From Post Gazette:

Q: I read your Blu-ray/HD-DVD article and was staggered at some of your comments. You do not seem to understand digital media at all. Digital media is the same regardless of device. Files and films on HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs are identical; what differs are technical details such as the type of laser used, etc. Comparing the quality of two digital media formats is ridiculous. In fact, it's completely irrelevant. The only difference between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is capacity.

The reply:

A: I had planned on writing about HD-DVD and Blu-ray this week, so I can provide you with some simple, easy-to-grasp information on how these two formats differ and why HD-DVD currently offers far superior picture quality than Blu-ray.

Blu-ray video is encoded in MPEG-2, an older digital video format. HD-DVD uses VC-1, a much newer format developed by Microsoft. The digital files on Blu-ray discs and HD-DVDs are mastered with different equipment and are as different as apples and oranges.

The VC-1 format provides better image quality in less space than MPEG-2. Current Blu-ray movies are single-layer with a capacity of 25GB total. HD-DVDs are composed of two 15GB layers, for a total of 30GB. HD-DVD's greater capacity and its far superior video format yields much better looking movies.

I saw a production Blu-ray movie and I am sorry to report that the near-universal negativity is well deserved. The movie, "The Fifth Element,'' looked soft and fuzzy, with a hint of digital noise that reminded me of an image taken with an old digital camera. It's an insult to consumers' intelligence to expect us to accept it as quality.

Spot on. Where's the promised 50GB? Come on Sony you only got the support you did because you promised larger capacity, now we're told we have to wait until much later, next year and hope that spending $1000 on a player today will be able to play dual-layer discs. No thanks. Blu-ray is a yet another Sony flop. It's also time for those "one-format" people to stop campaigning for a single format and just support HD DVD.