Sony and Toshiba can kiss my butt.

As many of you are aware, Sony has launched themselves into another format war (the ones that brought you Betamax, MiniDisc, Memory Sticks, and Super Audio CD). This time with Toshiba. Sony is backing a new High Definition video format called Blu-ray and Toshiba is backing HD-DVD. Why is this mess happening, simple, greed. Sony wants all that fat tech-lincensing money. Here's the kicker, both formats essentially provide the same result, a beautiful picture; the major difference is Blu-Ray has more capacity (right now).

I was in hopes of there being a Dual-Disc player out by now, but apparently it isn't going well and perpetual rumors of Sony refusing to license the tech for this purpose exist. I refuse to over a thousand dollars to have both of these players to be able to watch either formats limited library. So what is a tech-junkie, HD monkey like me to do?

I bought a nice Hi-Def Conversion DVD Player. These DVD players up convert the signal to 720p or 1080i, which are HD resolutions. This allows me to view near-HD quality while watching the movies I already have. The unit I purchased is a Samsung DVD-HD860. I also bought one for my dad. This player and others like it are a must for anyone with an HD-set. NOTE: Most of these units require HDMI or DVI connections to receive the up converted signal.