Better Picture? blu-ray or Hd dvd?

Hi, I am curious to know if anyone out there has seen both formats and which one they think has a better picture clarity? I also heard that animated films look way better that regular movies. Is that true?

They are identical for all intents and purposes. The winner will be decided on the basis of marketing decisions, and BluRay appears to have an advantage. Some people have even declared the format war over. Because of the uncertainty, consumers have been hesitant to buy anything, so retailers and movie distributors and others without a big stake in one of the formats don't really care -- if they could flip a coin to decide on one, they'd do it.

Animation and real-life movies aren't really comparable. If you like sharp edges and bold colors, animation looks good. If you like realism, animation doesn't look so good. Either will look better than the same thing in lower-definition formats.

blu-ray

I have only seen blu-ray, but I have been following this for a while.

What I heard is that Blu-ray actually uses an older Codec. (the format that video is in). where as HD-DVD uses a more HD codec and thus a better pictures. I have heard that newer blu-ray players do have a newer codec but I'm not sure on that. I think everybody assumes Blu-ray had a better picture because it has a bigger disc (more space) and thus you can store a higher quality.
Honestly at this point none of this really matters. There are 5 movies studios that are backing Blu-ray, and only two left for HD-DVD. What this means in for the future is that more Movies/shows well be on Blu-ray. Now days I can't find any more reason to pick HD-DVD... (even though the features are better).

I find them to be much the same and think HD will win in the end as such this is what I am investing in...