Hi MiniRock,
As wonderful as the potential of HD-DVD sounds, the realization of it so far, based on the prototype players demo'd at CES, I found underwhelming. I looked at Panasonic and Toshiba HD-DVD players and saw lots of video artifacts and images that did not come close to matching what I get from some HD movie channels.
Whether it's the too-aggressive MPEG encoding or simply early glitches in 1st-generation prototype players, I'm not sure. More about this in the upcoming Axiom AudioFile newsletter later this month. The format war will have to be resolved and I'm sure problems will be worked out, but in my judgment the CES demos were premature.
You have to view such demonstrations in context. I recall the first CES demo of DirectTV, and any fast-moving simultaneous lateral and vertical action, such as you'd get in a basketball game, would totally freeze and pixelate. Those problems were eventually overcome.
Regards,
