There are portable DVD players, but will there be portable bluray / HD players? I don't think the technology exists yet to make such good quality that small, but it would be amazing. There is also the question if the eye can even appreciate when it's that small.

I know I'm not going to convert to HD / bluray unless there are portable players. I also wonder if laptops will eventually have the technology included...

Thanks!

I remember reading somewhere Toshiba was working on a portable one for release sometime next year. I'm sure there will be an announcement at CEDIA in 2 weeks.

Movies were not meant to be shown on tiny screens.

I am sure somebody will make one, but what is the point. The screen will suck and be so small the HD will not matter. The only benefit is that you can take HD movies on the road. I have enough regular DVDs that they can continue to travel and I will stick with HD at home. Hell I have only had my portable DVD player a few months longer than my first HD unit.

I dont think its really worth it short of a laptop with BR/HD drives (which there are already). Even crappy quality video looks somewhat decent on a 6-8 inch screen. HD/BR on a 6-8 inch screen would be overkill.

They don't even give you the full res now on standard DVD portables. I can only imagine how much the screen on a portable HD player will suck.

I can see the ads now: "Breathtaking 540p quality!"

The answer is yes. I remember an insider, perhaps Amir, talking about this 1-2 years ago. There was some studio discussion around what to do with region coding and portable players at one time.

The main reason to offer them would be to encourage people who travel to pick HD discs up away from home or something to that degree.

Yeah, the question isn't really whether there will be portable players that play HD discs. I would expect them at some point because there will be a demand for them, since some people will want to play the titles they don't have on DVD. The question is whether they will actually display HD resolution, which is doubtful (at least for a while).

Yeah, that would be the ONLY reason for one. If HD/BD became the "standard", then people would want to watch them on the road. Now, the quality would still be lackluster on a tiny screen.

I know laptops already have both formats though.

that's pretty interesting... the only practical use of portable BD/HD-DVD player would be playing backed up movies on the HD media discs (image the entire show on one disc).

HP has several notebooks with HD-DVD ROM drives as an option, although I'm not sure any of them have 1920x1080 displays (looking real quick I see a couple have 1680x1050).

Still for under $1500 you can get a 17" portable HD-DVD player. They also have 15.4" models (1280x800 resolution) with HD-DVD for around $1200. Back when the first portable DVD players came out, they were around that price for a 7" model.