Nah, it dealt with like nothing btu really expensive stuff.  Like stuff your average person couldn't afford even heavily discounted.

I fully believe that if HD-DVD and Blu-Ray end up "co-existing" and there are enough of both installed in homes, ALL movie houses will go dual format with the exception of Sony. Disney, for instance, would be a fool to ignore millions of players on HD-DVD if it turns out there are millions of units purchased over the next year.

Personally I'd like to see an open-source royalty-free format adopted by some large body. Without royalties, the battle ends immediately. ALL publishers of content will publish when it is FREE to do so...

 There's almost no way that they would "co-exist". No retailer/rental chain/studio wants to have to stock/order/produce everything three times (DVD ain't going anywhere). Rental chains in particular will be the biggest push towards one format or the other. As for studios supporting both, that just seems to be because they're trying to play it safe or are in contractual deals to do so. As soon as one format seems to really take a lead, expect the other to be dumped like me on prom night.

 I believe the overwhelmingly vast majority of films are encoded at 24fps.  One of the movie publishers experimented with higher frame rates when there were fast-panning scenes.  I dont' recall the publisher but I only saw it in a few films and it was definitely "wierd" because all of a sudden, everything was sharper and then it went away when the action/panning stopped.

I'm not aware of any other use of framerates higher than 24fps for a major motion picture relase though that doesn't mean they aren't out there.  I'm also not aware of any major CGI movie being shot at anything other than 24fps.  Cars and Incredibles -- two Disney exclusives, are both 24fps.  So is Shrek.

As far as your assertion of interlace vs. progressive, it is true that progressive beats interlace on a CRT.  That doesn't apply to digital sets like LCDs and Plasmas.  My understanding of this is that LCDs and Plasmas are inherently progressive because they don't scan images onto the screen like a CRT but instead display the entire image all at once.

The "1080i and 1080P are the same" argument holds as long as the source is 30fps or less, and either the display or the source provide for proper de-interlacing so the image is displayed without loss.

You'll definitely need to do more research but after having read a LOT of articles, my understanding is that on an LCD or Plasma, 1080i or 1080p, with proper deinterlacing, are identical for movies recorded at 24FPS. 

What is better? LCD or plasma?

I don't get why a movie company would pay to render 60fps. That would take over double the amount of rendering time which would cost a ton of money and add significant delays to the production schedule.

LCD projector. Cheap and all you need is a huge wall to project it on. It's the only way to game.

@ Shams: Yeah, getting those 9 HD DVDs are sweet. I figure if HD DVD bellies up, I have gotten my money's worth anyhow. And ... being region-free is a big deal to me too. Why in the world are those measures still in place anyhow? Why have region-encoded movies - just let them play on all players, I say ...

I think that's sort of asking like what's better -- blonde or brunette... I belive you will find Plasmas overall have a better black level than LCDs and render standard definition images better than LCDs do.  Plasmas are somewhat prone to burn-in but the newer sets seem to be very good about avoiding the issue.  LCDs don't have any burn-in issues but black levels aren't as good unless you get a better set.  I don't think you can go wrong either way but I went 1080P LCD because I want to use it regularly as a computer monitor and burn-in concerned me since the images are quite static on the applications I'll be running.

here's a good primer for you

http://www.cnet.com.au/tvs/0,239035250,240036500,00.htm 

Reminds me of betamax vs VHS. Betamax was actually the superior format technically, yet VHS wins in the long run (after several years).

But, those tapes were different sizes, so you couldn't really have a dual-format player. Now with these identical disc sizes all you have to do is cram the technology to read both discs in there (in 5 years they will both have $39 versions at wal-mart anyway).

It will never be "free" to publish content. You still need to pay for the discs and packaging and shipping and stuff.