That's exactly what we did. We wanted a high end DVD player, and the HD-A2 is better than any other DVD player on the market under $100 (and also better than almost any audio CD Player for less than $1000.

I personally do not believe the new formats make up 5% of the total video sales.  Bullshit.  Whose numbers are we looking at, because they're not accurate.  Netflix said that 0.3% of its users viewed Blu Ray and HD-DVD videos combined.  Those are the numbers of people *viewing* the pages.  The numbers actually renting HD-DVD and BD movies from Netflix are significantly lower than 0.3%.

And this is with *zero* additional cost for the HD formats.  Right now, I can walk into a store and get a DVD for $3-$14, depending on the sale and the same HD-DVD/BD is $19-$40.

But HD-DVD didnt even win The week that Transformers came out.  As I recall, the market share for that week was something like 52% for BD, 48% for HDDVD, with BD barely coming ahead.  Already, the Transformers HDDVD movie is ranked at #60 at amazon where it was originally about #10.  So, Transformers isn't really a factor anymore and won't even be a top 100 in a couple of weeks.

That's because BDA launched a nationwide buy 1 get 1 free deal for all blu-ray movies.  Therefore the data that week is skewed too.  The fair comparison would have been if there were no other releases from either format, and just release transformers on hd dvd, and spiderman 3 (and not have trilogy exist so people who wanted to buy trilogy buy spiderman 3 instead), and see how each did.  That's the best comparison, but since it's impossible to make such situation happen, the data will never truly be apples to apples comparison.

Well, I agree that the buy one get one offer did indeed misrepresent the data if you assume that what should be counted are situations that the companies can sustain, and I would think that these buy one get one free offers ain't that.

However, I disagree with your statement that there " will never truly be apples to apples comparisons" b/c we can simply look at the sales over time, which will smooth out the results of these odd weeks so that neither format will have any odd advantages in their charts. So far the sales for this year say that BD has 64% of the HD market, and HD=DVD at 36% of the HD market. So take from that what you will.

Well, the reason i said " will never truly be apples to apples comparisons" is because if you look at the rate that HD DVDs are entering households vs. PS3 entering households, yes, the latter may be higher. But no one knows for sure the true usage of these PS3s, like how many are truly being used as dual game console + bluray player, vs. only player vs. game console only. Right now, it's still too early to say. Any large sales will shift data stats greatly because the variances are too high. It would take at least until after next holiday to really see the results of the market, especially since 5-10% would still be dwarfed by the rest of the DVD market.

He just typed "reach this price point", not how far Sony will be behind. 

The usage of PS3s seems to be ~20%.  But, as you say, no one knows for sure.  It's clearly not > 40% (since only 40% of PS3 owners are aware of BD) and there's little advantage to watching BD unless you have an HDTV and a great sound system.  Only a small percentage of all console gamers have either.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/07/format-war-gets-more-warlike/

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9812929-1.html?tag=blg.orig

Basically, the AV Science forum, apparently the biggest site to discuss audio/video electronics, had to temporarily shut down the Blu-ray and HD-DVD section because:

We have seen members attacking other members not only in debate, which is the right way, but with physical threats that have involved police and possible legal action.

Now I've called on blu-ray fans for their arrogance, but apparently, the HD-DVD fanboys smelled blood after the record sales of the $99 player. I also think Transformers "disputed" record opening, and Spiderman 3 opening smaller than 300, had something to do with it. So the smelling blood and arrogance escalated into some bitter feuding.

This doesn't excuse this thread. As long as you refuse to look at this objectively, and admit this format war isn't going to end soon,* you're part of the problem.

*And drop the stupid line that people would just flock to HD, but this format war is somehow holding them back. Surveys have shown it's indifference to HD that is holding them back.

Well, one of the problems that the forum has been criticised in the past for not really being neutral at all.  One of the bigger mods over there actually worked for microsoft so he was pretty pro hddvd and would ban people that posted blatant pro BD threads.   I think that they just want some rest from all the commotion and arguing that the forum caused but don't think that there were any serious words thrown around or anything like that by either side.

Pioneer Lite-On Digital Solutions (PLDS) will be introducing their DH-401S BD-ROM to the market next month, making it the first PC drive to read (and not write) all three major optical disc technologies (CD, DVD, and Blu-ray). The drive will be able to read Blu-ray discs at 4x and will support an SATA interface. PLDS will retail the unit at £125 (no US announcement has been made).

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1411&blogid=18