Thank god blueray is so much better
Why? in what respect is it "better"?.............performance, more pre-recorded material, price?

I am wary, as I have seen the Video Player wars and the British satellite TV wars and in both cases the crappest technology won due to marketing. remember Sony BMG are big in the entertainments content sector as well as hardware technology, so that would have given them an immediate advantage over Toshiba.

I dont think there is something that plays all of those.
Sorry, I can't remember who, but someone came out with a player that handled both the HD DVD/Bluray formats, and regular CD/DVD. It was horrendously expensive. What I don't know is if it used the same tray for the media.

OK, you can pick up a VHS player for loose change these days, and I don't think that you would want one other than for converting your VHS collection or for a cheap security system?

It reminds me of the old "Radiograms" you used to get............. there was a radio and a record player in the same walnut or mahogany case. Or my old Apple PC....... It has some sort of Motorola and a Pentium processor and will boot Mac OS 6.x and Win 95................ basically they have additional or duplicate components in the same case