To continue with my "Should I Care?" series, I move on to HD-DVD.

The first High Definition DVD Player, the Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD Player was released to consumers earlier this month. This HD-DVD player is retail priced at $499. Pretty reasonably priced, but should you buy one?

The simple answer for most people is "No". Let me explain.

First, some background on what it means to have a high definition DVD. "Normal" DVDs have a maximum of 480 lines of resolution when displayed on a TV. This is the same resolution as standard definition television signals. Much like a television program that is broadcast in high definition increases the resolution to as much as 1080 lines, a high definition DVD does the same. What you are paying for is the increase in picture quality of your DVDs.

The question as to whether or not to invest in high-definition DVDs comes down to if you think that the quality of your current DVDs is good enough or not. While it is easy to argue that upgrading from VHS to DVD was a no-brainer in many cases, the same isn't true for high definition DVDs.

My reasoning is as such - in order to watch high definition DVDs, you need to have an HDTV with the specific connection that your high definition DVD player supports. Most people still don't own HDTVs and have not been in a hurry to buy them. So, in general, the same phenomenon with high definition DVDs will probably occur. DVDs are good enough for most consumers, at least for now.

In addition, there will be confusion in the marketplace because there are currently two competing formats of high definition DVDs, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. While high definition players will probably be built that support both formats, choosing the winner of this format war now could leave the consumer with high definition DVDs and players that are obsolete in the next few years. The pain of the VHS vs. Beta format war is still fresh in the mind of most consumers.

While there are other reasons for NOT buying, the question becomes who WILL buy one of these devices now? Believe it or not, this player will sell. It will initially be bought by early adopters, people who have excess disposable income and are curious, people who are videoholics, or people who are in the industry and need to have one to keep up with the trends to recommend to their customers. Beyond these folks, I don't think that we will see a large proliferation of high definition DVD players anytime soon.

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