Anthony.
Actually I did watch both formats in a high end HT store in Portland before I bought a player. I thought HD-DVD looked better. But that was a while back. I know BD is using some better codecs now.
Ok, let us say hypothetically that Blu-Ray is (not in my opinion) better.
It doesn't matter.
The reason HD-DVD will prevail is price, both software and hardware.
If I am wrong and BR does prevail, by then their players will be better and cheaper.
And I will have at least 200 movies on HD-DVD. That system can go next to my Pioneer CLD-97 and my 800 Laserdiscs.