Decius wrote:
HD-DVD or BlueRay?

Neither.
DVD or Hard Drive.

Decius wrote:
HD-DVD or BlueRay?

Does it matter one iota? I could not possibly care less.

Decius wrote:
HD-DVD or BlueRay?

I'll probably buy a bluray player in the form of a ps3 this summer. I'll consider buying a standalone dual-format player when they become available (winter?). My prediction is that dual-format players will end the format war; consumers don't want to bet on one or the other.

Hopefully, this will be the last generation of fixed-format stuff that has to be set in stone for 20 years and there will be enough network in a few more years that we can just ship the stuff around that way instead of on silly plastic discs.

Decius wrote:
HD-DVD or BlueRay?

What's common:

* Both support MPEG2, H.264 and VC-1
* Both support all the lossy/lossless Dolby alphabet soup
* Both support up to 1080P resolution
* Both use AACS content protection

What's different:

* HD-DVD discs hold 15 or 30 gig, Blu-Ray discs hold 25 or 50 gig
* Blu-Ray also adds BD+ content protection
* HD-DVD is region free, Blu-Ray supports 3 regions
* Blu-Ray supports a Java VM in the player for menus, extras, etc

Studio support differs between the formats. For example, you've got a situation this month where the first two Pirates of the Caribbean hits Blu-Ray exclusive, while Matrix Triology hits HD-DVD exclusive. That's the pisser really.

Also heard anecdotal talk about the Blu-Ray consortium not allowing adult content (not that it matters beyond freedom of expression concerns) but that turned out not to be the case. It's just Sony that won't allow any of its replication facilities to produce porn, which is their prerogative.

On the whole, I think it's a wash. I'm holding out for a good sub $500 HDMI 1.3 enabled dual player before I take the plunge. HD content sure is pretty at 1080P. Contrary to what I've read, I can tell a difference between 1080I and 1080P.

Decius wrote:
HD-DVD or BlueRay?

I'm the crazy crazy buy-shit-now maniac and I'm definitely not buying either for a while. _The Matrix_ w/ more pixels doesn't make the story fundamentally better.

--timball