Isnt this a bit late to come to this conclusion?

probably the same way they were suckered into buying MD or DCC in the pre-CDR days. or the way they are suckered into buying DVDA or SACD these days.... oh wait? you mean you don't have either?!

Tosh sees HD-DVD losing then.

The problem is, the manufacturers want a unified format, the consumers want a unified format, but the people backing the formats dont. Now, the stakes have been raised even higher, and I can't see any kind of unification, becuase of the PS3. Yes, it's sony's fault. HD-DVD would be just fine, it's really all we need for our next-gen needs, but Sony's deed set on forcing Blu-ray onto us, and will never acquiesce, becuase multiple divisions of thiers are riding on this. Imiagine if Blu-ray fails/ dies out, the PS3 is not only a failure, but Sony lost billions on it, and now has to modify it and lose even more that way. We're not going to be forced into supporting either (unless you're one of the IDIOTS who's going to buy a PS3) and we shouldn't. Consumers need to sit this one out, and skip both, not just becuase this whole thing is dumb, but the DRM issues, Content control, exorbiant prices, and the fact that DVD works just fine, thanks. In a few years, we'll be moving past optical storage, likely to flash-based storage, which is vastly superior, so let's just sit this one out.

> hese electronics manufacturers are probably growing > weary of this costly format war, which looks more like the > VHS/Betamax debacle every day. Correction: Looks more like a Betamax/Betamax debacle. Based on the reviews so far, there does not seem to be a compelling reason to use either format. It is interesting that Toshiba is now talking publicly about a truce. Maybe they are trying to be the good guys, but you could easily draw the conclusion that they fear they may actually lose the battle. Or, more likely, they fear both sides will lose, which is a very reasonable assessment.

The funny part will be when the dust settles, there will just be another technology that will blow them both away

Well, look at the entire market. Who's the competition? HD-DVD's competition is *NOT* Blu-ray. And Blu-Ray's competition is *NOT* HD-DVD. The competition is a three way combination of HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, *AND* DVD. Complain all you want about how DVD sucks in quality, but look how big it is. You can get a player on regular price now for $20, on sale for $10 or less (btw, how about a Low End Theory on DVD players?). Samsung's Blu-Ray player costs $1000. Toshiba's HD-DVD player costs $500. Decent players are still $200 and below. The fact is, there's a very good chance that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will fail, because DVDs are "good enough", like CDs are "good enough". Sure you can get better, but why would you? HDTV adoption is quite low - it's rising, but still low. People are buying it only as replacement TVs, and then feeding their DVD players, OTA broadcast, etc into them. The picture's better, but SDTV is still "good enough".

Hey Worf, go ahead and insert "VHS" everywhere you said "DVD" above and see if your statement hold any historical merit. And you will have to define what you think "quite low" is in regards to HDTV adoption. And HDTV adoption is BLOWING up in this country. I've seen 3 different revisions of HD numbers in the US over the last year and everytime they UP the numbers because it's growing faster than they thought. People will move to a "better" technology when it is available. It's the reason we don't have crank start cars anymore or rotary dial phones. New technologies advance our ease of use and enjoyment of pretty much everything on the planet. There WILL be a "next" format. Will it be HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? Don't know. Might be something else. Personally I think VMD's could sneak in at the end of this year with CHEAP players and enough extra storage space to please the buying public. http://www.nmeinc.com/index.aspx 20GB disks. Red laser technology (read: CHEAP and WIDELY available technology.) Those two things alone could give people a viable option until the "big boys" figure out their blue laser/copy protection/screw the user scheme out.