ULTIMATELY THEY WILL BOTH FAIL.

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You heard it here first.  The reality is that both of these formats will fail.  Neither will gain market traction, no matter how hard they try.  Why?  A multitude of reasons, really.

1.) The market isn't ready for a new format.  Some people are still getting their 1st DVD players and burners are still far from common.  Even VHS is still on the scene.  The proliferatrion of HDTV is far FAR from what it was envisioned to be back in '96 when Congress implemented the analog broadcast cut-off date.  And we ALL know that without an HDTV (720p MINIMUM, sorry EDTV and SDTV owners!) neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD are worth a hill of beans.

2.) HDTV's rollout will not reach major numbers until AT LEAST 2010.  Why?  People are content with what they HAVE.  Probably 90% of Americans are working with SDTVs are are perfectly content with their signals and quality.  They have no desire to spend $1500+ on a TV of respectable size enough to go in the living room...and there are not a lot of signs that point to a major cost reduction in these TVs.  And until that day (and your average suzie and joe decide it's worth it), SDTV will represent the overwhelming majority.  And without masses of HDTVs in the field (even with the PS3's expected ubiquitousness)...well, see #1.

3.) The difference between VHS and DVD was INFINITELY more impressive than the differences between DVD and nextGen.  What do you mea, Visionary?  Well, let's look at the differences:

DVD's advantages over VHS (and LaserDisc, for that matter):
-Much better picture
-Much better audio
-Familiar form-factor
-Fast-skipping: VHS fast-forwarding on steroids.  2x...4x...20x...40x...
-Chapter selection...clearly superior to fast-forwarding on VHS
-Smaller form-factor...VHS tapes took up a lot of space, by comparison
-Competitive pricing.  They were approx. the same price as VHS tapes.
-On-screen NAVIGATION!  Now instead of seeing random trailers and then the movie, you have a navigation system that will allow you to do all kinds of things
-DVD extras!  Audio commentary, deleted scenes, and other additions that VHS never had.
-Most movies could fit on one disc.
-DVD players could play audio CDs, adding to their versatility
-PCs coming with DVD drives
-DVDs used as storage capacity
-Universal standard with ***NO*** competition (unless you consider VHS competition)

...and there were probably more advantages.

Now let's examine BluRay/HD-DVDs advantages over DVD:
-Better picture
-Better sound
-More storage capacity
-????

Yup, the buck stops there.  Only 3 meaningful advantages in place to try to sell an entirely new format to the masses, when it took DVD all of those 15 advantages and then some (including the ubiquitous PS2 and semi-ubiquitous Xbox, and cascading DVD player prices) to get its installed base...and even then, those 3 advantages are only worth something to a handful of tech-head consumers who have the equipment necessary to take advantage of it.

4.) Confusion.  When the market gets exposed to this mess we call a format war...when they have to deal with BluRay (I can hear mom's world-wide saying "WTF is BluRay?") vs. HD-DVD and salespeople have to start using technical jargon that most people neither understand nor care to understand (ask you average person on the street how big a Gigabyte is.  you'll get a blank stare)...coupled with the myriad of "HD" versions (people think EDTV is the same as HDTV, there are like 5 competing formats of HDTV including Plasma, DirectView, LCD, DLP, Rear Projection LCD, IDLA, etc.) AND the different resolutions 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p and get lost on what's important and what's not...and which TVs have what technologies, most people will go home to their stuff that WORKS and not even bother with HD for years.

Sooo...in my humble opinion, given these simple realities...neither format would see a descent market for the format for at least another 4 years or thereabouts...and by then, we'll be introduced to a superior format.  Maybe HVD...maybe hard drives in the multi-terabyte range and fiber optics or WiMax networks making physical media more and more irrelevant as downloading becomes more common.  For these formats I, in some ways, see the same fate in their future that LaserDisc experienced...

Soooo...I don't see why people care about these 2 formats so much.  All
nextGen systems could really get by without using either format.

</pontification>

 Am I crazy or what?  Let me know!