Format wars are decided by the consumer, not by the people in the electronics business. Those same kind of people preferred Beta to VHS because it was a technically superior format. But the public didn't get behind it and it lost.
HD DVD is outselling Blu-ray by a wide margin. It is less expensive--both the players and the movies themselves. Aside from the smaller storage capacity with HD DVD, there is little difference between the two--except that when titles are released on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, Blu-ray gets regular Dolby Digital and HD DVD gets Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby True HD and the In-Movie Experience video commentary. So if you want more interactive features and superior sound, and if you want to save money, you will buy the HD DVD. That's a no-brainer.
(As for the storage capacity--studios could technically put entire seasons of TV shows on very few discs but they don't take advantage of the full storage capacity of current DVDs. That won't change. Just because studios have the ability to put the entire Star Wars saga on one disc doesn't mean that they won't want to sell you six anyway. We have been programmed to believe that a two disc set with the movie on disc one and the bonus features on disc two is more for your money than one disc. Even if all of the M:I:III content would fit on one Blu-ray disc, customers see a two disc set and think they are getting more for your money. That's the way we and the studios are. Even if it were possible, they couldn't sell a season of a show on one disc for $75. Nobody would buy it. Put the same content in a four or six disc set and people will think it's a deal. That mentality and sales approach won't be changing with the next gen formats.)
I should say that I have both formats, and I enjoy both formats. I just prefer HD DVD.
Now, I also believe that there will be no "winner" to the format war. Both sides have some advantages and have established a presence in the market (although HD DVD has the lead in sales), and in order for there to be a winner as in the VHS vs. Beta war, the public would have to completely get behind one or the other. That will not happen. People are going to wait until one wins, and they will be waiting forever. Both can (and I believe will) remain on the market as niche items. We will have to buy red boxes for some movie studios and the blue for others, much like we do our video game shopping. We accept that we can't play Halo on our Playstations, and we will have to accept that we can't watch King Kong or Serenity on our Blu-ray players. I think that a dual format player will come out along with a game console that will play Halo, Final Fantasy, and Zelda all in one.
But as for one of the formats winning the war and controlling the HD market, I don't see it happening. Blu-ray has wider studio support, but studio support didn't save the UMD or D-Theater HD VHS. It also has higher costs and that will mean a much tougher battle to gain consumer acceptance. If we can get a reliable HD player on the market for $200, the format to do so will have a shot at widespread acceptance. I don't see Blu-ray breaking that price barrier any time soon, but I think that HD DVD has a chance.
If you are worried about backing the losing format, then just sit it out and wait. Neither will win the war and you will just end up downloading your HD content anyway in the near future. If you want to enjoy HD movies today, you can. Get a 360 with the HD drive and a PS3. The cost of both is about what you would pay for a stand alone Blu-ray player, and if either format dies you will still have a good game console. (Although the 360 upconverts your existing DVD library to HD compatible levels and the PS3 does not. So if it's backwards compatability you want, go for the 360.)
