This guy was a big HDDVD supporter and now he's gone...

there can be only one

Looks like HD-DVD is gaining momentum despite Blu-Rays technical superiority. Sony has a long list of failures when it comes to storage formats.
This battle between to two HD formats is really sad, especially from the consumer's point of view.
Feeling sorry for the consumer,...not for Sony; they had this comming the moment the prOn industry decided in favor of HD-DVD. History is repeating itself.

Blu-Ray does not possess technical superiority. It has a higher capacity, but falls short in other respects including cost and features.

What are you talking about? The guy was a freakin' HDDVD supporter, there is a bigger chance Warner goes bluray now! Think before you talk!

And a serious lol @ microsoft, paying 150 mill for 18 mon exclusivity! Step down boys, here comes Darwins theory!

Hd-DVD is going downhill with a thundering
crash. Within months, HD-DVD will be nothing
more than a faded memory.............

I keep seeing the argument that sony has had "sooo many flops" in the past at failed data storage...well lets look at that for one second ...how many storage formats has microsoft put out(not to mention ms didnt invent hddvd and sony didnt invent blu-ray but lets ignore that for now)
I seem to recall MS putting out windows ce, me, nt...nt being the only one with reasonable success only to later be abandoned as "unfixable" by microsofts words not mine.
The reason I say this is because the whole format front has pretty much been two sides with a 3rd side that could go either way: the ps3 side(sony) and the xbox360 side(microsoft). I dont recall microsoft ever developing exclusive storage data, and maybe I am incorrect in that assessment but Im not sure that I am.

If the claim is that one format is better for video(hddvd which I dont agree with personally)than the other which is better for storage(blu-ray, the only comparison is a triple layered disc from hd to blus dual layer...which still holds more)...knowing full well that the winner will most likely fill both rolls ie if hdvd becomes the standard people will want hddvd drives in their pcs and more importantly their laptops for watching their movies/burning and backing up data on the go(if the dvd player trend is duplicated).
If that is the case why then would you want to adopt one format that has inferior(and yes it is inferior from a storage standpoint) potential. I can only guess that most people wont want an hd drive just for movies and then a seperate blu drive for storage...why not go with the one that has more potential? blu has shown it can do movies just as well if not better...and the reviews of the warner movies could very well be chalked up to bad encodes, purposeful negligence, or maybe it just isnt as good on blu, I wont know for about a year when both formats are more mature...but the fact is that in the end when all is said and done blu will have more potential than hddvd simply because it can hold more data..in theory their triple layer will hold 75gb compared to 45gb from hddvd...I would rather be able to back up my entire music library and burn a 50gb blu movie onto my own blu disc on my pc that then could in theory be played on my standalone blu-ray player as well than have just a movie on a disc and two seperate drives to accomplish what one drive could do. Lets not even go into backing up your then outdated dvd collection....think 15(reg. uncompressed)dvds(at roughly 5gb per movie) on one blu-ray disc...I mean you could fit almost, but not quite, 10 reg dvds ona hddvd...hmm. Wayy less physical space taken up by your old collection and less disc swapping via blu -Just my two cents-

Microsoft is not the one paying tax on that 150 and have not said they paid it but I would have thought they be. But you know what good for them if they did Sony has been taking everyones choice to decide away from the get go and finally someone did something about it.

By the Warner has done alot more HD-DVD exclusives even before this so it would go to show the ball is more so in the HD-DVD court than sony. I'll give ya a hint which company has been treated badly in favore of Disney and Fox by a company when it comes to royalties. The rumors I hear are that by November if Sony doesnt lax on the blu ray royalties with warner Sony will be missing out on them aswell.

You mention the desperation in a 150 mil dollar payout to Paramount while ignoring the multi-billion dollar loss Sony has taken on it's PS3 in order to promote it's Blu-Ray format. Who is more desperate? Sony knew the PS3 could never stand alone as a gaming console which is why they HAD to include Blu-Ray. Sony also knew that Blu-Ray couldn't stand toe-to-toe with HD-DVD without giving it away to millions of gamers at a loss on the PS3. In the end Sony is gonna end up the loser along with the 2 million boneheads that got bent over for $600.00 for a PS3. Do us a favor an YOU think before you talk!!!!

Sony has now got production on it's BD lasers going resonably well. Cost per laser has dropped from $125 down to $25. I would not be supprised to see the price drop below $5 per laser very soon.

Sony has had some trouble with production of Cell processors. From what I now understand, they have the bugs worked out of the 65nm process. Prices should drop fast.

Early on, Blue-ray movies were more expencive to make per disk than HD-DVD. Disk fabs had to buy new equipment, while HD-DVD fabs were able to reuse much of the stuff they had.

Now it is cheaper per unit to make a Blue-ray disk than it is to make a HD-DVD disk. The Blue-ray fabs have purchased the equipment, and are getting good use out of it. Because of the low density of data on a HD-DVD disk, HD-DVDs must use codecs that have higher licensing fees.

HD-DVD and Blue-ray standards both support the same codecs however, HD-DVD can't fit a full length movie on a disk using MP2. They must use H.264/AVC or VC-1. Both are very expensive.

In the past, HD-DVD had the (rather useless) advantage of PIP. The current Blue-ray standard also supports PIP. I know of no Blue-ray player that can not be upgraded by the internet. PIP should be available on all players now.

Blue-ray is a standard that can do more, will cost the same or less in the very near future, and has room to grow. HD-DVD has no remaining advantage.