Who cares?! Prices have NOT come down enough for
either to become a de-facto standard!! Media and players both SUCK, are too high priced and the backers of each standard will have poop all over them when something bigger and better comes along.

It's about time that they started making dual-format HD players and recorders...... I've been waiting for that as an incentive to buy one, since I don't want to get caught with a player/recorder that is obsolete or no one is making discs for it anymore.

With both players getting cheaper and movie studios split down the middle there is now reason both formats can't flourish just like DVD-R and DVR-R-.

Why is Samsung not forging forward continuing to push the Blu Ray format? Why? Because HD DVD is gaining ground and the major manufacturers are taking notice. I think with the months to come more manufaturers will join LG and Samsung and make dual format players further promoting this stalemate. The format that can get afordable PC burners and media availabe first will probably win. I know most people want to be able to "back up" their discs before they invest in a player.

If backup is concerned, then, BD is the choice provided they are selling the 50GB BD-R with x2 speed already. The price is affordable. You can find BD-R drives in Asia but for HD DVD? Seems not. And the price is ~US$620 which should be good enough for early adopter.

I got my new Crutchfield magazine yesterday and noticed this unit in it for sale. Its 799.99 and outputs every dolby version, and has pretty nice specs. I think it'll be awesome unit to own once it gets down to about 300 bucks, hopefully by next summer.

Anyone hoping for a "winner" in the so-called "format war" between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is just fooling himself. There is no hope for any "winner" when the movie studios are divided and extremely entrenched in their positions of backing either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray exclusively. A huge number of movies have already been released in both formats.

Face it folks. Neither format is beating the other at this point. Dual format players are the only logical solution to end this pointless controversy. They're the only thing that will get legions of customers off the fence and into the electronics stores.

saw one on slickdeals the other day. You can probably make a media PC for a lot cheaper than a standalone combo player. The HDDVD/BR drive for PC was like $300

Unfortunately, HD-DVD and Blue-ray have very different hardware. A combo drive will cost more than it would cost to purchase one of each. If an HD-DVD component breaks, your Blue-ray player is broken as well.

Why pay more for something that is almost twice as likely to break?

smart move from samsung

What is that BD profile BD profile 1.1 thing? Does that means that most existing BD players will be obsolete unless the firmwares are again updated (Like whith the BD debacle)?

To be honest BD looks more and more like an imature beta product...

This is consumer electronics guys, when you release something peoples expect it to work for 5 years without having to update anything!

I thought both BRD and HD DVD utilized the same laser technology. Why would it be so hard to make a combo drive?

The only viable BRD player at this point is the PS3. Toshiba is pushing HD DVD players down to mass consumer pricing (~$100). So at this point I have no choice but to have two players and I get a gaming system in the deal.

For the guy whining about firmware updates, if you want to be on the bleeding edge, prepare to bleed. Hell, I thought socket 939 would last a while. Or, dvd's for that matter, vcr's lasted a lot longer than dvd's did. I can remember buying a hi-fi vcr for almost $400 back in the early 90's.

I'm not whining, my HD TV still takes my breath away sometimes. It is truly amazing.

Hybrid players compatible with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are very feasible to make. A player with two laser pickups is nothing new. Many DVD players in the past have featured separate laser pickups for music CD and DVD. A number of different companies are making single chip solutions to process all the features in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (and DVD, music CD, various surround sound formats, etc.).

If there are any technical problems in hybrid players then that is something the electronics companies are just going to have to solve. They have no choice in this. The "format war" is over. It ended in a tie. The movie studios are deadlocked in being divided on exclusive support of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Neither side will "win." The only solution to this mess is dual format players. It is very clear. The electronics companies just need to wake up and get completely behind that.