LOVE those cropped UMD movies....

Some more things to consider:

If you get into HD now, you can start buying your new major releases (or even catalog titles you never got around to picking up) in HD. Every title you buy in HD will be one less you'll want to repurchase in HD later. Also, if the titles have two-tiered DVD releases, the HD versions may even be cheaper than the 2-disc versions.

If BD wins, so be it. The HD-DVD player is not that expensive, and like others have said, you can also upconvert DVDs. I think it may eventually be useful for other things, considering it has PC guts. Someone may figure out how to put a hard drive in there and use it as a full-fledged media center or just an extra computer.

If BD wins, it won't be for at least a year or two, and in the meantime you can buy some HD-DVDs and enjoy them. If BD does win, I certainly have no plans of repurchasing BD versions of the movies I have on HD-DVD, which, at best, might be marginally better than those HD-DVDs. It's not like Divx where you lost the ability to play the movies two years after the format died.

And for heaven's sake, don't put down Serenity! People get upset when you do that. Bash Phantom of the Opera instead. I like that film, but I seem to be way in the minority, so I don't think you'll get criticized for it.

An excellent point. The Jarhead Collector's Edition (which is OOP_ gets $30-$50 on eBay and Amazon (used/new etc.). The HD-DVD has all of the extras in a single disc and runs you $22.

Same thing with Cinderella Man. Everything from the (now OOP) Collector's Edition, but easily available, and $22, not $25 or $30 or more.

Not the most exciting examples, but in this case, you could actually turn a profit by selling those old editions.

I bought the RCA HD DVD player last week. No regrets so far, I love it!

Agreed. Probably even longer. Lucas isn't big on using his titles to sell hardware, since he has no reason to do so and sales may actually suffer from being too quick out of the gate. The OT hit DVD in Sept 2004, when there was an installed base of approx. 78 million players in the U.S.

We have a long ways to go before HD formats achieve that level of penetration...

"old B&W movies" still can benefit from HD resolution. The main issue there is studios will be very slow to release that sort of material on the format. Early releases will primarily be the newer, flashier, widescreen flicks. But it will happen.

I think Maltese Falcon is rumored to be coming out soon, and others will follow.

Frankenstein is listed as "coming soon" on toshibahddvd.com. I would love to see the hd version of that.

You mean the SE in 2004. The OT comes out this year on DVD.

They had BETTER restore Dracula if they are bothering to release it on HDdvd. The Dvd releases looked absolutely terrible, old film or not.

Maybe.

You have to ask yourself a couple questions.

Do I spend alot on DVDs right now? If so, some of those could be hd-dvds and you can invest in the high def format instead of standard dvds.

Do I need an upconverting player? If so, you will probably be spending a couple hundred on it anyways. Put that money towards an A1 (around $400-450 depending on where you get it) and you will then have a nice upconverting player AND HD-DVD.

Are there current HD-DVD releases that I want? Go to amazon.com and browse the hd-dvds. You will see all the titles available and many that are coming out soon. If you see alot that you would like, that will make your decision easier.

It all comes down to how much money you can afford really. Personally, this is a hobby of mine and I put money towards it just about every month. Luckily, I dont play golf like alot of my buddies, so I can afford it.

Ok, I just got my player in the mail today. I was already sold from the demos at BestBuy etc, but now all I can say is it is amazing. I never really believed the people that said it was hard to watch regular DVD after watching HD-DVD, but I understand now. I have not even set my system up yet, simply plugged the machine in and watched a movie over component video and was absolutly amazed. The best equipment investment since my first DVD player. I emphatically say that if you buy DVDs and own a larger HDTV you absolutely need an HD-DVD player.

Very cool. Glad you're happy.

What firmware do you have? do you only have component or do you have HDMI/DVI?

I am gonna check the firmware this weekend if not before, and I have both hooked up right now. I black seems a little light on HDMI, I need to calibrate everything.

I am about to take the HD-DVD plunge. I made an offer on a Oppo player on eBay and the seller never got back to me.

With news of TV shows like Smallville coming to HD-DVD, I will be getting one sooner than later.

......If I wasn't trying to save for a new house, I would have one already.

i ended up geting the A1 and HD-DVD is awesome, the picture quality is amazing. I would say right now its a better buy then Blueray.

I just ordered the A1 from Onecall and should have it in a few days. Now I need to upgrade my display device, which is a Toshiba 65H80 dating back to 2001. It has worked flawlessly and that makes it that much tougher to part ways from, but I do want HDMI.

I've got an old old Hitachi set that's past warranty. Some chips on it went bad about a year ago and the repairman was kind enough to leave me the factory/service manual so I can go in and realign the set to my liking. A couple of minutes of work every few weeks and my set looks great. Just 1080i, but until it stops working I see no reason to upgrade. ICT won't come around until 2010 or 2012.

Thanks for the reply The Bus. I guess until they implement the ICT, I am fretting a lot unnecessarily for HDMI. Us early adopters are wanting to upgrade, but also know that our "early" RPTV's still deliver a great picture with better blacks and a greater reliability that the current "in" technologies. It makes it that much harder to pull the trigger when it works great and the current technology is going throught a lot of changes (and challenges). Maybe I should just leave well enough alone.