Just get an upconverting dvd player in the meantime if you really need to replace your old progressive scan dvd player . It looks like Blu Ray is currently leading in the format wars , but Universal is still sticking with the HD format . Which is kind of good in a way since competition between the two formats is driving down the prices of both . Standard dvds are also playable in the HD players which upconvert also . Below is a link to keep you up on the lastest developments in the HD format battle .

Here is a link that might be useful: engadget HD

I may not have made my question clear. Our old DVD player works fine. I'm asking if I will be able to find new releases that I can play on it. That is, will it play Blu-Ray DVDS or HD DVDs, and if not, will studios continue to release movies on standard format as well as one of the two competing formats?

Yes , all dvd releases are available in the standard format which are also playable in the new high def players . I have no problem whatsoever getting any movie or tv series from Netflix in the standard format . So you have nothing to worry about . Releasing older as well as new movies in the high def format just gives the movie studios the opportunity to sell movies twice to the same customer who wants the extra clarity of 1080p (or 1080i) high def in their viewing experience of their favorite flicks .

Thanks, that's what I needed to know. I couldn't believe studios would in effect stop selling DVDs to people who didn't jump to buy a new format player.

Hmm, this leads to an interesting question: If only a small percentage of buyers chooses one of the new player formats, how long might this "war" go on?

Paramount just announced it's abandoning BR in favor of HD.

Mongo

If only a small percentage of buyers chooses one of the new player formats, how long might this "war" go on?

For all practical purposes, only a couple of years, maximum. It only took a year until Philips started clearing inventory of its Digital Compact Cassette players. The competition, from Sony, MiniDisk, has hung around longer but in no way could be considered a commercial success. More recently, DVD-A(udio) battled it out against Sony's SACD format to be high-fidelity "king of the hill". Buyers stayed away in droves and both formats are on life support.

The rush for quarterly earnings at most companies quashes most notions of continuing to improve an unpopular format for several years before giving up the ghost. Now if you're not a hit out of the box, you retool in a year or so and try something else.

Between Paramount and Universal declining to sell BluRay and the pr0n industry voting largely for HD-DVD (because it's cheaper to produce HD-DVD content than BluRay content), I think BluRay is not long for this world. It may continue to be a niche format for the PS3, but you'll likely never walk into Blockbuster and see an entire wall of BluRay disks.