Alex: "the voice recognition works pretty well, except it has a hard tiem when I say blue"

I found the same thing. Try saying "brew", engrish style. Works wonders.

All the big box stores I've been to have piles of Blu-ray players collecting dust on the shelves. HD-DVD players, however, sell out as soon as they're made available.

Back to the topic at hand, Blu-ray could be in trouble if the rumours about exclusive licencing are true. According to several sources in the industry, Blu-ray licencees are forbidden from producing HD-DVD parts. LG and Samsung have both discussed combo devices but have said that the problem is licencing rather than any technical limitation.

I'd be curious to know if there is a similar clause for HD-DVD licencees.

The Smart shown in the Top Gear video was a first generation model. Many changes were made to the second gen (current) Smart to improve the handling.

I just got back from an 8000km roadtrip from Saskatchewan to Alaska and my Smart had absolutely no trouble on the twisty mountain roads. On roadways filled with SUVs, RVs and logging trucks, I was far from the slowest thing on the road. What the Smart lacks in horsepower it makes up in low end torque. I had the only vehicle that could actually accelerate up the 8% grades.

Peter, you've quoted that article a couple of times but it simply no longer true. The review is from 1999 and is of the first generation Smart. The second generation model has vastly improved handling and my 2005 Fortwo routinely gets over 55 mpg (US) in real world city driving and has averaged 46 mpg since day one.

My personal mileage is on the low end. I know some Smart owners who are averaging 60mpg or more. The Canadian record is currently 94 mpg (US) for a single tank.

The 0-60 time may be glacial and a Smart will never win a drag race, but I've never been left behind at the lights. More often than not I'm through the intersection before the SUV in the next lane.

PS - For the USians out there, that's 56 miles per US gallon.

My Canadian (diesel) Smart gets 68mpg (all city driving) and I've got a heavier foot than most. As for room, I can carry more than my friend can fit in his BMW Mini's trunk.

The tiptronic gearbox is crap, though.

Clarkson didn't describe the sat-nav as American because of the accent. It was the fact that the default search was for the closest fast food restaurant.

K-MAN: "and 1080p? please. a human eye can only detect up to 30fps."

Neither HD format can handle 1080p at 60fps. HD-DVD can only go up to 30 and Blu-ray is stuck at 24 (fine for film but not for video).

The BDA has unfortunately decided to include region locking for Blu-ray movies. HD-DVD is region-free.

massimiliano: "And the fact that HD-DVD supports 1080p does not mean it is going to look as good as 1080p on Blu-Ray, more storage means less compression which means more visual information and (if done properly) less visual artefacts."

Not necessarily. The first HD-DVD discs use MPEG-4 and can hold four hours of content per 15GB layer. The first Blu-ray discs will use MPEG-2 and can hold four hours of content on each 25GB layer.

Blu-ray won't have any practical storage advantage over HD-DVD until Blu-ray starts rolling out their four-layer 100GB discs.

MrFloppy, Blu-ray has its advantages over HD-DVD (capacity per layer and the scratch-proof coating to name two) but 1080p support isn't one of them. HD-DVD does 1080p at 24, 25 and 30fps while Blu-ray can only do 24fps.