Well, the format war just got easier for me. Paramount and Dreamworks say they're no longer going to do Blu-Ray discs. That means that Transformers, when it comes out later this year, will be on HD DVD. As Engadget says, it's probably because the price of the players is coming down very quickly.
I was already leaning in that direction because of the fact that the HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 is down to $180. Even if the format doesn't survive, that's not a terribly expensive mistake.
While watching tennis over the weekend, Diana mentioned how crappy it looked. DirecTV has not been real strong ever in terms of quality, especially with the local channels. I remember that even on the "old" CRT TV, seeing compression noise in the picture. I know it wasn't the TV, because seeing it in Steph's apartment on digital cable, it looked fine. I've settled for a long time.
When I got the HDTV last year, I got a tuner card for my home-made DVR (using BeyondTV) to get over-the-air HD signals. Unfortunately, I'm kinda far away, apparently, even though I can see the transmitter antennae, to use a simple antenna in the window. I can only get FOX and ABC.
The DVR itself is a barrier to change. I mean, it's free. I built it three years ago now, and it still works like a champ. It talks by a serial cable to my DirecTV tuner. It tunes over-the-air signals. I'm not really missing anything, though I'm paying $50 a month for mediocre quality from DirecTV. Upgrading would cost $200 up front for a DirecTV HD DVR/receiver, plus another $20 a month, and my existing DVR would be taken out of service. There isn't much benefit there. And cable doesn't even have a DVR option.
I think the obvious solution is to have a better antenna, outside the house preferably, but there are apparently housing association rules against that. There's little doubt that I could pull in those over-the-air signals easily. So I guess I'm stuck.
I guess it doesn't matter that much, because I only really watch 24, House and Boston Legal, all in HD, from the air, free. I like Scrubs too, but I can't get in the NBC affiliate, so I record it from DirecTV. I guess I'm just starving for real HD content, especially movies. That player for the Xbox is probably the best path to that for now. It'd be nice if the iTunes store would start doing its movies in HD.
I have the 360 HD-DVD drive and it works pretty good for a sub $200 unit. There are probably better devices out there but this does everything I need and the picture is fantastic. I didn't think I would get as much use out of this as I have (mostly thanks to Netflix).
The included media center remote is an added bonus as well.
I picked up the 360's HD-DVD drive for exactly that reason -- I figured for the cost of entry it was worth getting to play with. Picture quality is definitely worth it.
The fact that my PS3 plays BluRay means I haven't decided jack on this format war anyway :)
I DON'T like using game consoles as movie players, though, and this round is no different. I just don't like putting the extra wear on the system. So when a clear winner DOES emerge (or a dual player comes out at a reasonable enough cost), I will get a standalone player, but for now this setup works.
Oh, my TV and receiver would be out of inputs too if I didn't have these.
(Connected to my home theater:
Home Theater PC (HDMI)
Dish HD DVR 622 (HDMI)
PS3 (HDMI)
XBox 360 + HD-DVD drive (Component)
Wii (Component)
XBox (Component)
standalone DVD deck (Component)
Dreamcast (VGA + SVideo for games that don't support the VGA output)
Jaguar (SVideo)
(That's actually a lot simpler than it used to be -- I put the Saturn, SNES, NES, Genesis, Turbo Duo, and Atari 7800 in my spare room on an old CRT to free up some clutter in the front room, and allow use of the light gun games on the Saturn, NES, and Genesis. I even picked up a second Dreamcast when they were down to $25 to put on that TV for lightgun games :) )
How often I PLAY any of the old systems is another story, but as a collector I like having them there.