1) 360 is just DVD, there will be an add on, but so far MS has not given any info on it other then it will be USB. They did not mention pricing, date or specs. Actually the E3 announcement was pretty funny because instead of talking about the add-on it was an anti BD rant dressed up as a "why we did an HD DVD add-on)

2) the 360 is composite only and there won't be any HDMI for the HD DVD
--- rumours and second hand info: from some contacts at MS it appears that adding HDMI might be almost impossible (i.e. not as easy as they thought at first when they said it could be added later) -- I have also seen some graphic card manufacturers say that the DVI cards that they said were HDCP compliant were not, and I think that it might be the problem)

2) there are two PS3's that will come out in November

- a) cheaper PS3 @ 500$ that will not have HDMI , a 20GB HDD and no Bluetooth
- b) more expensive PS3 @ 600$ that will have HDMI, a 60GB and wireless
(can't remember if there are other differences)

(PS they will be 550 CAD & 660 CAD here in Canada)

3) neither BD or HD DVD require HDMI or HDCP. There though some other stuff

- a) AACS (the encryption used for both) forbids 1080p over component, the max is 1080i (obviously this would only affect movies on HD DVD or BD) - on the other hand the Toshiba players can only do 1080i so there should not be much of a loss in that respect if you have a Toshiba player or the 360 add-on) for the cheap PS3, it is a different case because all BD players so far will do 1080p over component.

- b) AACS has ICT. ICT = image constraint token is a tool any content provider can use at any time. The ICT on a disk basically tells the player to allow clear full resolution (i.e. 1080i or p depending on output and player) or to limit it. If it is limited (constrained) then the player must cut the resolution roughly in half (most call it 540, but it is just given in pixels, so we might be getting something a bit better) but then it can do what it wants (i.e. reupscale to 1080 before outputting to the display device)

PS the better then 540 is possible in theory because the definition is in pixels. In theory if the image is not 16:9 then the black bars could be truncated before the downscaling and those pixels used for more detail - if we have 160x90=14400 pixels and we restrict it to 1/4 the number of pixels, if we need 16:9 then the good one will be 80x45=3600, if on the other hand it is 4:3 then the image (full is) 120x90= 10800 pixels so 68x51=3468 if the scaled the black bars it would be 80x45 with the black bars or 60x45