Vanillacide, the only reason HD-DVD is half the price (today) is because it's the only way Toshiba would still be in the game with their one-company format. The PS3 will be $499 and a more useful device than an entry-level HD-DVD device, and other Blu-ray players will come down in price as well. Meanwhile Blu-ray has virtually all of the CE, PC, and studio vendors supporting it. HD-DVD will die, it's just a question of how long Toshiba and MS will keep throwing money down the toilet before it does.

For all intents and purposes, it is "Microsoft's iHD". They invented it, and attached Disney to it to try to give it some credibility. Disney doesn't even support HD-DVD, how much iHD work do you think they are doing? Microsoft created iHD pure-and-simple to prevent Java from building on it's standard position for cable TV (as part of OCAP, which will become a standard part of your set-top box and eventually TV over the next few years). MS has spent literally billions of dollars since the late 90's attempting to own the living room, and has precious little to show for it. iHD is just their latest failed attempt to force the industry to bow to their proprietary standards.

I have a contact in the TWC executive offices. I contacted him. His response was that TWC's policy is to provide CableCards for any verified UDCP and that they'll straighten things out in Raleigh. There is, however, apparently some controversy as to whether the Tivo Series 3 has been fully validated.

Philips developed a PC-based Blu-ray simulator for software development work. I'll bet this is one of them.

Vista isn't required, just a secure video path. If this can be implemented by third parties on XP (or Win98!) then Blu-ray on XP is good to go!