I have to agree. Unfortunately Sony is pushing Blu-ray quite strongly with the PS3, so their business model might work out (if they don't run out of money, because they subsidize the PS3).
However, one strong point for movies on HD DVD is - they are region free. For example people in the US can soon buy Terminator 2 on HD DVD in Europe (it is a Blu-Ray exclusive in the US). Some great movies like Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" are available in the UK on HD DVD, or "Running Scared" is available on HD DVD in Germany.

AnyHD-DVD wouldn't be far off from working on Blu-Ray since the main difference is BD+. It wouldn't be too hard to then make a program for Blu-Ray if needed.

Yeah, HD-DVD does have this benefit... but I'd imagine that even this early in the game that advantage is already mostly used up. The "decreased cost" of HD-DVD was always little more than a short-term benefit that only applied to initial plant-conversion and early production runs of the first titles released. At this point, considering "The Digital Bits" recently reported that Blu-Ray has been outselling HD-DVD by 2:1, I'd bet that most of the higher initial conversion costs have been covered. There doesn't seem to be any price difference at all between HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies; and there's certainly no price in the rental fee at the various places around me that rent them out.

True, though name of Slysoft's new product seems to be "AnyDVD HD", not "AnyHD-DVD". That would imply they're covering their bases in the future if it becomes necessary to add BD+ functionality... the latter implies it only works with HD-DVD while the former can mean it works with any type of HD format.

Yeah, although Blu-Ray does improve upon DVD's region coding. The only thing I never really liked about the coding of DVDs was that Japan wasn't in North America's region... we should really keep all the NTSC users together... not to mention that makes it so much easier to import anime, lol.

I suppose there are a few titles that may only come out in Europe, but I tend to stay away from PAL transfers, personally... the speedup annoys me, and too few transfers use 2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 pulldown. And it's even worse when the transfer is a NTSC -> PAL conversion as opposed to Film -> PAL.

At first they called it AnyHD-DVD, now it's being called AnyDVD-HD. AnyHD-DVD makes WAY more sense. What is a DVD-HD?

There doesn't seem to be a dash between AnyDVD and HD. The name "AnyDVD HD" simply implies it's an HD version of AnyDVD... the name "AnyHD-DVD" wouldn't make much sense if, in the future, Slysoft had to add Blu-Ray functionality to it as well.

The marketing folks (Tom) decided this. Just think of AnyDVD "High Definition". I have to agree, because the functionality AnyDVD "classic" is included, the name AnyHD-DVD would be misleading. And the name AnyDVD HD leaves a backdoor to add Blu-ray support at a later time, if desired.

Slysoft might make a new program or could then rename it.

No, because HD-DVD includes DVD, so it would still make sense for HD-DVD and normal DVDs.

Here are the good news: All european HD DVD transfers I have seen are encoded 23.97 fps progressive 1980x1080. So there won't be any "PAL Speedup" (unless there is a mastering error as on some Studio Canal titles) or other conversion problems, only the usual 3:2 pulldown judder on the 60Hz display all NTSC users are already used to.

We could name it AnyDVD "pro", or "gold" or "überpro" or "platinum"...
I hope you get the point.

Alright. I guess I'll have to get used to AnyDVD-HD.

Please, God, no!

AnyDVD HD is just fine and eesh for the discussion over the name. As you already said AnyDVD High Definition works just fine. If Blu-Ray gets added later then the name works perfectly still. Make it HD-DVD specific and we will see yet another name change when Blu-Ray support is added [if it does].

[Sarcasm]Would we then have 2 programs. Three programs? AnyDVD, AnyHD-DVD and AnyBR-DVD or maybe AnyDVD-HD-BR. Or wait... why not AnyDVD-Whatever or better yet AnyWay-WhoCares?
[/Sarcasm]

AnyDVD HD is just fine!