There are more films on HD DVD I`d like than Blu I think, though I`ve not actually counted them all up to see. The fact Warner are neutral helps as the largest number of films that I`d like are from them and available on both so I am relatively safe whichever I side with for now. I'm quite prepared to buy into HD DVD as well early next year however.

My one issue with HD DVD is a fear I put to Amir from Microsoft when I met him last December at the terrific little HD DVD event held at Pj-Hi Fi, and that was concerning the format`s bandwidth limitations. I got a pretty dismissive answer to point of suggesting “it didn`t matter” and as the year has gone on nothing about the format or any of its releases has helped alleviate those fears. As a videophile and audiophile it`s little technical advantages like that on Blu`s side that I just find myself having to get behind. I view both formats from a long term perspective and I think about all the interactive mumbo jumbo certain studios are keen to slap on these discs and fail to see how capacity and bandwidth can not be considered more and more of an advantage as time goes by as although such advantages are not a guarantee content providers will make use of them to ensure the best possible quality, their presence can minimise risk of interactive bells and whistles depriving the disc of also delivering optimal A/V quality. Since no two movies are alike in their demands on encoding there`s no telling what requirements a certain movie might need to get the best out of in future.

Transformers lacking lossless audio has sparked a rather large debate about the merits of us having PCM, DTS HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD/MLP on these discs. I think everyone is entitled to their opinion on this one way or another (I`ll assume as Meridian owners our opinion is relatively bias on this?), but I can`t deny that I was infuriated to see Amir personally dismiss its importance recently. Again, if that`s his genuine opinion then fine, but it`s hardly a consistent opinion because a year ago I sat in a room and heard him trash Blu-ray for not making support of Dolby TrueHD mandatory in hardware. He seemed to think it was important then.