HDDVD advice
 

So Ive been thinking about getting an HDDVD. Should I wait for the war to be over with bluray first? And what about upconverters? They are a lot cheaper, but do they give the same quality?

IMO, the upconverters look great, but not as good. There are also quite a few compatibility issues with upconverting and the HDMI format currently. I personally think Blu-Ray will be here to stay for quite a while.

they'll likely both be around for several years at least. Too much money backing both formats. I chose and prefer HD-DVD to Blu-Ray, but it's pretty much a toss up. I mostly don't support Blu-Ray because Sony is behind it.

If I had to place a bet I'd say Blu-ray will win the war, but HD-DVD won't go away for years. I'm personally not buying either until they're way cheaper. The fact that a Blu-ray is in every PS3 and the fact that NewEgg.com doesn't even stock HD-DVD drives (but it does stock Blu-ray) says a lot if ya ask me.

so ah, who wants to tell me if they were buying a full HD TV 46" if the Samsung LCD is a good choice. and where is the best place to buy ?

also I dont know much about PVR's if anyone would fill me in

I'm looking into this too and have a HD DVD player on my christmis wish list.... As far as the war goes I think it's going to be here for quite some time. So I am choosing to go with HD-DVD purely because alot of the movies that I really want to enjoy in HD are in this camp. I believe there is a dual player on the market but it retails around 1000$ THis would be a great solution if it were a bit more cost effective. OTher wise I'll just have to rely on the HD-DVD upconverting feature for those other titles not available in HD-DVD.

spike foot, I recommend the Sharp Aquos LCDs over the Samsung (or really over just about any other LCD). I picked up the 42" after a month or so of research and have not regretted the decision at all. As for PVRs, best bet is to get one from your cable company.

Toshiba and LG both make dual-HD players, and they are still pricey. I got the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 and have been quite pleased with it.

The reason I think HD-DVD will win out over Blu-Ray is simple... it's backed by Microsoft. Anyone who is familiar with the current-gen console wars has probably seen how MS is handling Sony and their band of developers. Money! Sony has a lot of it, but MS has more (or at least more to throw around). On the console side of the house, MS is paying off developers to make 360 only games and/or 360 only content for dual-platform games. They are also giving hefty sums of cash to developers to make 360 games where they've traditionally been Sony developers (Konami is a great example of this, Square Enix is another). This is hurting Sony, but they have had little ability to counter thus far. I see the HD wars going the same route.

Another thing to look at, historically, is Sony's ability to create a standard. BetaMax? It was SUPERIOR to VHS, but VHS still won out for the common man. MiniDisc? Unless you are a musician or are Japanese, you've likely never owned a player, and even less likely have ever owned a retail MD album. Memory Sticks? Sony would love other manufacturers to use them, but CF/SD won out long ago, and Sony only keeps them around for their own amusement as far as anyone can tell. Sony and new formats are pretty much an oil and water scenario.

Great. I came to this thread for answers, and walked away with more questions. =)

Sony can't market or maintain their media formats to save their lives. As xepherys pointed out, lots of Sony media formats have crashed and burned.

Perfect example:

I'm looking through the advertisements in Sunday's paper (yesterday) and 3 different stores are selling the same two high-definition DVD players... an HDDVD player, running $300, and a Sony Blu-ray player, running $700. Sony's equipment has been significantly more expensive since the start (also see PS3) and isn't showing any signs of coming down to compete with HDDVD.

HDDVD will win- but for the immediate purchase, get a good upconvert player unless you really want to spend $300 for an HDDVD box which will likely be $200 by the spring.

Bluray has 2:1 attach rate over hd-dvd. The war will rage for years but at the moment, bluray is winning.

Also bluray is getting pretty close in the recordable media section. You can get 25G recordable media for less than $10 a pop and recorders for pc's are abundant. In HD-DVD camp you can find nothing.

Oh and sony has had pretty good history of making standards, anyone remember 3.5" floppy? Or WalkMan?

Betamax was superior in video quality, but inferior in record time. There was no way you could stuff 8 hours of video on a single betamax tape, and back then consumers did not understand that longer record times = reduced quality.

Interestingly enough, as Beta has survived in the professional sphere (Betacam, then Beta SP, and the digital Beta XP is still being used today), minidisc also is doing pretty well in the professional radio sphere . . .although it's starting to be replaced by flash media.