HD-DVD obviously has the better namesake. I'm hoping for both of them to fail. They just don't offer the storage increase over DVD i'd like to see in a truly next-generation product. They should have both been beyond the 100GB mark to give us greater than an order of magnitude increase over DVD. The other thing that bothers me is the form factor. It's just too easy to stick with the 5" disc I suppose, but as I mentioned in another thread, I'd have liked to see something 3" or smaller (3" discs are compatible with most current player trays out there - though I suppose current slot-load mechanisms would be a problem).

My ideal would have been UMD size with 100GB.

BTW, I'd say BETA was vastly inferior to VHS due to one of the most important factors. You could often not fit a whole movie on one tape! The record length was too short. I'd call that as much a technical issue as picture quality/line resolution.

The HD format "war" also faces similar issues of capacity, though the picture quality comparison is moot. I don't think we'll see the adoption rate with HD formats like we did with DVD (which completely shamed CD and VHS adoption rates).

Then of course there's the notion of solid state or media-free distribution. I suspect that will be a bigger factor on how all of this plays out rather than one physical form factor over another. Again, knock of wood for HD-DVD and BluRay irrelevance ASAP.

Bruno