Well thats a huge push towards blu-ray it seems. Personally i'm still not sure whose winning or losing, not that i plan on getting a blu-ray or HD drive anytime in the future anyway. Its all about waiting for the price drop and the waters to settle :P

Yep, Dell supporting a standard is a pretty good indication that it will be around for quite some time.

newtekie1Yep, Dell supporting a standard is a pretty good indication that it will be around for quite some time.

Same with MS -> HD DVD. They'll both be around for a very long time.

But usually the main attraction to consumers here is the price, and for now, the HD-DVD players are cheaper than Blu-Ray. With the cheapest Blu-Ray going for $799.99 to $1299.99, and the cheapest HD DVD (actual, not add-on) going for as low as $449.99, HD DVD has a decent lead here. They both have their pros and cons though...

BUT, I refuse to get an HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 until Microsoft releases an HDMI cable, and there better not be any new Xbox 360 revisions with HDMI because I just bought one last Friday...better be on a cable!

I sort of agree, but then sort of disagree. While you can get an HD-DVD player for $499($449 after MIR), you can get a Blu-Ray player for $499 in the form of a PS3, plus there are more options available in terms of players for Blu-Ray. Plus all the HD-DVD players are limitted to 1080i, but 1080p is a huge marketting thing right now in the HDTV world, and it carries over to the player market too. People hear 1080p and that is what they want, they can be turned off by the fact that HD-DVD only does 1080i which places like Circuit City and Best Buy claim isn't true HD.

So while price is a factor, it is the only factor.

well sony is trying to do the same thing they did with the ps2. the ps2 was the cheapest dvd player available at the time and the japanese snached every one up for the first 6-8 months. sony figures by hoarding the bluray diodes they can create a cheap bluray player spurring sales. problem is this time M$ and several other companies are on board with hddvd and now things are getting crazy.

i wonder if sony will make the 360 hddvd drive compatable on the ps3...

Azn Tr14dZBUT, I refuse to get an HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 until Microsoft releases an HDMI cable, and there better not be any new Xbox 360 revisions with HDMI because I just bought one last Friday...better be on a cable!

Trust me - The HD DVD add on looks superb! MS claims that it's impossible to see a difference between 1080i and 1080p When it comes to watching 24FPS movies.

Source

newtekie1I sort of agree, but then sort of disagree. While you can get an HD-DVD player for $499($449 after MIR), you can get a Blu-Ray player for $499 in the form of a PS3, plus there are more options available in terms of players for Blu-Ray. Plus all the HD-DVD players are limitted to 1080i, but 1080p is a huge marketting thing right now in the HDTV world, and it carries over to the player market too. People hear 1080p and that is what they want, they can be turned off by the fact that HD-DVD only does 1080i which places like Circuit City and Best Buy claim isn't true HD.

So while price is a factor, it is the only factor.

Have you ever looked at the back of an HD DVD disc? Every one I've looked at says 1080p.

I don't think they can make it on just a cable, I don't think the xbox306 is capable of putting out the digital signal required for HDMI to work.

Sure it is. It's digital at the source. It converts it to analog to put it through the Component cables. On top of that, It outputs 1080p through the component cables.

mout12Have you ever looked at the back of an HD DVD disc? Every one I've looked at says 1080p.

Every HD-DVD player I have ever looked at says 1080i, because that is what all of them output.

Well that won't be the end-all factor. Toshiba HDXA2 1080p HD DVD Player will be released soon. Anyway. Both formats have too strong of backings for either of them to fail. I have a feeling we'll be seeing both formats for a long time. Doesn't really matter anyway, because moving parts are becoming more and more obsolete. It'll all be downloadable, and on-demand.

First of all , the 1080i vs 1080p argument is totally pointless as both standards are encoded at 1080p on the disc. It doesn't matter if the output is 1080i @ 60fps or 1080p @ 30pfs - there is absolutely NO LOSS of picture quality or content. Any HDTV on the planet that can accept 1080i has the ability to deinterlace a 1080i signal to 1080p - resulting in an EXACTLY what you are supposed to see.

Secondly, there are very few HDTV's that even accept 1080p in the first place and will only accept 1080i or lower.

Third, all of the Bluray offerings, currently interlace the source to 1080i and then deinterlace it once again internally before sending it out. The Samsung is using the same exact Broadcom deinterlacer the first gen Toshibas are using, then the signal is passed to the Genesis and SiL chips for further processing to get back to 1080p. Believe it. The same exact process is happening in the Bluray player, as is happening when you output 1080i directly to your TV.

Lastly, as the poster said above, the second gen HDDVD players are out, and they offer 1080p for all you naysayers.

mout12Well that won't be the end-all factor. Toshiba HDXA2 1080p HD DVD Player will be released soon. Anyway. Both formats have too strong of backings for either of them to fail. I have a feeling we'll be seeing both formats for a long time. Doesn't really matter anyway, because moving parts are becoming more and more obsolete. It'll all be downloadable, and on-demand.

Downloadable and on-demand will not take over physical mediums for a very very very very long time. There is NO infrastructure in place for that, and people just generally like having something tangible in their hands when they've spent money on it.

overcastDownloadable and on-demand will not take over physical mediums for a very very very very long time. There is NO infrastructure in place for that, and people just generally like having something tangible in their hands when they've spent money on it.

That's what they said about CD's 5 years ago.

NO infrastructure

Are you kidding me? What about ON-DEMAND, iTunes, and downloading full HD movies from XBox Live? What about youtube, and the fact that the TV stations are getting together to broadcast their shows on the internet. My friend, the infrastructure is there.