This one was actually a pretty easy decision for me since I despise anything Sony, but I have taken my stance firmly on the HD-DVD side of the high-def disc format war.
My new(ish) Toshiba laptop came with an HD-DVD player built-in, but I have to admit that I've only used it once to view an HD movie just to test it out. The picture was supurb, but since I have not been travelling all that much this year, I've had little need for a portable DVD player, and buying discs that would only play on my laptop made little sense to me. So I continued to be a non-combatant in the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray conflict.
Then this summer, when I finally broke down and decided to buy an XBox 360, I found that I could get a smokin' deal on the XBox HD-DVD player if I bought both items as part of a packaged set. Adding the HD player to the package cost a little over $100 and I ended up with 7 free HD-DVD movies as part of the deal (after rebate). Hooking all that stuff up to my HDTV and a/v gear was pretty painless, and the result was being able to play games and view movies in stunning 1080i resolution (my TV doesn't do 1080p) with surround sound. I was instantly spoiled by my video system's hitherto unused HDTV capacity.
But there was a catch. The XBox + HD player are god-awful noisy. Since my a/v cabinet is open faced, you can easily hear the cooling fans and drive noise during the quiet parts of movies. This is not so distracting during game play, but quickly becomes downright annoying during movie viewing. Since I had replaced my standalone DVD player with the XBox stuff I also had to endure a noisy disc player when just watching "standard" DVDs. Another annoying "feature" of the XBox HD player is that it is not able to upconvert my standard 480p discs to 1080i. Not that standard def DVDs look all that bad, but even the fairly low-end players on the market can upconvert now.
As the family and I were enjoying King Kong in HD a few weeks ago, at an abnormally high volume level to drown out the fan noise, I'd finally had all I could bear. Something had to be done about that infernal noise! I toyed briefly with building an enclosed insert for my a/v rack to help insulate the noise from the XBox gear, but after reading so many horror stories about 360 overheating issues and the red ring of death I quickly decided against doing anything to restrict its airflow. If I built any sort of enclosure, it would need to be well ventilated, and probably require having its own cooling fan which would sort of defeat the whole purpose. It soon became apparent to me that I was either just going to have to endure the noise or pursue a different noise reduction strategy altogether.
I decided that I would start looking for a deal on a standalone high-def disc player. Since the format war still rages, I thought it might be worth checking out the LG player that supports both formats - until I saw the prices. No way I was going to drop more than a grand just to get back to the middle of the format road and still satisfy my irritated aural sensitivities. I was simply going to have to decide whether or not I could live without Disney movies in high-def (sorry Mousketeers, Disney only does Blu-Ray). That took about a second (even though Pirates of the Caribbean would probably look great in HD), but since I'd already made an entry-level investment in the HD-DVD format, it soon became a no-brainer to me.
Last week I found a Toshiba HD-A3 for just under $200 (after my Amazon 30 day price guarantee gave back $25 yesterday). The thing that enticed me the most though was that it ships with 2 movies in the box (one of which we already have, anyone need a copy of 300 in HD?), 5 more free movies from a decent selection pool as part of a promotional package, and a rebate coupon for 5 more freebies via the US Mail. So, for the grand total of $199.98 I received an HD-DVD player that is both fanless and can do upconverting to 1080i, a total of 12 free movies (okay 11 if you discount the dupe title), and free 2 day shipping (I love my Amazon Prime). Not bad, eh?
Oh, and did I mention it is dead silent when it operates? Yessss!
Since Microsoft was nice enough to use a standard USB connection on their drive, I now also have an HD-DVD player for my main PC so it may not totally go to waste. Vista picked it right up, Nero plays the HD discs just fine, and the drive noise just blends right into the ambient noise that exists in my PC lab anyway. Might come in handy if the kids ever want to enjoy an HD movie while I'm watching rugby on the big screen.
So, I have made my definitive choice in the HD format wars. One can only hope that it is Blu-Ray the ends up on the shelves next to the BetaMax in the Sony Hall of Shame once the dust settles (or that the prices on the combo players drop substantially at some point in the future).
¡Viva la Revolución!