http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060327_546762.htm

"It's crazy," says chief analyst Richard Doherty of consumer-research firm Envisioneering. "The sticker on your new player promises the equivalent of a high-performance car, but the fine print says you may be buying an Edsel instead."

If all the movies released on HD-DVD disks are downrezed on 90% of HDTV screens, in living rooms across the country, and the movies released on Blu-Ray disks aren't, it will be a short war.

The Edsel was a very nice car . . .

It *is* an important point to make, though, that HD-DVD vs. BD isn't the only component (no pun intended) in the HD format war -- the HDTVs themselves have a lot to do with it.

If all the movies released on HD-DVD disks are downrezed on 90% of HDTV screens, in living rooms across the country, and the movies released on Blu-Ray disks aren't, it will be a short war.


The way I read it, it is reduced on both formats by use of copyright protection systems.

From what I've read, it appears that at least some of the movies released on HD-DVD will be encoded with the flag for downrezing analog component output (over 90% of HDTVs and HDTV compatible displays do not have HDMI input connectors). The article in the above link would seem to indicate that none of the studios releasing movies on Blu-Ray disks plan to use that downrez flag, at least not as yet.