This has been around the internet, as well as on avsforums.com/ a well known HD-DVD biased kind of place. The news is that the HSTA- Home Theater specialists of America are now exclusively supporting BD. HSTA is an industry group for Home theatre specialists including members of retailing businesses, electronics manufacturers, etc. While this is just a small barely heard of group consisting of about 60 people,things are starting to look very good for BD. I see a whole infrastructure developing around the brand. =)

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6481073.html

Transformers is the only title I am half interested in buying on high-definition (now that I have a large, funky Plasma I'm slightly more interested in the topic).

So its the content that will sell me - and only if the price for the player/movie is reasonable (have to be sub $200AU, which I doubt will happen anytime soon).

...

My DVD player does an awesome job of upsampling to 1080i - DVD movies really do look amazing. So I will be 90% likely buy Transformers on DVD - and 10% on buy it on HD-DVD (+player) if the price is low enough.

(other than that, I honestly couldn't care less about either format).

My two cents: Blu-Ray has a greater market penetration in any market and also has support from some of the biggest movie studios around.

Examples of Blu-Ray's upperhands : 5 million users with PS3's which (as you already know) double as Blu-Ray players.

Dell computers (largest PC provider around. I think) has exclusive deals with BR group and now the XPS gaming rigs come with blu-ray drives.

Blu-Ray motion pictures support includes: Sony Pictures (duh), 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lionsgate, and Warner Bros.

BR corporate support: Apple Inc., Dell, and Panasonic. Hitachi, LG, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson all make up the Blu-Ray Disc Association.

Blockbuster has signed exclusively with Blu-Ray and does not offer HD-DVD rentals in any of their stores. They only support Blu-Ray disc rentals and they do offer BR players in some of their stores.

In July (around the time Blockbuster signed) Target has now said that they will no longer be selling HD-DVD players in their stores. They will continue to sell HD-DVD's movies, but players will not be sold. In terms of pricing at Target AND Wal-Mart the HD-DVD movies cost around 30.00-35.00$ while BR movies cost around 20$-26$

Also, early this september Wal-Mart announced that they will NOT be selling the $200 HD-DVD player in their stores and that they will also be cutting back in their stocks of HD-DVD movies. i have already seen evidence of this at my local store because they now have two and a half sections devoted to BR while the last half of the BR section is shared with a small HD-DVD section.

Misc support: http://www.twice.com/article/CA6481073.html HTSA has pledged Br exclusive support. http://www.pcretailmag.com/news/28750/Adobe-chooses-Blu-ray-compatibility Adobe chooses Blu-Ray over HD-DVD
http://ps3.qj.net/Independent-manufacturers-now-jumping-into-European-Blu-ray-waters/pg/49/aid/102659
Infodisc signs in to BR exclusively. That is an independant market which flourishes in Euro and NA markets.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2198349/maxell-backs-blu-ray-camcorder
Maxell also brought BR to the camcorder market with BR camera drives. HD-DVD has not.
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=477 IIFA support and links that show rising support for BR.
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/09/06/asus_goes_blu-ray/ ASUS showing its love for the BR format too.

I could go on, but it would take more than just a single post. BR has all that and HD-DVD has....transformers.

 And all this matters to the mainstream, how? People don't buy something because of support, but because they want the output of that product. So far, both HD formats have yet to reach that threshold.

The no. 1 error I keep seeing over and over is the assumption that every single PS3 owner uses BluRay. I honestly would think that a majority of it's userbase doesn't use BluRay, and I would also think that there are many more standalone HD-DVD players out there than BluRay standalones.

BluRay hasn't won anything yet, the battle with HD-DVD is still very much heated.

Mrmark

I know 100% that every single one of the ps3 owners use blu-ray, all of them, every single one. Want proof?

True Mrmarc, but I would also think that b/c blu-ray is automatically included in the PS3, a lot more use the BD player in the PS3 than go out and get a HD-DVD attachment for their 360. In fact, Europe was heavily favoring the HD-DVD until the PS3 came out this year. I would think that the PS3 would be a big big factor in BD's success, in fact I think that the format would have had a much tougher time if it were not for the PS3 having it included.

Oh definitely dallas, but I think Sony have over-relied too much on the brand name of Playstation to push Blu-Ray. As if they looked at the success of PS2 to help push DVD in it's early days and thought by magic they can set a new standard in PS3.

I suppose it's a double edged sword, PS3 needs BluRay to stand a chance of survival, and BluRay needs PS3 to get itself off the ground. But if PS3 sales are to hit a slump and slow down to an even lesser rate, it effects BluRay hardware sales while HD-DVD can get cheaper and catch up.

And leo-j, I meant about every PS3 owner using BluRay as a movie format. You can't tell me that every single PS3 owner even owns a HDTV to begin with, let alone that even if they do they will buy and use BluRay movies.

Here is another pretty big and popular movie headed to Blu-Ray this holiday, The Simpsons Movie.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Fox/Disc_Announcements/Simpsons_Movie_Headed_to_Blu-ray/1007

I might pick this one up. I was really surprised how good the movie was considering how bad the series has been the last 6-7 seasons.

Well, BD to HD-DVD sales are basically the same as they were 4 or 5 months ago, but now, there is a subtle difference in the market. 4-5 months ago, BD movies were priced cheaper than their HD-DVD counterparts, now that HD-DVD has lost some brand strength, they are still selling at about the same level compared to blu-ray albeit for one glaring difference : The HD-DVD movies are priced about $3.50 cheaper. 4-5 months ago, Blu-ray was $4-5 cheaper but now the tables have turned. 

So in other words, HD-DVD has been sacrificing more just to get the same amount of market share as it has in the past.