I own both formats, and I think picture quality on both formats is a wash. If you were to look at a compulation of professional reviews on all titles for both formats, blu-ray wins overall, but not by much. When it comes to audio quality on both, its no contest, blu-ray wins hands down because of the its extensive use of uncompressed PCM versus Dolby Digital plus for a majority of HD DVD titles.
On movies released in both formats, I have done some comparisons between these titles. I have found no difference in most cases, and what differences I did find were just that, differences and not anything that would add to a better or superior opinion. Each of my players are calibrated seperately via the HDMI connections by a very good friend who is ISF, THX and Cedia certified. My television is custom made with 9" CRT's in a Toshiba 65H84 chassis with a custom made Da-lite screen. My video processing is done by a beta version of a high end broadcast quality video switcher/processor that will be made by Grass Valley.
The problem I have with this article is that it is VERY dated in a fast changing world. They mention the Samsung player, the worst of all blu-ray players out there. I would like for him to make these same comments about the Sony or Panasonic blu-ray player which are true 1080p players unlike the samsung.
His comments on the bitrate are not exactly real world comments. First he is correct about the data rate until you get to complex highly detailed scenes. Even Joe Kane admits that the larger buffer size of the Blu-ray format IS a advantage over HD DVD under these conditions. There is already one Blu-ray movie who peak bit rate would exceed the HD DVD spec, I just cannot remember which one it is.
For another perspective:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...07-part-1.html