Even with 2K material an upconvert to 4K will boost apparent resolution getting rid of screen door, jaggies, and other pixel artifacts -- just as good upconverters make regular DVDs look better on HDTV.

Predi-c-ting that neither side will win is silly, Beta and VHS took YEARS to take off. HDTV has taken longer to take off than had been expected, but it has finally reached the tipping point and adoption is very quick now.

It is true that DVD is "good enough" for many, but this is because people spent decades stuck with quality that was far less and suddenly there was a dramatic improvement. If people had had HDTV for decades with OTA far superior to DVD and suddenly HD-DVD and or Blu-Ray showed up it would be the same experience of awe at being able to have an equal or superior viewing experience.

Don't believe the Digital Transmission hype. There won't be the bandwidth for years, maybe a decade or longer. The big studios are scared to put quality stuff out there even with DRM and the Cable companies are loath to let their internet pipes compete with their bread and butter TV pipes and will shape downloads to prevent full HDTV over internet.

Player costs will come down much more quickly than DVD players did and are starting at a MUCH lower cost point to start with. Once players are can be had for $250 and below, which should happen probably by Christmas this year, they will fly off the shelves. This is when you will see the big adoption rate, at least 20% if not 50% of HDTV owners.

The only real drama here is if HD-DVD can survive till Christmas. If it does we may have to live with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray for years to come.

"Forced"? Do you like being "forced" to by a DVD player with an XBox 360? You don't like SONY fine, but they aren't forcing you to do or buy anything. You would have preferred they not bundle a Blu-Ray player, then buy something else. Some very significant portion of people like the Blu-Ray being bundled, and the fact that games in the future will take advantage of it rather than having to target the lowest common denominator. Sure XBox 360 will play HD-DVD movies with an add on, but there will be few if any games that will use the extra storage space.

If you don't have an HDTV then the PS3 is a poor choice, buy the Wii for best value. If you have an average HDTV (720p) then get the XBox 360, but I'd wait on adding an HD-DVD unless you can stand buying a Blu-Ray latter, or want both formats now for flexibility (cheaper than a dual format stand alone player, and the kids can play with one machine while the adults watch movies on the other). If you have a high end 1080p DLP projector that you spent 2-3 grand on then get a PS3 (you obviously have the money to afford it), but quit whining about how SONY didn't build exactly the machine to your specification for what you want to pay.

My prediction, nobody wins this round in the game-console wars. Wii will sell more units this year, that is for sure. SONY may win in gross dollars sales (less units, but more expensive). Microsoft already recouped their investment by getting to market a year early.

Do I want SONY to win? Sort of. Despite their missteps and DRM, I applaud the bold choices they took in bring the PS3 to market and have high hopes the Cell-Processor will bring new life to computer system design with has stalled out the last four years with IA32/64 maxing out at 3ghz and not scaling well to multiple cores (though they are trying).