Hey Matt..accually better picture than DVD,,when my wife can tell the difference i know its good!..now im viewing it on a ED Panasonic plasma..not even Hd ..but thats another issue..ED versus Hd Plasmas..not worth the price difference..and another plus of the HD-VCR is that i can also record HD content with its firewire connection ...now you have to have a sat or cable box with that connection to do this..also the movies are in Dolby Digital 5.1 and the sound is awesome!!!..as far as hd -dvd ..cant wait as im sure that will be good too..just hope they get together on a format though so you dont end up buying something that 2 years from now is obsolete..