[tobyen]

I am disappointed. I'd vote for HD DVD as payback to Sony for their nasty rootkit stunt back in '06. Sony gets not one cent from me!

[hazydave]

think that Sony's underhanded tricks of going to the manufacturers with money in hand to influence their building of hardware is a vain attempt to side step their BetaMax failure in the video tape market.

Well, I certainly would claim that Sony LEARNED from their failure with Beta. And MD (MD itself isn't a complete failure, but they had many of the same licensing issues, so it never took on as a popular consumer format). The simple fact is that only Toshiba makes HD-DVD players, while everyone else makes Blu-Ray players. That's a big win for Blu-Ray, regardless of how they managed it.

And if "dirty tricks" are a bad thing, you should be just as disturbed that Microsoft and Toshiba paid Paramount that $150 million to drop Blu-Ray and keep the format war going another year.

I think I'm fairly typical, that I really don't care THAT much who wins, only that, ASAP, I'd like the winner announced. Like most things, this isn't an event, but a process... and I think we're well into it. I've stayed on the blue disc sidelines, while I have collected two HDTVs, two HDV camcorders, a red laser high-def player (WMV/HD, DiVX, MPEG-TS, via disc or ethernet)... I'm the guy who's supposed to have two or three disc player in-house, to help make them cheap next Christmas for "everyone else".

Thing is, I know it's not the player that's expensive... even at $1000 for a G1 Blu-Ray player, it's the software,eventually. $1000 is roughly 40 films or 20 TV seasons.. but hey, don't think you'll get there? Count your DVDs.

[hazydave]

All modern Blu-Ray players play DVD. Some very early units released only Japan do not... but they're also not fully up to even the 1.0 spec. DVD had the same kinds of issues with CD in the early days.

Speaking of CD... that one, you need to read the fine print. There's no guarantee that any given player supports any given ... this is usually something hashed out in the marketplace. You might expect all HD-DVD players to do the same thing, but that's only because Toshiba is the only company making them... if that format had won, eventually you'd find some variety. Some Blu-Ray players play CDs, some don't. In general, the cheaper ones do not. Is that a problem? Depends on what you do with your player.... I'm probably going to buy a Blu-Ray player in the Spring, and I will want CD support... I have a bunch of old DTS-CDs, and a few VideoCDs from the old days, I may want to play still.

[Fritz1]

Blu ray will not be worth investing any money in until the format profiles are settled and enforced. That will probably not happen for several more years.
Anyone investing in a player now is buying a brick with the exception of a PS3 and that is a toy.
There really is not great difference in the technologies, both use the same blue laser etc. HD DVD is tha more stable finished product, Blu ray so far is all unrealized promises.
There is a greater liklihood now that most consumers will never buy either format and simply stay with SD DVD. By the time SD DVD fades away HD DVD and/or Blu ray will die with it. This format war was lost before it even started.

[NeoTechni]

Ohh no, PS3 is a toy. That label somehow makes it worse of a player. No. That is irrelevant, especially since current figures put 97% of bluray owners using a PS3. Reviews put it as the best high def player on the market, especially thanks to it's high quality upscaling, media hub functionality coupled with UPnP streaming

I, and most people don't care about those profiles at all. Early adopters didn't buy a brick, their player will still play movies. They just don't get picture in picture or the web functionality.

Early adopters and cheap adopters of HD DVD don't get a ton more features, some players don't have HDi(nteractivity) as it's not mandatory, some don't have 1080p, the 360 HD DVD addon doesn't support web functionality so despite Toshiba's claims it's not mandatory.

And unlike HD DVD, all existing Bluray players support future discs with more than 2 layers (up to 8) HD DVD players only support up to 2, and when the 3 layer discs come out (or rather if they do at this point) they need a new player.