BR is BETTER hands down.  Quit hating, and just accept it.  BTW  it is not difficult to tell the difference between upscaled and BR when you are used to seeing a true HD picture.  Its all in the details of the picture that upscaling just can't quit compete.

Actually, VHS players and Cassettes became more expensive than DVD players and Discs in (roughly) 2002/2003 ... This was (in part) because DVD was a standard for Computers as well as movies and most of the components became remarkably inexpensive, and also because VHS players and Cassettes were implicitly complicated and expensive to manufacture.

What is a Blu-ray palyer? I'm supposed to listen to someone who can't spell player?

I can tell the difference, but it's really a question of whether or not this difference is worth it. How badly do you want to see the pores on movie stars faces? Do you care about individual hairs on people's heads? On a scale of 1-10 how important is seeing the detailed texture of the wallpaper?

I shell out the extra cash because I can, and I enjoy having that sort of thing as a luxury. But if I was a poorer man you can bet that I would be all over upscaled DVD. And after the initial "wow factor" of the clarity it's like all other things in that you get used to it and don't notice or care much after that. I can tell the difference between when I'm watching HD and not, but I never stop watching or complain if something isn't in HD. It's a cool luxury but hardly a necessity that you have to throw down your hard earned cash for or else your standard of living has dropped below the rest of the civilized world that's watching HD.

Limewire

I have a 46" screen and the difference is as clear as day. Upscaled DVD looks much softer than native 1080p, though it is comparible with 720p.

Well previously I would have said of course blu-ray looks better but now the gadget show have said blu-ray looks better im afraid im going to have to say upscaled dvds look better. The gadget show is incredibly bad. I've caught it a few times and I remember being amazed how awful it was. For example to once decide which TV was better they just got a group of 30 people, had the same program on two tvs at opposite ends of a hall and waited to see after a while which had more people watching it. Not exactly a very good test to inform people who don't know better which tv was actually better.

I'm not hating, just stating a fact ...

If you show someone a video on a 40 inch TV from 8 feet away and ask them to identify whether it is upscaled DVD or Blu-Ray without showing them another video (with the other format on it) they would have difficulty selecting the correct format more than (about) 60% of the time.

The truth is that people do not see what actually exists, they see images that were interpreted by their brain ... Without something to directly compare an image to, and with the elimination of the most obvious (pixelation) artifiacts, it becomes very difficult for them to see a quality difference. This is the same reason why you can use an awful TV for years and when you walk into an electronics store and see two TVs side by side (both of which are far better than your existing TV) one can look awful (and you may preceive it to be worse than your current TV).

To the average eye, Blu-ray and DVD may not be much of a difference (unless compared side by side), but the difference becomes pretty noticeable after seeing or getting used to HD/bluray.

Other than that, Upscaled DVD on my 37inch plasma doesn't look nearly as good as bluray.

For me it is not a huge improvement and not worth it. IMO if BR is %100 upscaled DVD is %85-90. There is a noticable difference(I can only assume a HUGE one for sound) for video but not enough to justify the cost.

Another problem is this, your setup is the key to good BR playing. I wrote a post many months back about how my and friends(about 5) first BR experience was a flop. Most people said it did look a bit better but nothing special. From there the post resulted is people saying the movie I watched was not a high quality transfer and that my TV set could not properly display BR's.

Now being a pretty tech savvy individual, I was told I could not properly set up my TV and if I cant do it right that means 90% of consumers can do it right. Dont even get me started on the types of tvs that are out there for sale("HD Tv's" that are 720p max). In closing it sure does look (and I can assume sound, I dont have 7.1 or 5.1) better, but not enough to WOW most people.