It is so many reasons for me.
1. Format war(no need to explain)
2. If the format war end with both format on the market. I am waiting for good compo player, witch play DVD/HD-DVD/Blue-ray.
3. Number of titles. All the good old movies I have on DVD and number of new titles is not that great(Live in Iceland) 20 title here at the most an the HDDVD/Blueray players is expencive.
4. I have upscaling Home theater, so I am not in a hurry.

I bit yesterday and got the HD add on for the 360. How can you beat the price ($179), plus Heroes for free ($99), plus the five free by mail? It looks great so far. Thing is, if something comes out on Blu-Ray instead of HD, I'll just get the standard DVD...no big deal, no need to wait until the 'war' is over.

= J

Consistency.

It's the only thing HD-DVD is succeeding in despite the fact Blu-ray has the higher storage space.

I want to be able to replace my DVDs. I don't want to keep them if we're going to a next generation format. This includes:

I want superior picture quality. I don't want a transfer that's slightly better than an up-convert. I want beautiful 1080p transfers out the door on whatever I am purchasing. This also leads to picking a single video codec and fucking sticking with it. Thank God Blu-ray has finally began to move away from MPEG-2, however, Microsoft needs to take the stick out of it's ass and make the VC-1 codec more readily available. I like AVC, but it could take up a lot of space if not compressed properly.

I want superior sound quality. I won't settle for anything less than PCM, Dolby Digital TrueHD, and/or DTS Loss-less on films made within the past fifteen years -- this also goes with including a basic Dolby Digital Plus track for those who don't have the sound systems to properly decode such audio. I am completely fine with mono, stereo, and-or basic surround sound on older catalog titles or television shows.

I want all of the bonus materials that were made available on the film's DVD. I don't want just a selection or what is considered the best of. HD-DVD has been able to make this happen as most bonus material previously made available was mostly all produced in standard definition. If a dual-layer HD-DVD can hold the film plus all of the extras why can't a single-layer Blu-ray disc? Fuck, a dual-layer Blu-ray disc should be able to do all of that and then some. I am completely fine with standard definition extras as long as it's on there for completion sake.

Better choice of titles. This goes for both formats. Is anyone clamoring for HD-DVDs of The Getaway remake, Patch Adams, For the Love of the Game, or The War on a format that's relatively new? Same goes for Blu-ray by choosing such winners as The Replacement Killers, Secret Window, G.I. Jane, or Identity? While I want titles that are going to look amazing in high definition, I want titles that are actually watch-able.

1) It's kinda unrealistic to replace your entire DVD collection entirely with HD in the short-term. Just won't happen. Way too many titles. Of course, it depends on your own collection, but for me, with 1000+ titles, I'm taking it easy. If anything, this is a good reason to start collecting HD titles now because you'll be that much further ahead of replacing your DVD collection, anyway. Why wait 5 years from now when thousands of titles will be on HD, but you won't have the cash to make up for lost time when HD titles were released. Just a thought.

2) I wasn't aware Microsoft was hindering the availability of the VC-1 codec. But maybe I can be enlightened. Are they being snotty with movie studios or is it a lack of cooperation by other companies in the market who are competing.

3) Expect a wide variance in features on HD titles. I don't think this is every going to change. But get ready for the double-dippin' HD disc because it will certainly creep its way onto store shelves, just like so many other SD DVD double and triple-dips have.

I do agree the format war could go on forever, and as I said, I really want to upgrade to HD from SD, but it is not the same leap from VHS to DVD, so I can wait. VHS to DVD was such a leap, I couldn't wait to buy a DVD player back in 1998, even when DIVX was still battling it out with DVD. Now of course 1080i will look incredible on my HDTV, but SD is still good enough where I can wait a bit longer. How long? Who knows anymore....

So by your logic, whenever someone sees a good value, they should buy?
I saw a deals on cars all the time... I guess I should be buying them frequently.
I stand by my opinion- being proven by the market as I type this - that average consumers would be insane to buy now. They will not decide on HDDVD and settle for not being able to buy a movie they enjoy that's being released on Blu-ray exclusively. Yeah, as DVD collectors, part of a DVD forum, we are in a community prone to accept this new technology and are excited to latch on, but the average consumer still looks down the HD isle with confusion an patience. They don't see a price tag over the fact that half the isle is in Red and Half in blue. They don't see a good value in an A2 over the fact that Pirates of the caribean is in the blue packaging and they can only buy red.
So now if they want to watch Pirates, they have to buy a Blue-ray player... so much for this "good value" you speak of.

Would you buy a car that can be driven on half the roads in the US, just because it was a good value?

I'm holding out for quality titles. There's only been a handful of titles I would want to buy released to date.

nope, you are confusing my point and extrapolating something that i never stated. i said that an average consumer who is looking to buy a decent upconverting dvd player would get substantial value out of buying a HD DVD player instead. to correct your analogy, if you were already looking to buy a car, and there was a car available with substantially more features than another model for hardly any more money, you would be wise and sane to take advantage of that value.

you stated repeatedly that average consumers would be insane to buy now. i refuted that by pointing out that there are many average consumers considering upconverting DVD players who would get a better value in a HD DVD player instead.

again, you're trying to twist the point into something else. someone considering an upconverting DVD player would be wanting it to watch standard DVDs. by buying a HD DVD player instead, they can do exactly what they could have done with that upconverting DVD player (arguably with better performance) in addition to being able to watch HD DVD titles. they won't be able to play Blu-ray titles, but they weren't looking for that capability anyway.

believe me, i understand your general point. the average consumer that genuinely wants to graduate to hi-def media is wise to be hesitant given the state of things right now. however, given the studio-allegiance split and the way things are trending more toward the middle than in either direction, an average consumer who jumps into one of the formats now can hardly be considered irrational or insane, as neither format is showing any signs of going away or backing down.

could you call them unwise? maybe, but there is a huge gulf between "unwise" and "insane."

I think some hesitation comes in for many of us when we imagine building a collection of HD-DVD discs only to have Blu-ray win in the next couple years. Still, I won't necessarily wait for an end to the format war. If my Oppo died tomorrow, I'd seriously consider replacing it with an HD-DVD player before buying another region-free SD player (which I would eventually have to do). I might also be tempted enough to jump in when well-reviewed combo players appear. In the meantime, I'm content to stay with SD.

Actually, now's a great time to buy. For $600, you can have both an HD DVD player and a Blu-ray player. Perhaps that's a lot to spend, but it's considerably cheaper than it was a year ago.

Waiting for the format war to end ... now THAT is insane. It's not going to happen any time soon.

I am still waiting to jump into the HD war.

This Christmas (Black Friday) may push me in if the price is right for BR-HD player, it seems to be the best product.

The content/movie (without a great story/content/acting, video quality does not matter) is the most important part of the Home Viewing experience, then it is Video-Sound-extras...

So far I am very happy with DVD, waiting for a clear winner or a great price is where I am at.