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"  Like any prolonged conflict, the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD is best avoided, until the weakened factions can be carefully exploited or picked off by merciless opportunists, such as yourself. The only consumers who should be pricing hi-def players now, as opposed to six months from now (or when they reach $200, which ever happens sooner), are those with 1080p sets. Since no cable or satellite provider offers content in 1080p, the only content available in this highest of resolutions is on Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs. We tested a player from both camps: Toshiba&amp;#039;s HD-A20 HD DVD player and Samsung&amp;#039;s BD-P1200 Blu-ray disc player. The HD-A20 runs for $330 on Amazon, and the BD-P1200 is $450, also on Amazon. Both come with a mail-in rebate for five movies on HD DVD and Blu-ray, respectively. Feature-wise, these models are in the same neighborhood\u2014they&amp;#039;re able to display movies at 1080p, but they&amp;#039;re not the absolute highest-end players the companies have to offer. \u2014Erik Sofge Audio/Video We watched a number of movies in both hi-def disc formats, as well as standard DVDs, switching back and forth between three 1080p LCD sets (click here for our 1080p Abusive Lab Test). In terms of image quality, there&amp;#039;s no discernible difference between the two. Not that we expected any, but sharpness and black levels and everything else varied based on which TV we were using. Both players provided content that was as crisp and 1080p-tastic as advertised. Audio was likewise identical, as were the inputs\u2014a single HDMI port, an Ethernet jack for online firmware updates (we&amp;#039;ll get to those in a minute) and the standard, sad collection of DVI, component and RCA jacks, for anyone dumb enough to get a 1080p player and try hooking it up using anything other than HDMI.Advantage: Neither Remote Control You don&amp;#039;t notice how well-designed a remote control is until you find yourself staring, glassy-eyed, at a bad one. The HD-A20&amp;#039;s remote is a strangely bland grid of buttons, all essentially the same size, with mysterious labels such as &amp;quot;A,&amp;quot; which is actually the Pan/Zoom button, and &amp;quot;B,&amp;quot; which saves a bookmark (so you can return to that exact moment in the film whenever you want). The BD-P1200&amp;#039;s remote has a more intuitive layout and, for all you remote-control purists, is better looking.Advantage: Blu-ray Updates/Compatibility Unlike your simple, standard-def DVD players, the newer, fancier machines need to be updated regularly, to avoid potential conflicts with newly released movies. This means plugging into a network using an Ethernet jack, and waiting. The HD-A20 took close to half an hour, but the BD-P1200 took nearly twice that long. Before updating the two machines, we had experienced a major problem with the Blu-ray player\u2014while watching Flags of Our Fathers, the BD-P1200 tended to become unresponsive, either from the main menu (so it wouldn&amp;#039;t let us play the movie at all), or while the movie was on, so we couldn&amp;#039;t skip scenes, stop or even eject the disc. And like the glorified computer it is, the BD-P1200 crashed so catastrophically during Flags that we had to unplug the player (the power button wouldn&amp;#039;t respond, either). The update seems to have fixed this issue, and none of the discs we tried had a similar problem. There were other problems, however, which only showed up when we connected the BD-P1200 to a Samsung LN-T4665F, the 46-in. LCD set that beat out two others in a recent Abusive Lab Test of ours. While watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man&amp;#039;s Chest, the screen flickered, and the audio track popped. A similar flickering happened during The Road Warrior, but only with this player/TV combo, and only when hooked up via HDMI (the flickering disappeared when we used the component ports). The HD-A20 had zero flashes, pops or flickers when connected to the Samsung set. We&amp;#039;ll update this story when we get a full response from Samsung, since it&amp;#039;s difficult to say exactly which of the company&amp;#039;s devices, the player or the TV, is to blame. Either way, this smells like a copyright protection issue, since a very similar problem occurred when we hooked up a PlayStation 3 to a Westinghouse set. The LN-T4665F&amp;#039;s own software might need to be updated, but until we hear otherwise, this is a major blow for the BD-P1200.Advantage: HD DVD Bottom Line We&amp;#039;ll have to reserve final judgment until we receive a Samsung response, but if we had dropped thousands of dollars on a 1080p set, and even more cash on a hi-def player, and our brilliant, razor-sharp picture was peeking out behind staccato flashes of white bands, we&amp;#039;d be enraged. All that, and the BD-P1200 is over $100 more expensive than the less problematic HD-A20. The winner if this shootout seems pretty obvious.Advantage: HD DVD "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a1938/4219642/>