Jero,
Look at the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray like this: You can fit a whole season of your favourite TV shows on one Blu-Ray. But will the show producers allow you to? It's like the 12 volume music CDs you can buy for $12 each, with shipping will cost about $15 a piece. We all know that we can fit all those 150 songs onto one 700MB @ 320 bit rate which has all 150 songs on it. So, what most people really want is to pay $25 for an MP3 CD. But they won't sell you that.
In the same way, future broadcasts won't allow you to just record whatever you want. You'll be able to record once (off of HBO, for example), record never or record always. So just because something can fit onto that 30Gb or 50GB disc doesn't mean that you'll be able to.
Do you also have a Laser Disc player in your house? Did you go through at least 4 different DVD players in the past few years? Let's say that you started wth the 27MHZ DAC of the PS2. If you played games and watched movies, then chances are that you wore out the PS2 player mechanism. Then you could have bought a 54MHZ DAc player, then a 108MHZ DAC player, then a progressive scan player, then a player with HDMI, then one which up converted from 480p to 1080i or 1080p.
I would hardly say the HD-DVD is BETA, it is more like VHS in that it is cheaper to produce and therefore cheaper to buy. If HD-DVD is thought of as being BETA then obviously it must have better video quality. But because it isn't obvious, it isn't true. By the same token after DVDs couldn't hold high enough quality in the 1 hour mode a second layer was introduced. What if tomorrow someone comes out with a dual layer HD-DVD, increasing the capacity to 60GB. (For simplicity's sake because HD-DVD single layers are really 15GB). Would it be better than Blu-Ray? No, because someone will come out with a dual layer Blu-Ray, increasing it to 100GB. (For simplicity's sake because Blu-Ray has a single sided capacity of 25GB.) Someone out there is presently working on a 10 layer DVD disk. What then?
With present dual layer DVDs you have a slight pause when it transitions, no? Will that also happen with the newer formats? So what we really want is about 50 GB single layer. That should be able to handle any movie, right? Not really because the real problem is compression. What we want is 50GB uncompressed for the best quality picture. Want to know what "The People" really want? Movies without commercials, without movie trailers. Blue-Ray is advertising that you'll be able to get to the menu faster. Now. But what about in the future? They are bound to take that privilege away. If I know that I can add 20 minutes of trailers (Disney) and now know that I can instead include 60 minutes of trailers, don't you think that I will?
You think that you'll be able to buy a whole season of "Grey's Anatomy" for $50 on Blu-Ray? Or 5 seasons of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" for $50? Unlikely. Would you pay $400 for one disc? The going rate for "Babylon 5" is $80 per season, $100 for the Star Trek Series. Are you willing to pay $700 for one disc? Are you willing to pay $500?
It's just like the .mp3 example I gave. Just because something can be done doesn't mean that they will do it.
As far as gaming goes, what everybody (distributors) wants is Valve's "Steam" distribution method, games brought through the internet. In the computer world we had 'diskless workstations'. It didn't really work, yet that is the model sellers want us to adopt. Is this the model that Sony wants to adopt?, is that what they meant when they said that the future is a DVD-less game station? If it is, then buying a technology which is slated to become obsolete may not be the best way to go.
Now, if you were to buy a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, would you buy the $500 Toshiba or the $1000 Sony? Why buy a HD-DVD add on when you'll be stressing (heat) the XBox360? That extra heat is bound to weaken the CPu and GPU. Why buy a PS3 to play movies knowing how long your last DVD player lasted? Ever get the Apex DVD player which became obsolete when it couldn't handle newer Macrovision encryption? You ended up with a player that could not play certain movies.
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/001899.html
While they say that "The studios will be the kingmakers here," what they are not telling you is how many movie studios Sony owns. It owns most of them. Sony owns Sony Pictures, Columbia, Tri-Star, MGM, Mandalay, Screen Gems/7 Arts, and probably a few others. On the other side you have Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount and Universal (for the most part). Disney is backing Blu-Ray.
Many made a big deal that the PS3 couldn't play 200 (out of 2000 (for simplicity's sake) games. Meanwhile the XBox360 could only play 200 games (out of about 500, for simplicity's sake). Want to know what the real problem is? That even though the PS3 can play some 3000 games, you can't get your hands on them if you wanted to because they aren't being made any longer. So, what good is it? That is the market that the Wii is trying to address. But even if you could get your hands on a PS1 game would you want to play it on a PS3? Nah, the graphics would look like crap. No, what you'd want is the old graphics to be up-converted to the new standards. It can't be done. So what good is it?
Yet, here you have the same problem, backward compatibility. HD-DVD wins. HD-DVD, like Blu-Ray will up convert older movies, movies that may not be re-released in the future. (Doesn't it piss you off that Disney comes out with one-shot releases?, that it advertises that the movie won't be re-released for another 10 or 20 years? Yeah, right.)
Make no mistake about it - if the People are to choose then it will choose based on economics. HD-DVD will then surely win. Okay, think back, which player was cheaper, VHS or Beta after 1 year?
Tell your girlfriend to buy you a $500 Toshiba HD-DVD player.