This is likely to be nicely priced against the Toshibas, and vastly superior specification.

How do you get the vastly superior spec?

The HD DVD players have supported all these features from day one (less 1080p, which is now available as well). Also, this is pre-announced, not guaranteeing that Daewoo will get it anymore right that Sony themselves, who so far have failed miserably in delivering BDi, etc.

Again, another example of Bluray FUD. BD is playing catchup in features, not the other way around.

In addition, speculating it will compete is in accurate. If as you say this is the best spec'd Bluray player, it'll will most likely compete with denon etc for the +$1000 market. Not really the mass market device BD needs to recover from the Paramount/Dreamworks blow.

Both products have merits so stop trashing one format or the other. The public will decide what's best. And what's best doesn't always mean "best"

In any case, with 50GB discs and twice as many movies sold I see BD in the lead.

People want more space, maybe HDDVD should upgrade their specifications. It benefits all at the end.

arf!

Surely the way forward is Hybrid players, which offer both standards, and the best of both worlds...That way unlike the much referred to Beta / VHS, the media is the same size / similar format, so I think if it's possible, for both Media / Public to just push for dual format Drives and Disks, such as the Warner idea of using one 'side' per format.

Does this not make sense? Saves us missing out on some movies or buying 2 high Def format DVD players.

Come on guys HD / BD Kiss and make up, there is a lot of $ for both of you out there if you just play nice

arf! arf!

30% more bandwidth and disc space available to Blu-Ray, much faster startup times, Much more content on Blu-Ray, Profile 1.1, better interactive, better PiP, only on Blu-Ray.

All vastly superior to HD DVD...

The sad fact it, studios releasing on both formats, are encoding movies to the lower bandwidth and disc space requirements of HD DVD, and putting the same encoded movie on Blu-Ray, hence there is currently little to differentiate picture quality between the 2 formats. As soon as HD DVD is laid to rest from it's drawn out death (thanks Paramount), movies can be encoded to higher quality for Blu-Ray.

Sorry, not FUD, FACT.

HD-DVD is teh suck. All your base are belong to BD! Take that Fanbois! Woot! 4Real <\shizzaaaam>

(I'm posting anonymously so you can't see my anonymous alias; nyah!)

...and don't even bother guessing...

I want 1920x1080p at 120 frames per second with lossless compression. When can I have that?

So Standard 1.1 isn't even out and confirmed yet and already this apparantly confirms to v2.0... that's impressive.

As for larger discs, more sold.... 10:1 players sold (as Sony count every single worldwide PS3 player as a BR player sold despite in a survey over 40% not knowing it can play DVDs!) yet only 2:1 discs.... check Amazon at the moment for the top selling units.

As for better interactive and more features/content... some of the reasons cited by Paramount/Dreamworks for the recent HD DVD exclusivity was the fact that additional content is a nightmare to write for BR and far more resource and capacity hungry (check the 300 disc for example... where are the features on the menu etc that make it a better use of the extra 15Gb of capacity - there aren't any, the HD disc is a better copy, the extras are better, it actually has online content.. need i go on?)

Go back and look at early quality BR discs, i've seen better from SD, and that's before upscaling....

I think as with most things Sony, BR will die the quiet death, especially as they've now stopped subsidising the pressing, which rumour has it costs more than twice that of HD as Sony own the rights to materials required.

The basic failing for Sony was a lack of standardisation from the outset, HD DVD had this from launch, so all players/discs conform and with firmware upgrades will be able to play any HD disc made from now on.... when 1.1 (god knows with 2.0) of BR comes out, all current players will be unable to utilise the advanced features - such as online content and thus will technically be rendered obsolete - genius! Where do i buy into this sound investment?

Adobe/MacroMedia should release their own format using high compression codecs, but on exsiting single-layer red-lazor DVDs, with flash support for interactivity.