Of course, these newfangled ways of watching video are still a small piece of the overall video market, and industry executives and analysts say they expect most consumers to continue buying prerecorded DVD's for years to come. They also say they believe that high-definition programs -- and the televisions to watch them on -- are the way of the future. The question is how consumers will get that programming.

Even without these alternatives, high-definition DVD's face an unpredictable start. The inability of the Blu-ray group and HD-DVD camp to agree on a standard means that consumers must consider two sets of machines. Except for avid technophiles, consumers are likely to wait out the standards battle, lest they get stuck with an obsolete player.

Machines will also be expensive -- $1,000 or more -- and consumers will need a television capable of playing high-definition programs, which can easily cost several thousand dollars more. The list of movies available in the formats will be skimpy at first.

Sony, which leads the Blu-ray group, has said that its new video game consoles, due out this spring, will play Blu-ray DVD's. But few industry analysts expect consumers to buy the game machine just to watch movies.

In the meantime, other companies are making it easier to watch and copy high-definition movies. Scientific-Atlanta has a new set-top box with a digital video recorder and DVD recorder built in, so cable subscribers can use a single machine to record programming and burn it onto blank discs.

"Consumers are getting hooked on video-on-demand and the flexibility of moving content around the home," said Ted Schadler, an industry analyst at Forrester. "The battle over the format is silly. For the product to grow, they have to promote the benefits of HD, not battle each other."

Yet the two sides are digging in their heels, not shaking hands. Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and other backers of the Blu-ray format expect to flood stores next year with high-definition DVD players, and half a dozen studios will make movies for them.