This is just like asking "Why are people trying to save Tookie"

imo Nintendo is smart to stay out of this fight rather then attaching itself to 1 format or the other........let whichever one win and then use the technology in their next system when it's cheap and widely available.

I was going to post much the same thing that windbane said, only got beat to it.  It's exactly right.  NEITHER of these formats is solely one company.  Yes, Toshiba had the majority of HD-DVD and Sony the majority of BD, but that's it.  It's not like either of these formats were only ONE company trying to "force" the market to use their standard.

You are so right about the HD-DVD hate regarding Microsoft as well.  SOME people had this idea of hanging HD-DVD around Microsoft's neck in totality and since they obviously hated MS, they extended that hate to HD-DVD.  Stupid.  MS was only one of quite a few companies on the HD-DVD association.  Just like Sony has a lot of other companies in the Blu-Ray association.

And as regards the failed formats of the past, again I say....since when has technical innovation and trying new ideas in the marketplace been a bad thing?  We wouldn't have MP3 players and a lot of other devices if companies didn't put new tech out there and try to market it.  A big example of this would be the PC.  IBM itself said there was no market for PC's in the home back in the day.  What if Apple and all the other companies had just listened to that?

In the end, new technologies and especially competition among emerging technologies and formats is GOOD for the marketplace and the consumer.  Yes, some early adopters end up getting burned at times, but that's the price you pay for being on the "bleeding edge" of technology (they call it that for a reason!).  Without the competition between HD-DVD and BD for example, it's absolutely right that we wouldn't see the players and movies as cheap as they are now and as fast as they've gone down.  Remember DVD?  That's right!  How long did it take DVD's to get down to $30, $20 or less in price and the players to hit sub $300?  A lot longer than we've seen with HD.  Why?  There was no competition!  People just need to grow up and see beyond what they simply WANT to see.  Hell, I saw people posting for and against HD-DVD and BD just because Apple was on the BD board and MS on HD-DVD side.  They were for and against formats as an extention of the whole stupid "Apple rules" and "Windows rules" debate.  How silly can you get? 

No, it's not FUD. I'm really sorry, but this is just you lacking on reading comprehension, plain and simple.

I said I cherished the tradition started by 12 cm optical disc media, of always being backwards and cross compatible, with multi-format players having always become the norm. Right there in the post you've quoted. I obviously know very well that Bluray and HD-DVD players play DVDs. I've said so myself in this very thread, well before you parachuted into it, but that's besides the point.

The point is, if HD-DVD just drops dead, like many here argue they should, those that bought HD-DVDs will have no players to play those discs a few years down the road - and that's just lame. The same thing is happening to VHS (a far more successful format), where it's becoming increasingly hard to track down a good VHS player to play the old videos you haven't yet converted to DVD, whereas CDs (a format almost as old, with some 28 years now) are still going strong. And with HD-DVD it'd be even more of a problem, because of DRM, which won't be legal to circumvent for probably many years to come.

Customers having to repurchase all their HD-DVDs as BDs would be just lame, when supporting HD-DVD isn't really that hard. And unless the format totally tanks, I'm betting the brandless players (the ones I'm holding out for) will support both formats. After all, they came out supporting far less popular formats like DIVX and XVID, to the point that they even forced some of the big brands into launching similar players. I've been for dual format from the get-go and I'm still quite confident that's how it'll end up at the low end, at least.

I'm not against HD, quite the opposite - I'll be buying a 1080p set pretty soon. But I just won't trade my featureful, HD capable, media player of choice, for a far less featureful Bluray or HD-DVD player that costs far more. The only player in the market that can compete in features is the PS3, but for twice the price, and half the format support. It's getting there, with some DIVX/XVID support, but still lacking subtitles, FLAC, AC3, and a bunch of other stuff I need. So I'll hold out for the cheap players, which always bring the most features, even if at some inexistent quality loss in this digital world.

Are you going to tell me the you seriously believe that if HD DVD had never existed that the prices on BluRay players would be where they are now?

Kruze... did you buy a HD-DVD player and HD DVD movies?

If so, pick up a few extra players when Toshiba and friends have a firesale to get rid of all the hardware.

If not, does it really matter to you that someone else may have to rebuy a few movies?

My parents didn't complain when they got a betamax player way way back in the day and movies and tapes were a bit difficult to find. (BTW, the recorded images looked much better on Beta then VHS). They had both VHS and Beta at the time so we had the best of both worlds.

Yes, they are competing with each other and DVD still.

Yeah, my friend has a beta tape with a recording that has lasted 15 years and still looks better than most VHS tapes.  It's quite impressive.

I own both and I wish people would let HD-DVD die. If we push this too long, the whole thing could fail. I'm not personally a huge fan of 12Mbps downloadable content. It looks like crap.

No, I didn't. But Toshiba was definitely the one trying to capture the market I'm in: the low end. How much longer before we see feature-packed sub-€100 players regularly at retail?

Call me cheap all you want, but unless it's a full blown HD wireless media player (and the PS3 gets closer and closer with firmwares, but it's still not enough), I ain't paying €300+. And that's a lot.