Yep, I couldn't agree more. I was quite excited seeing there were unity discussions, and now this.

Hopefully, with PS3 using Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray having the PC community backing and a larger capacity, that will be enough of an advantage to quickly tip the scales in one direction. Not that I've seen it or have an opinion on performance, but I just want one side to be dominant early on. I think that the large gaming community will help with that a great deal. Gamers are much more apt to pick up the newest version of a console than early adopters are willing to get a new technology with two to choose from.

One thing Blu-Ray has to do is build a solid software library - no amount of hardware penetration will yield a win in the war if HD-DVD has a larger library of movies. That's one front that still has no clear winner.

I for one am hoping that blu-ray will come out on top . The reason being is that HD DVD does not appear to be doing anything to expand their format . They seem to be researching better compression technologies . This would seem to be taking a step backward too me . Blu-ray on the other hand has recently expanded the capacity of their disc too 100 gig's . Granted this is a prototype disc still under development but the fact they put it out there says something about where they are wanting to head in the future .

Offical blu-ray site great heads up source .

http://www.blu-ray.com/

Offical HD DVD site .

WWW.dvdsite.org/

HD-DVD has been adding layers to gain capacity - they announced a 45GB triple-layer disc during the "peace talks" a few weeks ago - but I agree that Blu-Ray seems like a fundamentally better platform. If I had to pick a format that I wanted to see win, I'd probably go with Blu-Ray. Unfortunately, the better tech doesn't necessarily win a format war...

I can't disagree with you there gonk . Speaking of huge disc capacity . There is a company which claims to have a disc capable of holding 1 tera bit with a 1 gig transfer rate . Compared to blu-ray transfer rates of 36 mbps and 50 gig capacity blu-ray looks like it is standing still .

I will try to find the link to the name of the company for anyone interested .

HVD, O.k. it is apparently under development . I am not sure now if it is a disc or something new . But, it is no doubt still very interesting .

http://news.com.com/group+aims+to+drastically+up+disc+storage/2100-1041_3-5562599.html

Well, then...what to buy? I'm new to buying The Good Stuff, but in the past few months have been exposed to Outlaw (950/770), and some others. The price is great, the quality is great, the service is great, and I'm about as pleased as I can be with what I hear in my house right about now!

So - next is the DVD player, replacing my 6-year-old Panasonic Wal-Mart Special.

All of these formats you're discussing - I think ya lost me somewhere back about when Betamax got whipped. Considering two directions - the Future of DVDs, and the NOW of dvds, what machines would get me going in the right direction? What "format' or whatever should I absolutely not compromise on right now? Is there a solid performer I can't go wrong with at a decent price?

These other items (amp, etc.) - it was a little easier to weed them out into Mass Market and Genuine Good Buys - the DVD is just too "cosumerized" to make my online research very productive.

I would have posted this separate or elsewhere, but it seemed to fall in-line with your discussion, so here we are!

What price range are you looking at ?

As for Which player is right for you now I would suggest a mid priced universal player . One that does SACD, DVD Audio, DTS, Dolby Digital etc. etc. .
Does you television have a DVI or HDMI input on it . If you are not sure then about how old is it . If it does you may want to consider a player that up converts 480i to an HD standard .

The price on such players start at about $299 and go up from there . Samung is the cheapest I can think of ( HD 841 ) that does all the above . Although I am not certain it will play DVD Audio or not . At any rate it goes for about $149 and will do all the other important formats mentioned . There are higher end players such as the Denon 3910 at $1499, 2910 at $699 and Pioneer 59AVi at $1599. In the middle you will find players like the Samsung HD 941 with the Farajuda processor for $249 . Sony makes a solid player the DVPNS985 which does all the above except DVD Audio for about $249 . So I say again how much do you want to spend ?

As for HD DVD buy a Play Station 3 when they come out . It will support blu-ray discs and in the event that blu-ray does not become the standard for HD DVD's then at least you can still play video games on it .

Thanks - a good start, I'll check them out.

Price isn't so much an issue - I'd like to keep it under $500, but really, I'm looking for value in Outlaw fashion. All of the players you mentioned are probably great, but I'm still paranoid about the whole "paying for the name" scam.

I'm still shopping for TVs too, but no hurry there, so for the sake of this discussion, let's just assume I get one capable of anything ; )

The "good" dvd player can take advantage of my "good" AUDIO system right now, without the video aspect to worry about yet.

If you get a TV with a DVI or HDMI input, then you can look closely as the upconverting players, as E'pin Sen Ob suggests. My recommendation there would be the OPPO Digital OPDV971H - it's a newcomer, but it scored a 94 on the Secrets DVD shootout (the second highest score ever, second only to Denon's 5910) and it sells for $200. It supports DVD-Audio but not SACD. If you are interested in both of those formats, you might consider one of Pioneer's inexpensive universal players or a Denon. At the moment (and for a long while to come, considering the impending format war), I'm using a Yamaha DVD-S1500 universal player for audio formats (DVD-Audio, SACD, and a transport for CD's) and an OPPO for DVD Video. That's a total of $600 in hardware which I hope will tide me over until there is some hint of which way the format war is going to go. I guess if a decent selection of movie titles shows up on Blu-Ray, I may pick up a PS3 at some point...