I believe BR movies are mastered as 1920x1080 image frames at 24 frames per second. I believe this includes the black bars for a 2.35:1 format. I don't believe they are anamorphic which changes a lot of things.
So for a 2.35:1 movie, I believe the black bars count as part of the vertical resolution (1080), so to begin with you lose ~21% of your resolution and the actual image vertical resolution is down from 1080 to 850. Since you have a 1366x768 TV, the 1920x1080 image is downsampled or downconverted to fit in this space and you are down to 606 vertical lines, so the "image" resolution is 1366x606.

A regular DVD has a max resolution of 720x480. Let's take the best case scenario and say you have a 720x480 2.35:1 anamorphic DVD movie (which I don't think exists). The image is upscaled to 1366x606, so 646 horizontal pixels need to be generated and 126 vertical pixels need to be generated. These generated pixels are best guesses, and as good as some of these guesses are, take them for what their name indicates, they are GUESSES. When you go the other way, take a 1920x850 image and downscale to 1366x606, there's really no guessing, all the information is there, decisions are made on what to throw away. So in theory, a downscaled image looks better than an upscaled image.

In the end, all this talk about resolution, color saturation, etc. is mute. It all boils down to what YOUR eyes and mind notice. If you don't notice a difference, all this tech talk is pointless. Not everyone's eyes are the same, some will notice the slightest difference, some will notice no difference at all. You read the comments, reviews, and hope that your eyes are within the norm, but you never know until you "see" for yourself.

My suggestion, go buy a player, take it home and see for yourself. If you feel it's worth it, keep it, otherwise return it.

Future proofing? I'd be interested in the process just because I like to tinker.
If my HD DVD player ever dies, maybe in 10 years or so, we may be looking at another format completely and possibly even higher resolution movies, so future proofing is the least of my worries.

Nothing wrong with buying an HD DVD player now, especially when they are the same price as an upscaling DVD player, even cheaper. If BR is just too expensive for you now, it's a good interim solution just to get your feet wet and experience some HD now without breaking the bank.

Aren't we just taking about 1080p24 vs 1080p60? Only content available in 1080p24 are BR movies now. Heck, only content that's even 1080p.

So, 1080p24 feature right now is only good if you have 1080p24 source. Displaying 1080p24 on a 1080p60 set results in this 2:3 cadence. Don't think any interpolation is done, just frames are replicated. The only problem this causes is during slow panning or slow continuous moving scenes, a stutter may be noticed, nothing else. No affect in resolution.

Let's say you capture 24 image frames panning your camera slowly left to right, let's say in 1s. You display them back in ls and everything looks as it does. Now, you want to display 60 frames in 1s, but you only have 24 frames. You decide to display every frame twice, but that only makes 48 frames, you're still 12 frames short. So every other frame of the original 24, you decide to display that frame 1 addtional time for a total of 3 times (24-12 = 12). Okay so you've got your 60 frames. However, it's this additional 3rd replicated frame that causes the stuttering because your eyes are noticing a time lag between "new" frame updates. For instance, frame 1 of the original 24 is displayed for 2 cycles or a total of ~33ms (1/60 * 2), frame 2 of the original 24 is then displayed for 50ms (1/60 * 3), frame 3 for 33ms, frame 4 for 50ms, and so forth. If the image pan or motion in the video is slow enough, your eyes will pick up this 17ms difference between frames, like the video is pausing for a brief moment because that's essentially what's happening, the video is pausing every other frame for 17ms.

1080p24 capability doesn't help improve 1080i or 720p native source, it will be essentially the same as 1080p60, just displays at a higher refresh rate. What you say? Higher refresh rate? 24 isn't greater than 60. Google around, there's plenty of info on this. I haven't been keeping up on the tech, so things may be a little different.

MSRP for the Toshiba drives were $299 for the A3, $399 for the A30, and $499 for the A35. Realistic pricing would've been around $200, $300, and $400, if Toshiba wasn't in desperation mode.
So, remember, "WE ARE IN EARLY ADOPTATION" (less than 2 years), so this is historically NORMAL, prices are going to be high at the get go. That being said, BD players still do sit at a higher price break than HD DVD on par with the A30/A35 in terms of specs.

What I don't get is why BD players do not offer the same options as the HD DVDs did. The A3 is 1080i, the A30 doesn't do all the audio decoding in the drive, the A35 does it all.

A BD player with similar specs to the A3 I'm sure would've appealed to a larger audience. So what if it's 1080i? This would appeal to those with just a 1080i only TV. This would've appealed to new 1080p owners as well. A lot of the new 1080p HDTVs do deinterlacing and inverse telecine perfectly, so you do not need 1080p output from the player, so why not save some dough?

I keep reading in forums about "better" components in BD vs. HD DVD drives. I don't understand, better how?

Don't think they can draw a slice that small...

WB is going BR, by June, only Universal/Paramount/Dreamworks will be HD DVD (I'm talking 'bout the big boys).
Why would Netflix go BR now, what purpose?
Can't wait another 3 months?
What additional cost is there? Let's say you have 10 movies, 8 are available on BR, but 2 are available on HD DVD only. If they were all available on BR, you would buy all 10, no? Wouldn't you buy all 10 now? What additional cost is there to buying on 1 format vs another? People are still renting them.
HD movies is a tiny market, it can't be hurting their profit margins.
Again, it would make more sense for Netflix to say that they are transitioning over to BR only if the title exists and keep stocking exclusive HD, since that's what will be happening anyway in 3 months due to studio decisions.
Instead, they go BR only and decide to drop all HD, exclusive or not. No sense. No sense at all. Instead, they alienate their HD DVD patrons.
Maybe Netflix got incentive or pressure from their BR distributor or someone else to go 1 format?
Maybe Netflix wants to be an active participant in deciding this war?

I didn't see the logic in this move. Not all HD movies are on Blu-ray. So why not carry HD DVD exclusive titles as well? Does NetFlix know something we don't?
So why not carry Blu-ray titles and HD DVD exclusive titles, wouldn't that make more sense?

A curious move for Netflix to go Blu-ray only, seeing that not all HD movies are in Blu-ray, at least not yet.
Wouldn't it make more sense to continue supporting HD DVD until all studios go Blu-ray?
A more sensible strategy would be to go Blu-ray and continue HD DVD support on movies exclusive to that format. Unless, exclusive HD DVD rentals are just so abysmal that it makes no financial sense to support them.
Whatever. I thought it was curious that Warner decided Blu-ray so early. The reason being that Blu-ray sales were greater than HD DVD sales (which I personally didn't think was statiscally significant) and that DVD sales suffered (but maybe that was because there weren't that many good movies to buy? And not because people were "confused" about HD and waiting).
And I don't know why people are touting one format over another. I hardly think you or any consumer is really having a say in this. The format of choice is being decided by the movie studios and corporations, basically, it really was never in the hands of the consumer.

What I find kind of interesting is the aggregate top 10 is:
1) Planet Earth HD DVD/BD
2) 3:10 BD
3) 300 HD DVD/BD
4) Pirates BD
5) The Invasion HD DVD/BD
6) Saw IV BD
7) Transformers HD DVD
8) Supremacy HD DVD
9) Game Plan BD
10) Ratatouille BD

Seeing that Invasion isn't even suppose to be available on HD DVD yet, how is it 5th overall? It also has terrible reviews.

Was Warner's decision to go exclusive too premature?

These studios, if they really cared 'bout the consumer, they would make all their movies available on all formats, BR, HD DVD, HD VMD ;). In this case, it would definitely be the consumer who decides.

Also, people who get in on the HD DVD player buys, good for them. Tricked? Uninformed? Not at these prices. If I'm on the fence and I see an HD player for $99(A3), that's much more afordable then $399. Obsolete? You can argue the same for the $399 unit (not profile 2.0), but I saved $300. You can still watch all movies, just not all in HD. Or I can just keep waiting and waiting and waiting, if price is an issue for me.
Blu-ray only owners, why not just go buy yourselves a cheap HD player and be set for the near term? If you could afford a Blu-ray player, you must be able to afford one of these units? Who cares about the format war? It's over anyway, right? And don't give me this jive 'bout BR looks better than HD DVD or 1080i not 1080p. VC1 and AVC are comparable in various tests performed. Good chance that your HDTV 1080p will be perfectly capable of deinterlacing the 1080i signal to retrieve that 1080p encoding so...

So much ado 'bout nothing. Eh, just gives people something to talk and discuss and argue and fight about, I guess.

Me thinks the underlying message here is not about one movie but that Universal has not thrown in the towel yet on HD DVD by indicating a new release title. On the same website, it indicates that Paramount has announced an HD DVD release date for Sweeney Todd. So this may indicate that the last 2 Studios may continue HD DVD support, perhaps exclusively to the regret or delight of few or many.