I think the silver lining behind this HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray competition is that it forces the vendors to find something - anything - to differentiate themselves from the competition. If somebody sold you a player that guaranteed you got the proper, high-res signal, no matter what, then wouldn't you buy it?

Regardless, I think HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will be about as successful, relative to DVD, as SACD and DVD-Audio were, relative to traditional compact discs. Do consumers really care about the extra difference in quality? For most, probably not. Somebody, at some point, will sort out the mostly legal issues holding back video-on-demand meets high-def meets DVRs. Then, who's going to want to buy discs any more?