Okay I didnt know where to go for camcorder help so I settled here. Well my wife just purchased a Sony hdr-ux5 camcorder for me. I was wondering if the dvds can be played back on a hddvd player. The box only mentions blue ray. I cant really open it and try because we'll have to pay the 15% restocking fee if it doesn't work out. Please someone help.

I don't believe they can but you can convert them to HDDVD format DVDR: http://avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705146

Okay I didnt know where to go for camcorder help so I settled here. Well my wife just purchased a Sony hdr-ux5 camcorder for me. I was wondering if the dvds can be played back on a hddvd player. The box only mentions blue ray. I cant really open it and try because we'll have to pay the 15% restocking fee if it doesn't work out. Please someone help.

Your wife is a generous lady. This camcorder is so new I can't find a review or user comments. Best I can tell from the online info, you can record and playback SD DVDs on anything, but in HD mode the discs can only play on Blu-ray machines OR on a PC using the included editing software. A camcorder using mini-DV or a hard drive would give you more flexibility (and higher bandwidth.)

But the best place to ask might be in the HD DVD authoring thread, which is a sticky in this form. There are some guys there more familiar with Sony camcorders and HD DVD compatibility.