"It said the new product can record up to 130 hours of high-definition broadcast with a 1-terabyte hard disk, and up to 230 minutes of HD content on a single HD DVD. Toshiba will offer RD-A1 for 398,000 yen, it said. "

Not sure how this rates with Blue-Ray specs, but sounds unclear, given the verbage of the article, to say the least.  Is there really going to be a battle between HD DVD, and Blueray, once Blue (and PS3) is officially released. Will it really be more than a short term debacle?  I'd be surprised..

http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ … 32872.html

Blu-ray has already started..

I remember reading a review of the first HD-DVD player in Wall Street Journal that made it sound like a titanic pain-in-the-ass. Considering you need a $5000 home theater setup to even get an appreciable difference in quality for either, I'm predicting both formats will quickly fade and then slowly wither away shortly after ravaging the bank accounts of early adopters, a la laserdisc. VHS survived some 15 years before people saw a need to upgrade, and they won't be so quick to replace their libraries again.

Yeah, and it doesn't even feel like a major format change like going from big clunky tapes to small silver discs that run at higher rez.  Considering the change in image quality probably won't even be noticed by anyone but technophiles, I can't see these formats taking off any time soon...

In all fairness, the price of decent-sized HD-TV's are coming down quite rapidly and both may become viable within a year or two. Both formats seem to be betting on that happening. Whether they offer enough to replace DVD's for the long-term...Eh, doubtful. Especially among the mass market. Too bad for PS3...By the time Blu Ray becomes widely accepted, the next generation of systems will probably be on the way.

I'll just be happy once I can finally score a good 50-inch HD plasma TV for $2000-$2500 and hook what I currently have up to it.

Let's thread hijacking!

On a related note, I really want to get a big, pretty TV when I move back to the states... tell me how bad my old game consoles are going to look on it.  Obviously they're not going to look BETTER like the newer systems designed to output to HD, but will systems connected to the TV through composite look worse than they do on regular TVs?  If so, are there any HDTVs that do something to compensate for that?

Save your money.  Plasma makes games look like shit and its lifespan isn't worth it.  Wait for SED (Toshiba) and that thing Mitsubishi is cooking up first and then compare.

Yes, old systems will look worse on HDTVs.  The best an old system is going to look is on an analog CRT RGB monitor.  Failing that, stick with CRTs that have S-Video or component.

For much more detail on why HDTVs suck for old game systems, read this article: http://gear.ign.com/articles/712/712352p1.html

Good article - thanks for the info.  For my take with my current hdtv, most things look blocky (because they are blown up so huge), but for the most part, look very solid.  I think the problem, for some people, is that the picture is too honest...