That's not to say that Blu Ray doesn't have its deficiencies. It's far from perfect. But the extra storage that will be available on Blu Ray is what I think will make it the better of the two formats in the long term.

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p_n

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I know two people who have HD-DVD and they both love it. The picture looks amazing on both a large screen T.V. and my front projection 96' screen. The same guy bought the Blu-Ray player because he's nuts and has to have every first generation technology. Anyway, the picture was about as good and maybe slightly better, than an upconverted standard DVD on my Oppo DVD player. He loves the HD-DVD player but after boasting about how good Blu-Ray was going to be for months, he's taking it back to the store. He's now an HD-DVD man.

Personally, I didn't care who was going to win as long as the better product won. Picture and sound quality is all that matters to me. Right now, HD-DVD has a large advantage over Blu-Ray in both catagories, but your going to give BD a pass because it takes less time to boot up? That's silly. Not to mention that future HD-DVD players that will come out in the future will most definately improve on the boot up time. The fact is that BD is inferior to HD, and it costs twice as much. BD has yet to have a release that is up to par with one of the better HD titles. The question of whether the problem is the software or the hardware haven't been answered. The fact is that BD has problems and Sony doesn't have any answers. HD has problems too, but it puts out a truly stunning picture unlike the competition. Once again it's proven that technichal stats don't always tell the whole story. BD has more impressive stats but fails to give signifigant improvement over DVD.

I think we should all invest in HD-DVD so the major studios release in HD-DVD or both formats. I also think like I said earlier, that the porn industry could be a major player. If porn studios started releasing titles in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, it would give a large boost to either format.

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If it turns out that, once both of them have ironed out the kinks, one has a better picture than the other, I will agree that it should be the winner. However, I'm betting that, in the end, neither will have an advantage in picture quality.

Apparentnly, I'm not in the minority with that opinion. If the major studios felt that either one of them would have better picture quality, then they all would have gone with that technology and there would be no format war.

IMO, when it comes down to what advantages each of the formats will have over one another, I think that the biggest difference will be the amount of data that can be stored on a Blu-Ray disc.

Unfortunately, I don't think that this war will be decided by the consumers. It will all be a matter of what corporations continue to back what format. Also, unless one of the formats fold relatively soon, I think that the only way that High Definition DVD will survive is if someone comes out wiht a single player that will play both formats.

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No. I'm not giving either one of them a pass. Right now, I wouldn't buy either one of them. I don't think that either of them is ready to be on the market and that both sides put products out because the public was getting pissed at all of the delays. If the first generation DVD players were as shitty as the first generation of High Definition DVD players are, we'd still all be watching VHS or Laserdisc.

If it turns out that, once both of them have ironed out the kinks, one has a better picture than the other, I will agree that it should be the winner. However, I'm betting that, in the end, neither will have an advantage in picture quality.

Apparentnly, I'm not in the minority with that opinion. If the major studios felt that either one of them would have better picture quality, then they all would have gone with that technology and there would be no format war.

IMO, when it comes down to what advantages each of the formats will have over one another, I think that the biggest difference will be the amount of data that can be stored on a Blu-Ray disc.

Unfortunately, I don't think that this war will be decided by the consumers. It will all be a matter of what corporations continue to back what format. Also, unless one of the formats fold relatively soon, I think that the only way that High Definition DVD will survive is if someone comes out wiht a single player that will play both formats.
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I agree that work needs to be done on both sides (especially Blu-Ray). I just feel that HD-DVD has done a much better job so far. They have put out a product that most videophiles love and support. I'm a big Home theater guy and I have read many threads about the HD-DVD player, and the Blu-Ray. Most people that have the Blu-Ray player hate it and are bringing it back to the store. You might want to check out AVS forums.

I think corperations will play a big part but if the public shows support for one format over the other, the corperations will fall in line. Several studios that were only going to release on Blu-Ray, are reportedly going to announce releases in both formats soon because of the dissapointment of HD-DVD. The failure of Sony to release the PS3 in large numbers by christmas is another failure. Most Blu-Ray supporters were counting on the PS3 to give Blu-Ray a bounce over HD-DVD. It looks now like the PS3 will be a non factor. The big winner right now might be HD-DVD, and the Xbox 360 with the HD-DVD drive. We will see how it plays out soon enough.

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