I think the BD and HD DVD format war can be retired as a topic of lightweight discussion, at least by me. It's become a very politically charged matter.

I submitted an editorial piece to Audioholics the other day, posted by Clint. It got a lot of attention from readers wanting my blood for everything from not telling the "whole" story (IE leaving out some technical details in my rundown of factors to consider if deciding between the two) to not actually making a decision about which one to buy. The website itself also got blasted for supposedly taking an anti-hi-def stance. That's a bewildering accusation.

The editorial itself was written to point up a few things that I didn't think were so well publicized. I didn't think it would be too much of stretch to recount that a majority of the reviews have said the early HD DVD movies have a better picture quality and that the BD movies might be suffering at the hands of Mpeg2 compression. I guess that's not a unanimous opinion and that I'm spreading a misconception.

The message of the editorial was that the smart money is on waiting to see what happens in the market. Neither player is worth your hard earned money at this point. I stand behind that claim. I would be remiss if I didn't include that I harbor ill feelings toward both Sony and Toshiba for making what should be a natural progression of technology into a format war. Although it has been an interesting topic and it certainly gets people riled up to talk and post about it.

Want to see some venom flowing back and forth? Check out the HD DVD / Blu-ray boards on AVSforum. I don't think we'll see the situation degenerate to that level at the HomeTheaterShack 

I'm disappointed that we the minority of hi-fi, home theater and audio/video fans out there are at each other's throats over something as indifferent toward us as Sony and Toshiba's market place fisticuffs. There are sports fans and political pundits less single-minded in their views than some of the side-takers in this format war.

The format war was designed to take advantage of us, the early adopters and A/V fans who read blogs and forum posts about our hobby. It's because we understand the difference between 480i and 1080P that we're also inevitably the ones who will have any opinion at all. Most of the average Joe consumers are still trying to master HD over air broadcasts and progressive scan DVD video.

I think we need to relax. Too many people feel personally involved in one format or the other like a rabid football dad who thinks his kid is one shift away from a scholarship. Even if you've bought a disk player, enjoy it! If the format you chose "loses the war"; who cares? Enjoy the movies you have, it won't stop working for them. It's an old rule in computers, you buy hardware for the software that's currently available, "future proofing" is a fools game. Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt were built be future proof. Consumer electronics technology is transient, designed to last until manufacturers can no longer milk it for profit.