They (Sony/Toshiba) should get the hint that NO ONE WANTS THEIR FORMATS. They need to unify or neither will be successful. I'm not buying anything thats THAT expensive just to get burned because Sony pays this person or Toshiba pays that person to support them.

I just want to buy 1 $150 (at most) player, and be able to pick up ANY 'HD' disc and play it. More than likely, I'll never buy an HD physical format because I can 'rent' HD videos from OnDemand and XBox Live.

I'd hate to be a grammar Nazi, but I couldn't help pointing this out:

... customers can only pick between one of 21 movies.

"Among" should be used here instead of "between," which applies to only two things. And the word "only" should really be put just in front of the word it modifies ("21"), though this is not strictly required. So my version would read...

... customers can pick five among only 21 movies.

I'm done. :)

<insert some oooooooo anti-sony software installing wah wah cry comment xbox360 ftw ps3 sucks fanboi comment>

My take is that the situation is going to end up much like the DVD+R DVD-R one. Both will have their ups and downs, and we, as consumers, will just have to put up with it.

Hybrid players will satiate most wary consumers, and that'll be the way it stays, just as both DVD + and - R are supported by every modern burner.

Hmm, well I guess I'd have to get Corpse Bride, The Phantom of the Opera, err, The Italian Job, ah errrrrr wait you say you've run out of Corpse Bride and TPotA BluRays? Sod that.

Blu-rays’s fight back seems to be based on the PS3. Has anyone here tried using a PS3 for HD video playback in the lounge? My experience of the PS2 for DVD playback and the Xbox 360 for HD-DVD playback has led me to discount consoles as being of any use for the lounge as they are just too noisy for my tastes. Teenagers using a PS3 in their bedroom is not the basis for Blu-Ray to win the battle. Teens are much more tolerant too the aesthetic limitations of games consoles but they also don’t have the money to really push the format. Once the novelty of paying large bucks for Blu-Ray discs wears off, it will be up to the parents to take HD Video mainstream. I suppose there’s a chance that with Blu-Ray having infiltrated a household through the PS3 that this might influence the choice of format that the parents go for!

I hadn’t taken the Blu-Ray advantage seriously but with Blockbusters going for BR only in-store it does seem to have a tangible lead.

Nether format will win the mainstream market.

They already fell into the same trap as SACD and DVD-A.

I can hear it now

"we're outselling HD-DVD 6 to 1"

Meh, Toshiba has been doing this for months now with their HD-DVD players, albeit with three discs instead of five....and it hasn't really helped spur adoption of the format.