You can wait until the dust settles, (like most people, in 5 years) or you can buy now and enjoy some really super picture quality that you just simply can not get on standard def DVD.
Up until this point Blu-ray had the titles and HD-DVD was missing some titles. That is about to change with the Matrix trilogy, on HD-DVD only. (due later this month) Blu-Ray has some good Disney titles coming later this year, and at present time they will not be offered on HD-DVD. So my take at this point is that both formats have either announced or pre-announced a decent number of titles, to make this a non-issue between the two formats.
The brand new Toshiba finally outputs 1080P, so dont get confused and buy the older, less expensive player and think that you are getting full HD-DVD, because you will be disappointed. But even still the brand new second generation HD-XA2 still does not output 1080p/24. 1080P/24 will become prevalent in the fall along with HDMi-1.3
As for the new lower cost Panasonic Blu-Ray, it does NOT output 1080P/24. The Sony BDSP-1 and the Pioneer unit does.
The LG combo player has been applauded because it plays both discs, but it has received poor reviews for its color saturation, and it does not have a full implementation of the HD-DVD functionality.
Be sure to check out the review in Home Theater June 2007.
I compaired the Toshiba 1st gen player and the Sony. I bought the Sony because the picture was significantly sharper, and brighter. I have not compaired the new unit but I have seen it in action and it looks to be closer to what I get on my Blu-ray setup.
Enjoy
Up until this point Blu-ray had the titles and HD-DVD was missing some titles. That is about to change with the Matrix trilogy, on HD-DVD only. (due later this month) Blu-Ray has some good Disney titles coming later this year, and at present time they will not be offered on HD-DVD. So my take at this point is that both formats have either announced or pre-announced a decent number of titles, to make this a non-issue between the two formats.
The brand new Toshiba finally outputs 1080P, so dont get confused and buy the older, less expensive player and think that you are getting full HD-DVD, because you will be disappointed. But even still the brand new second generation HD-XA2 still does not output 1080p/24. 1080P/24 will become prevalent in the fall along with HDMi-1.3
As for the new lower cost Panasonic Blu-Ray, it does NOT output 1080P/24. The Sony BDSP-1 and the Pioneer unit does.
The LG combo player has been applauded because it plays both discs, but it has received poor reviews for its color saturation, and it does not have a full implementation of the HD-DVD functionality.
Be sure to check out the review in Home Theater June 2007.
I compaired the Toshiba 1st gen player and the Sony. I bought the Sony because the picture was significantly sharper, and brighter. I have not compaired the new unit but I have seen it in action and it looks to be closer to what I get on my Blu-ray setup.
Enjoy