I`m not wary of Amir anymore as he no longer has anything to do with HD DVD, but his antics on AVS made me lose a great deal of respect for him throughout the year - which is a shame as I found him polite, enthusiastic and knowledgeable in person. What it`s all taught me was both sides can be as childish and deceiving as the other and when backed into a corner faced with legitimate criticisms about their format of choice (be it the ‘profile` situation with Blu-ray, or bandwidth limitations with HD DVD) the more intolerable spin the defending side seems to spit out. I just can`t be bothered to get caught up in the politics and what one side thinks about the other. All I want to know is which format has the best physical spec, and how studios seek to abuse that spec.

Of course it`s one thing for me to say I`ll get behind the format that offers a specification that can potentially lead to consistent delivery of the best a/v quality alongside various extras over a longer period of time, and another thing altogether for studios to actually bother taking proper advantage of higher bandwidth and capacity.

I don`t think lack of TrueHD support was a factor for early adopters considering Blu-ray since Sony and Disney side with uncompressed PCM on every disc they release (with Sony picking TrueHD for some discs now) and Fox/MGM having but DTS HD Master Audio on all their titles, but absolutely the shocking lazy effort put into those first releases was insulting, particularly for the format charging a premium for its hardware - which I dare say was another factor for people last year next to the poor quality of releases. I don`t blame MPEG2, but seemingly non existent quality control. I`m quite impressed by how they turned it around however after re-shuffling of executives in charge (particularly within Sony) and those exclusively backing the format do seem keen to take advantage of the specification benefits as I had hoped.

One thing I love about HD DVD was how they got their hardware spec right since launch. If this multiple profile nonsense with Blu-ray players comes back to haunt the Blu-ray Association in the New Year then they`ll get what they deserve.

I love Warner to bits, but it would be nice if they catered to the advantages of Blu-ray`s specification a little more. It looks as if they`re starting to however now that they`ve had some internal executive re-shuffles of their own. For example, Terminator 3 on Blu-ray looks as if it is going to have TrueHD (and allegedly PCM as well) along with a confirmed exclusive brand new 3rd audio commentary - neither of which are present on the HD DVD, and this is on a disc where they`re not even doing the Picture in Picture ‘in movie experience` in the easiest way due the the 1.1 profile issue and are having to dedicate space to an entirely separate video encode instead. Another is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Although the HD DVD has TrueHD and the “in movie experience,” the Blu-ray version sides with PCM, a dozen or so multiple language tracks and subtitles with space for an hour long documentary they couldn`t fit onto the HD DVD (which ironically is on the two disc DVD). What`s more, to make up for the lack of ‘in movie experience` all the IME content is actually going to be on the Blu-ray version, only it`s split into dedicated featurettes (they did this with Blood Diamond) and as an added bonus it`s all presented in high definition. All the other standard extras on the disc are in HD on the Blu-ray version too, but SD on the HD DVD.

I`m still of the opinion this can`t end in a draw, and it will be the worst thing for growth of HD optical media if it does. I`m terrified of the concept of downloads I must admit, for a variety of reasons. Regardless, I'm happy I'll no longer be on the sidelines having allowed myself to get into enjoying one of the formats this side of Christmas.