Drive speed is the crux of the issue. HD DVD is limited by it's 36mbps bitrates, as 36mbps is the max that early gen players will support. The BDA mandated that all Blu-Ray players support at least a 1.5x drive, thus giving it it's 54mbps advantage over HD DVD. Even if these discs are larger and can hold more data, it still doesn't change the fact that the max guaranteed bandwidth in an HD DVD player is 36mbps. An encode that requires more than 36mbps won't work on older plays.

Hell, we don't even know if these triple layer discs will work on older players, so Blu-Ray may still have the capacity advantage as well.

 you have NO idea what youre talking about. First you say amazon isnt in Nielsen...now this crap....seriously, learn what youre argueing.

No, you don't. BDA made it clear they are using the higher capacity of those discs to achieve a higher bitrate for the video. That clearly means that the triple layer discs matching it would allow the higher bitrate as well.

This doesn't mean HD-DVD can pull ahead, or do you and makingmusic think the higher bitrates are the reason blu-ray is ahead, so cannot admit HD-DVD might match it?*

It will take something else, like dropping prices on discs, to help HD-DVD.

And so far, it's just Sony that claims Amazon is in nielson, so they can deny Transformers sold so well (and it's not about that movie's format; like 300, Transformers was a crowd pleaser, while Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 weren't). 

*making music, you didn't even read what I wrote. I clearly wrote that the maximum reasonable bitrate for 50GB discs is 24mbs, which is LOWER than 36mbs.

And even if a blu-ray film was encoded at 54mbs, that wouldn't help. I also pointed out that 24mbs allows 3-4 hours of video. You can replace the 4th hour with extra feature and audio. Going at a higher bitrate would lose the room for those, so it would be pointless. And don't think those 100GB discs would help, not until the dual layer yields get better (they will, but it's taking a while). 

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#blog20

News from the High-Def 2.0 conference. Sony have said that the Blu-ray profile 1.1 firmware update for the PS3 is expected to be available for download later this month.

Also interesting that nobody from the HD-DVD group was present at the event. 

"Perhaps not surprisingly, none of saw much hope of HD-DVD winning the format war at this point"

I'm guessing that's why they didn't show up. Regardless of what will happen, why show up where you have little support? 

I guess they were having their HD-dumdum party elsewhere, knight

Some more random HD DVD news

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Industry_Trends/Web-Enabled_Features/HD_DVD_Camp:_Web-Enabled_Features_a_Hit_With_Consumers/1234

HD DVD Camp: Web-Enabled Features a Hit With Consumers
Wed Dec 05, 2007 at 09:00 AM ET
Tags: Web-Enabled Features, Industry Trends (all tags)

The HD DVD Promotions Group is reporting significant online usage of its exclusive web-connected features on such top titles as 'Transformers' and 'Heroes: Season One.'

In a new press release issued Tuesday, the group said more than 80,000 unique users had accessed the web-enabled features on DreamWorks' HD DVD release of 'Transformers,' with 31% returning as additional content became available.
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Fot its part, Universal reported an average of 30% of HD DVD purchasers going online to download content and connect with other fans on its web-enabled HD DVD releases, including 'Heroes: Season One,' 'Knocked Up,' and 'Evan Almighty.'

"We've only scratched the surface in offering web-connected experiences to fans of hit movies and TV shows, so it was great to see so many connecting online for these titles," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group. "As more titles from the HD DVD studios include access to downloads, trailers and community pages, the owner of any HD DVD player can take advantage of these web-connected experiences."

As we've previously reported, the HD DVD camp has been particularly aggressive in rolling out web-enabled features over the last several months.

Pointing out that Blu-ray players "don’t have the consistency in their machines to be able to handle this," Universal first announced plans to begin including web-enabled features in all of its non-catalog HD DVD titles this past summer. Since then, the two other major studios currently supporting HD DVD (Paramount/DreamWorks and Warner) have jumped in the web-based extras game as well, releasing several high profile titles with net-connected supplements.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

these new "triple layer" HD-DVDs willl NOT be compatable with the older players.

just like the dual layer DVDs were not compatable with the old school DVD players when they were introduced: as they where marked with the legend "may not be compatable with some DVD players" Now they just say "slight pause may occur on some DVD players" as the DVD players have a dual layer requirement now

simple: new disc requires new drive.

i hate blu-ray. i hate HD-DVD. i like my dvd, and thats all i have to like. end of story.

Unless the lasers were preemptively designed for three layers. The same was not the case with SD-DVD, so this does not prove we will need new players.