I just purchased a Toshiba A3 player and went format neutral, as I have been a Blu-Ray supporter for last 5 months. I have several questions in regards to both Hardware and Software for HD-DVD.

1) A3 is a 1080i player. My TV is a 1080p and so is my Panasonic Blu-Ray player. What is the difference between 1080i and 1080p? Will I notice it on my Sharp Aquos 42 inch TV? Will my TV upconvert automatically to 1080p?

2) I bought Apollo 13, Face-Off, Bourne Supremacy, Backdraft, Transformers, and of Course Bourne Identity and 300 came with Toshiba. My question is, why is HD-DVD support so many extras (which is good), yet Blu-Ray software lacks extras in most cases (Some exceptions are POTC movies and other few titles) Is it the studio differences or software/format differences?

Thanks

1. You won't notice a thing. Do an A/B comparison between HD/BR. Unless you have perfect 20/20 and are sitting at the perfect distance you won't notice a difference. I should add this is usually an arguing point so you will see follow-ups stating this is not true. For me, I don't notice a thing. You'll notice a pattern shortly on why 1080p is better and see which format they prefer.

2. Certain studios on the HD side tend to provide more extras while certain studios on the BR side do not. It all really depends on which movies you buy, as Fox is known for not having any extras while Universal is. Most of the time their is plenty of space left over on the disc (either 25GB/50GB for Blu-ray or 30GB for HD DVD), but for some reason the extras from the SD were not transfered over.

Not true as Fox's titles after their hiatus have all had extras.

Very true. However there is still a ton of Fox titles out their with little or no extras on them, as well as MGM and Sony titles with little or none as well. Spider-Man 1 and 2 is a prime example where the SD counterparts were loaded with extras (enough to warrant several different re-releases) and the Blu-ray counterparts had nothing. I'm not much of an "extra" person anymore, but I still glance at all my movies to see if anything sparks my interest. I hate having to keep old DVDs around when I own the HD/BR version which lacks certain extras.

To partially answer the question, early BD titles used MPEG-2 video encodes and PCM soundtracks, both of which take up a lot of space, on single-layer discs. This didn't leave much room for extras. They've since switched to AVC or VC-1 for video (although PCM is still used) on dual-layer discs in many cases, except for some recent Fox titles that were probably encoded before they pulled out.

The other part is that, yes, some studios are just leaving off extras, or at least some of them, intentionally.

Spider-Man 1 and 2 will eventually be re-released with extras, that's why they're not sold seperately.

As far as the quality between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, there's not really any difference concerning a superior format; it all depends on which movie you're watching. I've seen less-than-stellar results from both sides, all of which looked better than the DVD version, though. As far as the 1080i vs. 1080p, I can't really say. I've never seen 1080i on a high-def TV coming from an HD hardware source; my TV is 1080p, so I can't make a judgment call on that. As far as the supplements go, they've been doing that with standard DVD for years; why would anyone think they would stop now?

Opinion, not fact.

Would like to add that the HD-DVD camp tends to not include lossless soundtracks for the majority of releases while BD is on the opposite end of the spectrum as lossless tracks are on the majority of the releases. Lately, extras on some high profile releases have not been included (Jack Ryan Collection).

Lossless tracks may or may not be important to you depending if you are more of an auditory person. I really like them.

He asked about extras, not audio options.

To me that is an extra and probably to most people as well.

That's your opinion, not a fact. Not everyone who owns an HD DVD or Blu-ray player have anyway of listening to the audio tracks.

As I said before, he asked about Extra features, not audio options.

That is your opinion. Whether you like it or not, having lossless audio is an extra. Lossless tracks are not part of the standard specs for either format so when studios include them on discs they are considered extras.