In terms of costing for standalone players, I agree that HD-DVD has the advantage.
However, the manufacturing cost advantage for HD-DVD is also diminishing
http://pioneer.jp/press/release186.html
Pioneer had a press release on Sept 18, 2007, about how they are using organic dye recording film on Blu Ray discs, and that it should greatly decrease manufacturing costs.
"Discs with organic dye do not require large-scale investments in facilities so that the current coating facilities for CD-R and DVD-R can be used for BD production lines with only minor adjustments, making low priced discs a possibility."
So now Blu-Ray doesn't require new manufacturing lines, but existing CD/DVD lines with minor adjustments.
Features, yeah Blu-Ray is still catching up, should be about as equal as HD DVD come Oct 31st. I've never heard anything about the complexity for programming BD-J compared to HD-i, do you have any source for that?
