HD-DVD discs still costs 30% less then BR discs.  Also BR lasers are also still more then double the price of HD-DVD lasers.  As for mass production, Sony has limited the number of commercial BR producers to 9.  Less competition = higher prices.  

  The biggest problem I have with the format is that Sony chose a more difficult way to do something relatively simple.  I'm not saying that HD-DVD is going to win.  I'm thinking that BR is trending the right way.  But, I cannot comprehend why Sony would have switched to Blue laser diodes, both BD and HDDVD use blue diode lasers, the only difference being the depth at which the data is stored and the disc coating.

@ Davygee

An interesting question. This issue has been fixed with modern high definition players.

With regard to gaming this is a benefit 25GB Blu-Ray discs provide versus dual-layer DVDs. Sustaining content streaming from the disc.

@ vizunary

There have been reports to the contrary in the past, with regard to mass production one report from February 2007 stated if you would replicate 25,000 single layer (15 GB) HD DVD disc and 25,000 single layer (25 GB) Blu-Ray discs there's a 12% price benefit with regard to HD DVD disc replication.

However this 12% only translates in a few dollar cents per disc, certainly nothing which would significantly weigh down on actual retail prices (as also Amazon's pricing seems to indicate).

MikeB said: @ vizunary HD-DVD discs still costs 30% less then BR discs There have been reports to the contrary in the past, with regard to mass production one report from February 2007 stated if you would replicate 25,000 single layer (15 GB) HD DVD disc and 25,000 single layer (25 GB) Blu-Ray discs there's a 12% price benefit with regard to HD DVD disc replication. However this 12% only translates in a few dollar cents per disc, certainly nothing which would significantly weigh down on actual retail prices (as also Amazon's pricing seems to indicate).

Plus, it costs more to produce HD-DVD dual layer disks (30GB) than the Blu-Ray single layer disks (25GB), and seeing as HD-DVD discs are coming in dual layer, it is actually cheaper to press the Blu-Ray disks than HD-DVD.

I think it will need a year or two to say who wins. Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages.
I have a HD-DVD drive for the 360 and I'm very contently with it.

The funny thing is that we could argue the technical benefits until our fingers bleed. It won't affect who wins one way or another, and the mass market doesn't care one way or the other, especially since no HD film has managed to sell as many copies in a month as a typical DVD release on its first day.

Plus I still maintain that this format war is just a trick by both Sony and Toshiba to gain interest for the formats, once players and HDTVs reach mass market prices. Then they will "suddenly" decide to call a truce for the good of High Definition.

Both will lose.

Gballzack said: Both will lose.

I can only hope.

I have hope that people will realise they're being screwed over with draconian anti copy-protection schemes on both formats that never stop piracy but only stop legitimate home backups.

I can only hope people realise that DRM will not go away unless we don't buy into the crap that the MPAA/RIAA pushes upon us.

Please humanity restore my faith.

 

I'm not so sure that the Blu-ray will lose... in fact, its position looks stronger and stronger every week.

BTW, y'all have heard about the Feb 18 2009 switch to digital signals for televisions, right? Cable TV is going to send out a different signal to TV's , and if you don't have something to convert the old analog signal to digital, you'll be up a creek. So, potentially millions of TV's are going to go to the junk piles of America alone as people will have to get a newer TV for their cable to work. This is another reason why high-def TV's and therefore blu-ray will rue the day; as they'll just give consumers another excuse to purchase them.

Actually, converter boxes will be readily available. The government will also issue free vouchers that will cover the costs of two sets per household.