http://www.vidabox.com/Products/SLIM.htm

I want one.

It's not a dual-format player.

From the site:
http://www.vidabox.com/Products/SLIM/SLIM_Specs.htm
So it contains a drive of your choice, either DVD burner, a BD drive, or HD DVD drive, but not a drive capable of all the formats.

DAMMIT!

I think this is the one you want:
Max

Ok, now I'm confused. Mr. There-Should-Never-Be-A-Dual-Format-Player.

Well CLEARLY (as Jay pointed out) I wasn't interested in the dual-format player. I was referring to the Home Theater machine with only the HD DVD player.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Oh, ok. Uh, huh. Sure. Gotcha.

In all honesty, I think that's where this will go eventually...but i don't see that happening for another few years at least. If one of them doesn't die within 3 years, that's my option.

http://www.vidabox.com/promo.htm

...where did I put my credit card???

If by next Christmas, there is no clear cut winner, then we may have 2 formats for a few years. That is plenty of time for the studios to get whatever kinks they have in their software and hardware out and pricing should start to fall further around that time. Maybe by then the public will start to be aware that these 2 exist.

Microsoft, Playstation, and Nintendo have exclusive titles for their systems, so I don't see why movie studios can't have ones for theirs.

This makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to me.

And you're not the first person I've heard to say it.

I want the MAX - That is awesome. Especially he fully loaded one.

Yeah...Im going to have sweet dreams about that one being delivered to me personally by Fergie.

Well, the only issue I see with this is that it costs 3x as much as just buying the two standalone players. But other than that, awesome.

And twice as much as buying both, plus a nice Mac for an HTPC.

(At least) One of the major manufacturers is currently working on a dual format player and will be ready for production by summer of 2007. I saw a prototype this week, and it looked pretty sweet.

Enh. Doesn't mean anything. Just because there's a prototype, doesn't mean it's going into production. AFAIK, there were several that made prototypes.

But that can be said of ANYTHING.

You could've said that about the Toshiba A2 about six months ago, that it might or might not go into production. Just because they had plans to produce, didn't necessarily mean that they will produce.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Current plan is that it WILL go into production.

We'll see what Sony has to say about that.

They're the ones that have stopped the others from going into production.

Sooner or later, someone will get one out...and then it's all over.

I have a feeling we'll see at least two or three of these next year. The chip vendors who have been talking about this subject lately are in the best position to know what the CE companies are asking for.

But what the CE companies want may be in direct competition to what Sony/BD wants. Remember, they're in charge. If CD companies start producing dual-format players, they're going to flip.

Yep, I understand that. The question at this point is what legalities do companies like LG and Samsung face to deliver these to the market? We don't know, well I don't know, what agreements they have within the BDA, nor when these agreements run out.

I think the thing we can all agree on is that Sony is the company who has the most to lose if these players make it to market. If the Chip vendors have been working on dual-format players, and are talking openly about it now, then you can bet somebody is pushing them on the idea. It appears to me that the studios, save Sony, would prefer a quick solution over a long battle.

Isn't that just a rumor though? All I've ever read was people guessing that as a reason.

Apparently the dual-format chip from NEC is already shipping:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/10/n...y-hd-dvd-chip/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061010-7948.html
http://crunchgear.com/2006/10/10/nec...ayhd-dvd-chip/

So why do you think it will be later than next summer?

Yeah...cause...Sony just discusses their business practices with everyone??

I never said I thought it'd be later.

I always thought a clever workaround was to sell a player skeleton with two drive bays. You can pick what you want: CD burner, SACD, BD, HD DVD, DVD, etc. If the BDA really does not allow selling dual-format players, then they can package this with no drives in it and you buy drives separately.

Surely no one is going to sue a computer maker who offers these options as well.