The first high-def DVD players have arrived, with Toshiba's HD-DVD beating Sony's Blu-Ray to market. The players are a reasonable $500 - well, reasonable for a new video format. Blu-Ray is expected to start at $1000, althouth the PS3 will likely be a lower cost option. HD-DVD movie choices are limited at launch: The Last Samurai, Million Dollar Baby, The Phantom of the Opera and Serenity for now, with Apollo 13 and Doom due next week. The early buzz is that sound and picture quality shame standard DVD, but only if you have high-end digital outputs (DVI or HDMI). Analog outputs such as component are locked at lower resolutions to prevent piracy of the high-res video stream. The exception seems to be non-copy-protected regular DVDs, which can be upconverted to higher resolutions - but since they're lower quality to start, you're not going to see huge improvements...[See the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Movie List]
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