LG has just announced that they will indeed be building a hybrid BluRay/HD-DVD
player (as opposed to Time Warner's hybrid discs which will be demoed at CES). More here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070104-8550.htmlAnd Samsung is still hanging on the fence, waiting to see what happens. However, most industry watchers don't think the hybrid players will make much of a difference in "ending" the format war, since Sony's licensing costs for BluRay and the necessary hardware will push the cost of the dual-format player into the ultra-high-end spectrum for the forseeable future.
For now, if I was a betting man (I'm not), I'd put my money on HD-DVD rather than BluRay if forced to choose. Despite BluRay currently having slightly better studio support (but this is partially because of Sony owning a bunch of studios), and slightly better technical capabilities, HD-DVD currently leads in two huge ways (and ones that often end up mattering most): manufacturing-ease/cost and licensing. BD looks so far to be a typical move from typical Sony. If the past can be used as any kind of guide, Sony will probably trip and cough up the ball before too long.
We will see. For now, my butt is also firmly planted on the sidelines. And frankly, who needs a HD optical disc format anyway? It seems to me like a solution desperately searching for a problem, and a see-through ploy to prop up movie studio profits again. Do they seriously think that all of those Average Joe's who just finished building their "back" DVD collections up (which is a big reason why the DVD sales figures are suddenly slumping) are going to do it all again? Most of them don't even realize that their DVD's
aren't already HD!
My money would probably go on neither format doing particularly well compared to DVD, and both being eventually replaced by digital downloaded content.