It is the latter. Universal, WB, and now Paramount have announced(albeit without official dates for most of them) a ton of titles they plan to release between now and the end of the year. Some of them are pretty big too like The Matrix, LOTR, Harry Potter, Batman Begins, Superman Returns, Star Trek, etc. It'll probably be until at least 2007 before any studios like Fox, Disney, or Lions Gate decide to commit to HD-DVD in addition to or instead of Blu-Ray. I'm guessing they're waiting to see how the PS3 and X-Box 360 add-on play out in the marketplace. Once they're able to offer dual layer discs with more advanced codecs than MPEG-2(and hopefully ditch the PCM tracks), they'll at least be equal in quality to HD-DVD. That could take a while though. In the meantime, it's an inferior looking product and the lack of space is also resulting in the extras being ditched. And as you pointed out, even if/when these issues are resolved, the players(save for the PS3) will still cost at least twice as much as HD-DVD players. True, Amazon in particular has some great prices with their 10% off special. You can get nearly all the WB titles for under 18 bucks apiece. Plus Universal is lowering the MSRP on their HD-DVDs to $29.98 on August 8. So those can also be had for under 20 bucks. This is a far cry from the DVD format's initial launch. The price is lower, the movies look and sound better, and there are extras on virtually every title(even if they are recycled). It's the format war that's holding a lot of people back right now. Well that and the slow penetration of HDTV sets into homes.
You could just pick up a up-convert (hdmi) dvd player, they are cheap and it makes the picture cleaner (not because it 'upconverts') because it matches your TV's resolution and scales the picture perfectly to match. so if you have a 720p tv, then set it to 720p, 1080i, then 1080i. its just cleaner. Panasonic and Sony are good. I also read really good things about this player: http://www.oppodigital.com/
Except for Universal, aren't those studios offering equal (or near equal) support for both formats? I think Warner usually puts out movies on HD DVD first and then on Blu-ray a little later; that could be a big deal if some of those make it during the holidays for HD DVD but not for BR. I recall a few of those studios saying that some of those movies would be on BR too (Batman and Matrix come to mind). Also, I'm assuming you got those movies here: http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/ Perhaps I missed it, but are they planning to release all those movies at the end of this year (just no specific date), or are they just "Coming Soon"? Lions Gate will probably do that assuming it is a attractive option to them, but I do know that Fox and Disney do have a bit of a vested interest in Blu-ray. Fox is really big on the BD+ protection that BR uses, and Disney created a lot of the interactive technology used in BD-J...although no BR movie is currently using that (another screw-up by the BDA). Of course, I'm not trying to make it seem like they are tied to BR like Sony. They'll do what's best for them, and if that means supporting HD DVD (possibly exclusively), they'll have no qualms doing so. They just may be a little harder to convince than some of the other studios (except for Sony). I think Panasonic put out authoring tools for the advanced codecs a while back (late June, early July). AFAIK, Warner will be putting out BR movies in August (the 1st day IIRC), which might be using the more advanced codecs. I believe they said they wanted to use VC-1 for both formats, but that a few of the first movies they made used MPEG-2. Whether the first movies they release happen to be the same titles, we'll have to wait to find out. If I'm not mistaken, I thought Warner said they'd offer the same content as their HD DVD cousins, so I might lean towards those using VC-1. I believe Disney has said something about trying out all 3 codecs that BR supports, and I believe their movies will have extras (so probably using advanced codecs when necessary). Not sure about what Fox and Paramount will be using. I think 50GB discs are currently scheduled for September IIRC. I'm not sure if studios will be using MPEG-2 on those discs or one of the other codecs. They've been out for a while in Japan, so I'm not sure what the hold up is. As you said though, the price difference will probably still be there. Assuming the BR studios can get their stuff straightened out, then the BR CE companies will have to do a good job on the BR players if they want people to pay an extra $200-$500 on their players. It wouldn't hurt if the BR studios put out some big movies like Warner (Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, X-Men, etc.), but I think only a few, if any, of those have been talked about. Maybe they'll start putting out some more "affordable" players down the line. I think Pioneer had mentioned doing that a while back. I think I read about someone who bought a BR disc with no plans at all on buying a BR player. He just wanted to check out the new disc coating that TDK developed. Since the movie cost like $11 and not $40, that wasn't a problem. I'm actually pretty happy with how both sides are treating the consumers, outside of the format war. Movies are pretty cheap (relatively speaking), there are a ton of movies (with extras as you mentioned), DL discs are or will be out soon after launch (along with burners), and HDMI won't be an issue for a while. That's much better than the DVD launch from what I could tell. The only problem is convincing people to buy a HDTV (if they don't already have one) and then putting down a couple hundred bucks (minimum) on a HD movie player that might not offer an experience worth the price. But that will be less of a problem as time goes by and the prices fall on both items, not to mention the fact that the format war may be over by then. Plus, maybe the studios and companies can iron out all the bugs and technical issues that are showing up during the launches of both formats.
