Meh, I have a lot of friends with more money than brains. Let THEM buy both systems and I'll just go to their house when I want a hi-def movie.

 

Just give in, bend over and let Sony brand you ass.

 

Since when are you restricted to specific hardware being hooked up anywhere? Aside from the region locking on dvd's.

 

Ugh @ this whole issue.

But will we see a one-format definite win to eliminate the others (á la what VHS did to Betamax and V2000 despite being the least quality format) or will we have all formats living on for a while, even co-exist? IMHO I suspect the latter.

 

The PS3 is widely regarded as the best blu-ray player out there. And like TT said the standard DVD upscaling is very well done. Especially if you spend $20-25 for the bluetooth remote. It really works great.

 

Besides the AACS DRM scheme that both HD formats use, Blu-Ray has an additional BD+ protection scheme that limits what devices can be used by checking the memory footprint of the device it is running on. I'm against HD DVD's use of AACS and HDCP, but both formats use those, and Blu-Ray has two additional restriction schemes (BD+, region lockouts), making it to me the worse of two evils.

 

I really don't see how it makes a difference. So don't try to buy a $50 made in china walmart special blu-ray player, big deal. All of the blu-ray players I've seen so far support it.

 

Meh, I recently went HD DVD since it was cheaper for my wife as a gift and HD DVDs are region free so it was easy to get around a lot of BR exclusives. I knew it would end up being the losing format but was hoping it could hold out a bit longer.

I just got a new job for the first time in 3 years and will be purchasing a PS3 with my first check (which will be huge since I'll be working all hours (10-9 daily except Sundays) until they find more people. Also I wanted a BR player more only for the inevitable release of the Bond titles.

 

I've had a lot of hands-on experience with just about every HD and Blu-ray player in existence, and I've yet to observe an HD/Blu-ray combo player that plays both formats properly. Meaning it's probably not your discs that are defective. The problems you describe are almost certainly related to the way the player is reading the disc, not the way the disc is programmed. If you have a friend with a Blu-ray player (a PS3 perhaps) I'd encourage you to try your discs in his player and note the differences.

 

It also means you can't get around region lockouts by hacking the system. Besides that, keep in mind that DRM schemes tend to be either totally ineffective or problematically overzealous. Some BR movies have already had trouble playing in certain totally legit non-hacked systems. Theoretically, it could happen to any player somewhere down the line.

 

I never cared about region lockouts with regular dvd's, no reason to care about blu-ray. Understandably it's more of an issue outside the US, but out of all of the DVD players worldwide in people's homes, how many have been hacked to be region free? I'd be surprised if it was more than 5%

 

Since I don't plan on getting a PS3 I'll wait til the price for Blu Ray DVD player has gone down before getting myself one, will need to get a HD TV first as well.

 

Finally bought Blade Runner on BR this weekend... Utter Bliss.

 

Check. I love my father, but he shoulda waited before buying an HD-DVD player.

But I loved watching "Shooter," "300," and "Transformers" on it over Crimmus break.

And I'll love watching Blu-ray discs there come next Crimmus.

 

So it's okay to knowingly screw over a minority of people simply because they're in the minority?

Besides, if you'll check around, you'll see BR protection has already caused problems on legitimate un-hacked systems that it wasn't supposed to block. It's bound to happen again.

 

I'm a happy owner of an HD DVD player. Well all this means is that I won't be purchasing any Warner Brothers movies until Blue Ray players are below 100 dollars. It just seems like a waste to only offer you movies to less than 50% of the HD market.

My one big observation about electronic sales over the last couple years is that people seem to buy this stuff on what may come out 6months to a year from now and not what is out there now. I picked up my player because I had a good feeling that transformers was going to HD dvd but I bought it for the Jason Bourne movies as well as Batman Begins.

 

CHECKMATE !!!

So the war is now official over. Warner was always the killing blow to either format, since they have the largest catalog of movie titles in all of Hollywood. Universal and Paramount will probably switch any day. I would say within the next 6-12 months at the very latest. So no worries, Transformers will be out on Blu before you can say Baaweepgranaweepnenebong.

On a side note, HD (1080p) is significantly better than DVD (480p). It is exactly the same as VHS to DVD. Although, some of you cannot tell the difference, that is most likely because you are still watching DVD's on analog or non-HD televisions, under 40" without a 7.1 HD audio receiver system. For me watching DVD's is now painful, in both the visual and audio department. It is the same for me when I use to watch VHS tapes after upgrading to DVD. NIGHT AND DAY difference.

 

And after it's recent update to Profile 1.1 it is very likely it will be upgradable to Profile 2.0

Best Buy's ad this week showed the Toshiba 1080i HD DVD player for $299 right next to a 1080p BD player for $399. The price gap is getting smaller as the BD player become cheaper to make.

 

Yes. Flooding the market with a bunch of choices isn't always a good idea, especially when it's a matter of spending a couple hundred bucks on a player that can only play half of the movies on the market. And seeing as how blu-ray is technically superior, and allows the production companies to add features that I want, I don't care about the 5% or less of people globally that have a region free or otherwise hacked dvd player, especially when they can still buy regular dvds to play on it.

 

My capitalism eight-ball says "All Signs Point To Yes."

I don't know enough about the subject to comment on this. But it seems that if a format is causing problems with players, the format will be tweaked or the players will. The market will correct itself.