Here is more info about the HD VMD

http://www.pcworld.com/article/vote/id,136977/thanks.html

Paramount made the wrong format choice and should have stuck with neutral or blu-ray exclusive because it seems hd dvd is doomed for life.

have you guys seen the latest? HDDVDs from china are unplayable everywhere else because piracy is so rampant there.

Why do you people care so much about what next-gen format wins? Ah, yes, because if blu-ray loses it significantly hurts the PS3. So Xbots root for HD-DVD to win so it "hurts" the PS3 and PS3 people root for Blu-ray because that is their default. I myself root for regular DVD upscaled until the next format is known, decided, and as cheap as current DVDs. That will be regardless of my ownership of a 360, PS3 or any other hardware. Why don't you guys move onto someting more important? You know... Like games?

I don't have xbox and I do have PS3 now. HD DVD is something I prefer because of the interactivities. Many people argue it's not important but for many, they are (thats' why there are limited editions or special 2 disc edition dvds). Anyways, with the Transformers audio, not very many people in the world or in North America (one of the biggest market) have equipment suitable to even deal with uncompressed TrueHD or PCM audio. For cheaper manufacturing costs to give the most accepted spec for the majority will offer greater profit margins. Yes, replication costs are almost the same, but what about set up, initial investment, licensing, batching, and most importantly, YIELD? If HD DVD goes away, all the money BD is losing will come back from us consumers when they have full control of the market. If that happens where BD is only player in town, they will lax on their specs but start charging a lot more to "make of for the loss".

Format war is good because it drives down price. Bad for early adopters in case the one they chose lose, but great for overall mass consumers. Release of Transformers made BDA to counter it by offering Buy 1 get 1 free, resulting in bluray discs for 12 bucks each. Great steal for consumers now. I hope they keep at it.

Can't they just put all the extras on a seperate disc or something. Transformers is going to be awesome either way. My roommate bought a 60" HDTV in September and we are all going to watch it tonight or tomorrow I think. It's gonna be one big party. However we are only watching it on DVD format cause none of us have a HD Player yet. I might pick up one on boxing day. Probably a dual player though. This format war is going to drag out at least 4 or 5 years.

 I don't know that they're going to ever lower the prices on the HD formats to DVD levels. I'm pretty sure they view each new format as an opportunity for a price increase. It happened with CDs and DVDs after all.

Darn, there goes my shopping spree in Beijing, lol.

I'm not an audiophile (being that years of drumming has killed my hearing) but how much better than CD audio can you really hear? Didn't DVD-A and SACD fail because consumers didn't see the value in higher than CD quality audio?

I expect that you may need extra space to have 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound but do you really need that much space?

...and this matters why...?