I guarantee you what happens is that Sony decides to release something huge like Spiderman 3 as a Blu-ray exclusive and forces the market their way.

At my place we're all ready to handle 1080P but this is the first I've heard of this 1350 business. Muy interesante. Especially since you'll be hard pressed to find a decent amount of content available even in 1080i currently.

ah HD DVD, the new laserdiscs

more like "ah hd-dvd and blu-ray, the new dvd-audio and super audio cd" or "ah, blu ray, the new minidisc".

The more people who buy HD tvs and switch from watching HD broadcasts to a lower res regular dvd , the more the market will swell for high def players.
As for me, I've got my money on HD-DVD. Not only is the name much more logical when joe sixpack walks into retailstore off the street and asks about it, but the players and discs are cheaper to produce.

Well, I still own about 50 laser discs, all special editions and rare material. And I watch them, um. Uh. Well, almost never now. Damn you AndersWolleck!

Yeah, I think HD-DVD currently has the edge. In fact, some tech writers are declaring blu-ray dead already. I think it's too soon to call, but Sony has a history of pushing its own proprietary formats into the market which the public quickly rejects. Sony's greatest hits, er, flops include:
- Mini-disc
- UMD discs
- Their own format of SD cards
- ATRAC format for digital media
Any I forgot?

super audio. that's ok. no one remembers something no one bought.

Didn't Sony bring the Beta Max to the table also?

Chris, your forgot: let's face it, it's betamax vs VHS all over again, the specifications don't matter. Sony will screw it up again betamax was nicer, blue-ray seems nicer. But Sony never want to share & play nice.

I honestly can't see the point in investing in either until something more universal comes along at a reasonable price. I don't mean to be rude, but I'll be waiting for all the chumps who can't wait to get their hands on new technology to buy in and then I'll buy something when the price is actually right & that buying has made the decision for me. Why buy anything that restricts your playback? I also honestly believe that in this age of the Internet that DRM will contribute to that decision, I think both formats are similar in that regard? I've not read into that though.

I'd say Blu-ray has a much better chance than betamax ever did - because while Sony is certainly a driving force behind it, and their current clout may be questionable... it's not an exclusive format. You don't have to buy Sony to get Blu-Ray... they're simply a strong backer of the technology, rather than the one company with the rights to license the tech.

Where the biggest difference between the formats will become apparent, I think, is when you can buy an entire season (or run even) of a TV series on one disc, or an entire series of a video game (PS3) on one disc. I'd imagine this is in the works already... one BD title with the entire FF series, the entire run of Friends (not in HD most likely). In regards to that sort of thing, the massive size difference between HD-DVD and BD will become much more apparent.

Artsitis: for sure the shear size of BD is an advantage, I just think it's a shame that it will most likely be used to deliver 'quantity over quality' as you describe. (not meaning that the quality will bes less than HD-DVD), but I've worked in broadcast TV a little on-and-off, and the data rates they use for HD video often tend to exceed what we get at the user end of things (obviously). But I'm a person who notices MPEG-type compression a LOT when watching DVD / TV, and even current HD broadcasts in the UK. I worry that distributors will use the capacity availability to cram more on, instead of delivering the best possible quality. (Like you say, all of Friends, but not in HD). Practical, but hardly an 'improvement' :/

This is most likely true for either format though...

Slight correction:
Standard TV = 480i (240 viewable lines at a time)
EDTV = 480p (480 viewable lines at a time)
HDTV = 720i-1080p (540 viewable lines at a time)

The average, uneducated TV buyers are being suckered into HDTVs at low prices because they ONLY do 720p. Most HD channels don't even broadcast in the full bandwidth and I'm willing to bet both Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs for the next few years won't either.

Fair enough - but with a 500GB disc, you could do a full season of a series in HD no problem... maybe 2-3 seasons. A full series that was never broadcast in HD would fit no problem in an EDTV format (unless you're talking, say, the simpsons... or any series going 20+ seasons)

While I said it has a better chance than Beta did, I certainly don't think it's a sure winner. But, as with Beta, it's by far the better format, with the most potential... and a lot of the reasons that Beta failed don't exist with BD (Inferior recording time, poor market planning by Sony)

Love all this added info! I'd love to do a poll question somewhere about where most of you stand.

Anyway, this conversation is getting so geeky and hot, I forgot that there are naked pictures on this site.

History does have a way of repeating itself. We'll see.