the company felt it was not getting enough of a return and decided to stop offering it. From there, Wal-Mart just decided to end the service altogether.

While exact figures on video downloads from Wal-Mart's offering were not available, from the sudden closure of the service December 21, it's fairly clear they weren't substantial.

Wal-Mart used a feature from HP that was intended to help retailers set up online video stores. However, HP said that the market did not perform "as expected," and the decision was made to end the offering.

Other than Wal-Mart, some 30 other content providers are now left out in the cold. These companies signed agreements in October that made their content available through HP's service.

Anyone who purchased content from the online store will be able to continue to view their videos, however they will not be able to remove them from the computer they used to originally download them.