The hi-def format war saw some major action over the weekend at Comic-Con 2007, especially with the release of "300," but this time it was Blu-ray that made the bigger splash with some blockbuster titles and support for the adult film industry.

http://www.twitchguru.com/2007/08/01/hd_format/

I think the Blu-Ray group is a bit too arrogant, after all how else do you explain the tactic of having a the entry level BR player bing more than double the cost of the entry HD-DVD unit? Maybe they're thinking that if someone is taking the plunge they won't hesitate to drop the extra $250? After all it's just a drop in the bucket if you're buying a new TV, DVD player, cables & AV center. (Yeah, it adds up...FAST)

Yes, my wife and I did buy the $240 HD-DVD unit and while there is some difference in quality between watching a movie in HD @ 720p/1080i & the same title on a Standard Def DVD @ 480p, it isn't enough to overcome the extra $250 needed to watch BR titles. While the BR exclusive titles are tempting, they aren't $250 tempting.

If a movie comes out in HD-DVD, we'll buy or rent it in that format. If the HD format is BR only then we'll just have to suffer and watch it unconverted from 480p. I think that in the end we might have been happy just buying an up converting player, but for now we're quite pleased.

No matter which format you buy, I highly recommend buying/renting/borrowing Planet Earth. OMG it looks so good.

Will never support BluRay as I hate Sony too much, they think they have to develop their own standard for everything. It's called vendor lock-in and if Sony had their way, we would all be using their overpriced versions for every media type.

I haven't bought into either format, but I have a feeling after the holiday season, HD-DVD won't recover. The timing of the format war was just bad when you consider which side has the "bigger" tent pole movies exclusive to their format.

I know extras sell, and I've been a sucker for it in the DVD world. But seriously, if you're over the age of 30, or simply married, how many of the extras that come with DVDs do you really mess around with? I'll always watch bloopers, and alternate endings, maybe deleted/extended scenes 10% of the time, and the occasional Kevin Smith commentary, but that's it. So I might view 1 extra out of every 5 titles I rent/buy. Not a great ratio if there's, say, 25 extras total. Most of the people I talk to don't even bother with extras as often as that.

If Sony want Blu Ray to meet then there's something very simple they need to do, reduce player prices.

Joe Average won't pay more than £150 for a player ($300) and the real price point for mass sales is around £100 ($200).

Thats why only 1,400 Blu Ray players have been sold in the UK to date.

The way to kick start the market is simple, make the players affordable. That will settle the format war and kick start the HD market overnight.

Sony isn't the only one that makes Blu Ray players. Also I do believe Toshiba has developed a proprietery format (HD-DVD) so saying that Sony is the only one is silly. I never watched the extras on DVDs so I could care less about HD-DVD having more in general per movie. I have a ps3 and and I like watching Blu Ray movies. I have bought more Blu Ray discs then I have DVDs. I was never into movies but after getting a new tv and ps3 I love watching them in HD.