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Duh, this one is easy. Blu-ray wins.

Especially since The Matrix set is coming out on Blu-Ray too. Pirates is Blu-Ray exclusive.

So I don't see how this really ups the ante at all. It's still Blu-Ray FTW.

The Matrix collection is exclusive to HD-DVD only for the time being, it will be released on Blu-ray eventually. If you know it's coming to Blu-ray is there a reason to get all bunched up over which format to go with? And how many of us are still waiting for this whole nonsense to end?

Try the HDHomrun http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/10/30/engadget-hd-r eview-hdhomerun/ tuner. Does both QAM and ATSC. HD and SD. it's got 2 tuners and streams the content over it's ethernet port. My uncle has one, and it works great. We had his Vista laptop viewing one channel and my ubuntu desktop viewing another. It won't unscramble cable, but my provider, cablevision, broadcasts non-pay HD in the clear anyway.

EngadgetHD reported this yesterday, but added an update stating that the translation was unclear on whether this was HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/04/20/the-wal-mart- 299-hd-dvd-player-on-the-way/

From what I have read here, this point is no more clear. So, if anyone has the REAL story, we're all ears...

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/01/08/sonys-1-000-0 00-1-contrast-ratio-27-inch-oled-hdtv/

I think samsung even showed a 40" model previously.

If they want to start small how about 24" 1920x1200 computer monitor. I can't stand the viewing angle problems with LCD and I would pay more for OLED monitor in a heartbeat.

Stop talking and deliver.

OK. But, I'd really like to see SED technology hit the shelves. Seemed like quite a bit of news last quarter of 2006. But, since then, still nothing solid.

Here's an older overview of that technology,
http://www.engadgethd.com/2005/08/16/sed-technolog y-explained/

As more and more people get multiple devices, the push-back against DRM will increase, and move from the small population of early adopter tech-savvy consumers, to the larger population "normal" consumers- once they find that they can't move their legally bought content between their devices they will tell their friends not to buy it. My prediction is that the format with the most easily "cracked" DRM will also be the most popular format & will win.

Also, having just been through the deep-dive purchasing decision process for a new plasma TV, it was interesting to see that at a normal viewing distance, on a 50" display, HD or good progressive scan DVD produced a similar picture quality to my eyes (HD picture was subjectively about 5% better... this is comapred to 576p upscaled by the TV to 768 lines).
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/12/09/1080p-charted -viewing-distance-to-screen-size/

Summary- at more than 10 foot viewing distance with a 50" plasma screen there is no benefit to more than 576 lines (us PAL types are in luck here). About 13 foot for NTSC 480P. So for 42" HD is probably a waste of time everywhere. For 50" it is more useful in NTSC territory as long as you sit fairly close up, and marginal for PAL territory.

Also, I saw one HD feed split into similar sets from the same manufacturer, one set was 1080 line the other 768 line. At normal viewing distances no noticable difference.

Well it is also outselling HD-DVD movies in the first 2 weeks of 2007. There were also 12 Blu-Ray movies releases this week and only 1 HD-DVD movie. I agree it's too early to declare a winner, but it's not as ridiculous as you're trying to make it sound.

HD-DVD has only one studio that is doing HD-DVD movies exclusively, and that is Universal. Apparently Universal has been very tight-lipped about release dates for their HD-DVD movies while the Blu-Ray making studios have been willing to list many of their upcoming dates. This has lead some to hypothesize that Universal will jump ship.

So like I said, it's still too early, but as of this second Blu-Ray seems to be sitting in a better position than HD-DVD is. Could definitely be the Blu-Ray camp spreading FUD I guess, but if it is, it's working.

LG announced a dual format player available first quarter 2007.

The first week of January it was 2 to 1 for sales of BD
The second week of January it was close to 3 to 1 for sales of BD

The HD-DVD camp Shot back that there where more title released on Blu-Ray the first two weeks (11 vs 21).

So what to make of this weeks releases? 12 titles to 1
It seems the distributors have decided for us.

HD DVD and Blu-ray releases on February 13th, 2007

Blu-ray

* Broken Arrow (Fox)
* Chain Reaction (Fox)
* Chronos (Koch)
* The Departed (Warner)
* Entrapment (Fox)
* Ladder 49 (Buena Vista)
* The Marine (Fox)
* Phone Booth (Fox)
* Planet of the Apes (Fox)
* Reign of Fire (Buena Vista)
* The Sentinel (Fox)
* The Usual Suspects (Fox)

HD DVD

* The Departed (Warner)

Titles to date HD DVD 159 vs Blu-ray 171.
and remember HD-DVD had a big head start and is now fading fast.

Exactly like you can't buy an HDMI capture card and dump the data to HD anyway...

I wonder what effect dual format players like this LG player will have? Seems to make the whole war less significant from the consumer's standpoint. I have a DVD +/- RW drive in my PC now, so it doesn't much matter to me which burnable media I buy.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/07/08/ricoh-laser-h ead-can-read-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-discs/

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/09/new-lasers-from -ricoh-read-both-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray/

Yeah, well, Microsoft has break-dancers and Sony makes me want to sleep.