Of course this will all be moot if WB actually takes sides as they are now rumoured to be thinking about.

Indeed. I think they'll wait until the aftermath of the holidays and gauge their decision based on the performance of either format. Their choice could definitely prove conclusive.

I've tried to find sales comparisions to regular DVD, but didn't find much, the only thing I found was that Transformers first day sales were 98% DVD.

Anyone have more data? Standalone players and disc sales.

For less than $99 dollars, might as well pick up an HD DVD player this Friday at walmart! It's ridiculous price!!! To be exact, the HD-A2 is $98.87!!!

http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?section=secret

What's best? Blu-ray or HD DVD?

Hmm... If you just look at some basic statistics then it becomes so obvioulsy!!! Don't you think so? If not, read the comparing table between the High-definiton Optical Media Formats (DVD included for comparison) below:

^ a Playback times are quoted for single sided discs of each size starting with the largest at the stated average bitrate, higher or lower average bitrates would change the available playback time. The numbers represent video only and the choice of audio codec and extra content also affects playback time.
^ b All HD DVD players are required to decode the two primary channels (left and right) of any Dolby TrueHD track,^[115][116] however every HD DVD player released thus far decodes 5.1 channels of TrueHD.
^ c Secondary video decoder will become mandatory for new Blu-ray Disc players with Profile 1.1 on October 31, 2007.
^ d There are some differences in the implementation of Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) on the two formats. On Blu-ray Disc, DD+ can only be used to extend a primary Dolby Digital (DD) 5.1 audiotrack. In this method 640 Kbit/s is allocated to the primary DD 5.1 audiotrack (which is independently playable on players that do not support DD+), and up to 1 Mbit/s is allocated for the DD+ extension. The DD+ extension is used to replace the rear channels of the DD track with higher fidelity versions, along with adding additional channels for 6.1/7.1 audiotracks. On HD DVD, DD+ is used to encode all channels (up to 7.1), and no legacy DD track is required since all HD DVD players are required to decode DD+.
^ e On DVD 24 frame per second content is stored as 60 interlaced fields per second using a process called 3:2 pulldown, which if done properly can be reversed to retrieve the original 24 frame per second content.

The HDDVD player at Walmart may in fact be a ridiculous price at under $100, but what is the point unless you can have a good big collection of films on the player that you like.

In the end, it will always come down to what films you can get.

Personally speaking, of the big film releases at the tail end of this year...HDDVD only have 3, whereas Blu-ray have quite a few.

My money would certainly be on a Blu-ray player ahead of any HDDVD player....why spend $100 on an HDDVD player, buy 10 HDDVD films over the next 6 months and then have to buy a Blu-ray player next year and get the same films again.

Media type:	High-density optical disc
Encoding:	MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), and VC-1
Capacity:	25 GB (single layer), 50 GB (dual layer)
Read mechanism:	1x@36 Mbit/s & 2x@72 Mbit/s
Developed by:	Blu-ray Disc Association
Usage:	Data storage, High-definition video and PlayStation 3 games

vs

Media type:	High-density optical disc
Encoding:	VC-1, H.264, and MPEG-2
Capacity:	15 GB (single layer) 30 GB (dual layer)
Read mechanism:	1x@36 Mbit/s & 2x@72 Mbit/s
Developed by:	DVD Forum
Usage:	Data storage, High-definition video and Xbox 360 games

 The Blu-ray Disc format represents PS3 and its games while HD DVD format represents 360 and its games! You can both find BD-movies and HD DVD-movies... The BD-format has better stats than the HD DVD, and that's why PS3 games CAN BE BETTER in both graphics and storage, but if the BD-capacity is used well is another case... I only say that PS3 games CAN BE BETTER, but not that THEY ACTUALLY ARE!

it doesn't matter whether it's marginally better or not, you see the trend of picture quality increasing over time, whereas HD DVD quality has been remaining stagnant.

And yes, I do know that Transformers has gotten perfect scores on audio, but this isn't always going to be the case with every movie that does DD+, why take the chance?

It's a shame that the video scores given for Transformers wasn't 100% compared to the Silver Surfer (see below):

Maybe they used more of the space on the HDDVD disc for audio thus reduced the space for the video?

The advantages of BD include:

-Greater studio, retail and other industry support
-Better security features. HD-DVD was cracked for ripping a while ago, and just this week, BD was cracked. BD doesn't just have AACS like HDDVD does, but also BD+, and watermarks, so its a few steps up with respect to security.
-Cheaper on a movie per movie basis.  Yes, BD movies are a bit cheaper than their HD-DVD counterparts
-More storage means better picture and sound quality.

-BD has better resistance to scratching than HD-DVD