What are the advantages of each format right now? Somthing you can actually see and use today. How do the two formats stack up against each other. Only the facts please.

World wide studio support is about even.

Blu Ray has greater capacity 50GB vs 30GB, 50GB is heavily subsidised though and manufacturing capacity is very limited.

Blu Ray has better max data throughput

Blu Ray has a slight advantage in the current number of films released.

HD DVD players are much cheaper and better defined standard

Current Blu Ray players won't play the full interactive features of discs comming out later this year. This requires a hardware change in most cases so current players will be obsolete. PS3 should be OK.

Blu Ray discs are more scratch proof, but more likely to have playback problems if the disc is scratched.

Blu Ray has a 10:1 player sales advantage

Blu Ray has a 2:1 software sales advantage

HD DVD has a 5:1 attach rate advantage

Most HD DVDs are 30GB, most Blu Rays are 25GB

HD DVD nearly always use advanced codecs, Blu Ray often doesn't

HD DVD has no regional coding, Blu Ray has (to date) unbreakable regional coding

HD DVD has basic DRM, Blu Ray currently has the same DRM however will add whatever additional DRM that is required to keep content protected (Rootkit V2?)

HD DVD is the format of choice of the DVD forums

Good List Jeffy,

May want to add the following items too:
1. Blu-Ray has higher CE support (Panasonic, Samsung, Philips etc vs Toshiba)
2. Blu-Ray has more Retail/Rental support. (Target, Blockbuster vs None (that is partial to HDDVD)
3. Blu-Ray has slightly more Studio Support (Sony/Fox/Disney vs Universal/Paramount)

Current Blu-ray players may not be able to play some advanced features on all future movies. All future movies (the actual movie and most bonus features) will play on current players, so they will hardly be "obsolete".

I'd add one more. And this is reflective of my own experience mostly. I have an HD-A1 and HD-XA2 plus I have the Panasonic BD player. I think BD is more stable. In my case, I have several HD DVDs that don't play correctly on my HD-A1. Most everything plays fine on the XA2. But on that machine, there are lipsync problems that keep me from using the analog audio outs.

I have never had any problem with my BD player. It is absolutely as stable as can be. I just got "Immortal Beloved" and the subtitle repaired "Stargate" today. They looked great.

My neighbor ordered two HD-A2s ... one after another. Neither one worked. He returned them and gave up.

There have been many reports of combo disks not working in certain machines ... etc., etc.

Now I'm not trying to BS anyone or badmouth a format. I love HD DVD and have more titles in that format than BD. And the ones that work (and that's certainly most of them) are very satisfying. And I think HD DVD is gonna eventually win this thing.

But right now, BD just works better for me.