Matthew L. Martin wrote:

I didn't try to name a time frame as I have no insider information. I do
disagree that "years" is likely. The electronics makers want the next
generation very badly since there is little or no money to be made in
the commodity DVD player market. The studios have also observed that DVD
is their goose, laying golden eggs all over the planet. They want the
next generation because they think they will make even _more_ when they
start releasing everything all over again.

If you insist that I guess: they have all been down this road before
(1995-1997, the original DVD delay) I see no reason that it will take
any longer this time than last. Check back in a year.

I think years is definitely an accurate timeframe. Nobody is going to
buy into HD DVD's until the format war is settled. That confusion leads
to consumers having a "wait and see" attitude. With few players in
the marketplace (other than in computers and gaming consoles) the
studios have little incentive to release content. Just look at the
extremely limited catalog of SACD and DVD-A titles available and those
formats have been available in "commodity" players for years. I'd be
pretty shocked if more than a sprinkling of HD titles were available in
a place like Blockbuster before 2008/2009. And even then, the number of
available titles will continue to be dwarfed by the "plain old DVD" for
a long time to come.

That said...

On the cheap end, I like the Samsung HD841/950/971. On the expensive
end, it's tough to beat the Denon 2910/3910/5910.

Cheers,