A few questions for HD-DVD fans

[davygee]

If Blu-ray was slightly more expensive than HDDVD i.e. HDDVD was $100 and Blu-ray was $150 then personally I'd buy a Blu-ray player.

Cost has a place for consumers, but it's not the be all and end all.  Personally, I believe that BR has the better support, not only with the movie industry, but technologically player wise.

HDDVD players are primarily made by Toshiba, whereas BR has not just Sony, but Panasonic, Samsung and Philips making dedicated BR players.

Blu-ray has generally been the favourite to win the HD format war, but HD (Toshiba) has come out fighting.  Not only have they managed to persuade Paramount/Dreamworks to sign a 12/18 month exclusivity deal with HDDVD, but they have dropped their entry level players to ridiculous prices going as low as $98 recently.  BR is so much more expensive and this WILL dent some of their sales.  But by doing this, Toshiba has done 2 things IMHO.  They have cheapened their Brand in the market place and have pushed other "Big Name" player developers away i.e. Panasonic/Philips/Samsung won't make any profit making HDDVD players seeing as Toshiba has set the benchmark.

BR also is getting more film releases each month in comparison to HDDVD and only recently the movie sales were 2.35/1 in BR's favour.  (Yes it's down to the PS3).

Inevitably, Movies and their release will be the deciding factor on who will come out the winner.  Warner has made noises about watching sales and may decide to plump for one platform early next year.  If this happens to be BR, then that is the final nail in HDDVD's coffin, but if for some reason, they chose HDDVD exclusivity, then that would put another spanner in the works for BR.  Other big deciding factors are Disney, New Line and the magical combination of Spielberg/Lucas.  Spielberg has allowed Close Encounters to be released on BR alone and although there was rumours of Jaws, Jurassic Park and ET coming to HDDVD, this doesn't seem to be the case, even though they are Universal films.  Also the Paramount/Dreamworks deal does not include any Spielberg classic films.  And Indiana Jones doesn't seem to be moving HD anytime soon along with Star Wars.  New Line also hasn't picked a camp and there is no iminent release of LOTR either.  Disney have proclaimed their BR exclusivity, but they need to push out some more of the BIG titles.  Toy Story 1 & 2 should help push up big BR sales, but knowing Disney, they will only release the odd film every now and then.

2008 could very well be the deciding year for HDDVD or BR. 

On an end note.  If BR want to push this and bring it to an early close, then they need to bring down the price of their players dramatically.  Not the odd $50 or so, but they need to bring down their entry level players to $200 or there abouts.

Also on an HDDVD final note.  Their ethernet connection thingy is a bit out of date.  Surely they should have included some kind of wireless internet ability like WiFi as standard.  Who wants screeds of cables leading away from their TV and HD player?  The PS3's use of WiFi for updates and internet is the way to go IMHO.