I really wish people would stop with the "1080p is no better than 1080i" business. 720p is better than 1080i for content with a lot of motion and special effects. 720p is better than 1080i for sporting events, action movies, and video games. And 1080p is better than 720p.

And DVD players were not 1/3 the price of BD players when they debuted. Maybe when you noticed them, but not when they debuted.

Personally, I wouldn't buy any of the first gen HD players released so far. The Toshiba players lack standard DVD player functionality and convenience. They also have subpar performance downscaling to 720p. The Samsung player has a bug, and I'm not sold on its PQ even excluding the bug.

All this talk of the status quo is silly, as BD hasn't even really launched yet and relatively few people will be buying first gen players from either format.

The PS3 will be my first HD player, and I expect to be able to buy stand alone players with more features, better performance, at a much cheaper price, in the future. And I expect BD to offer the most HD components, the most HD movies, the most storage capacity and bandwith for BD packaged media, and the most storage capacity for writeable media.

That's a ridiculous speculation on Cuban's basis for his opinion. The $200 price difference between the 1080p Toshiba player and the Samsung player is nothing to a lot of consumers, let alone Cuban. His basis is most likely because the Toshiba players provide better picture quality than the Samsung player. Actually, the better move for thoe of us who aren't wealthy is to wait for the other BD players to be released, so they can be compared to the Toshibas, before making a major purchase.

On combo players, I don't see the purpose. They would inherently add to production costs. Plus, what would be the purpose of having HD-DVD, unless it beats out BD and stands alone? The formats are much more similar than different, in terms of how they work and perform, with the major difference being storage capacity. What would be the benefit of having 30GB discs for packaged media and writeable media, unless 50GB+ discs aren't available?

Lastly, on renting HD discs instead of purchasing for fear of picking the wrong horse, it's not like players for either format will self-destruct if that format loses the format war. You'll still be able to play the discs you've already purchased. The bigger issue to me is investing in first gen HD players, when 2nd gen players will be cheaper with more features and better performance. At least the PS3 has alternative uses.