It used to be that DVD players were $400 or more, and could only play DVDs and CDs if lucky. Now they are available for $20 some places, and most can play CDs, data disks with an assortment of music and picture media formats, and also an assortment of recordable DVD and CD media types. I have no doubt that the HD formats will also move down in price (they already are) and move up in availability (they already are). Both formats use blue lasers. More than one company has figured out how to make one drive read both. The electronics will get more compact and more efficient and less expensive. Licensing will get cheaper. How do I know? The same thing has happened with all previous electronic devices. TV tuners used to be about the size of a pack of cards. Now you can fit both NTSC and ATSC tuners on a USB thumb drive about the size of a pack of gum. Some HDTVs have DVD players built into them. I expect that within 2 years the new models will have HD drives of one sort format or another built in, and for the same prices you pay for an HDTV/DVD combo.

All it takes is looking back Anthony, and a little imagination. Yes, the data burnt to each format is different, and had to have time spent on it to make it unique. But the same thing happens today within the DVD production business. You'll find basic releases, Director's cuts, and several other variations of each movie released. It's no harder to press HD-DVDs and BluRay disks of the same movie than it is to create and press DVD and different DVD mixes of the same movies. There is no illogic involved. There are already many movies being released in three formats, and you can bet those make more money for the producers than any movie only released in one HD format. For even if there were only 100,000 HD-DVD players out there it would still be a profitable market for content producers. [Link: engadget.com]