I am patiently waiting for my Epson 1080 Pro-Cinema to come tommorow, and as such I have up rooted everything and moved the Television into the bedroom so I have no videogames or movies I can watch right now...
The point? I will surely answer your question, because I am bored out of my mind. However, all of your questions could be answered with a quick search.
HD-DVD has only Universal and Weinstien to claim as exclusive. As such, The Thing, which is universal will at this time only be on HD-DVD. Other titles to note that will at this time only be on HD-DVD from Universal are King Kong, Knocked Up, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and 40 Year Old Virgin.
Currently Warner Brothers and Paramount are releasing on both formats, but some would argue that Warner might slightly favor HD-DVD, as evidenced by the Matrix trilogy being temporarily exclusive to HD-DVD.
Bluray has a monsterous content arsenal with the likes of Sony, Columbia, Tristar, MGM, Fox, Disney, Buena Vista, Lionsgate, and Anchor Bay all being EXCLUSIVE to Bluray. Expect to see Spiderman Trilogy, POTC Trilogy, Independence Day, Toy Story, Die Hard Trilogy, Aliens Quadrilogy, Ghostbusters 1 and 2, Cars, X-men Trilogy, 1408, Rocky Anthology, Evil Dead 1 and 2, Pulp Fiction, Reservior Dogs, The Punisher, and Predator to name a few only on Bluray.
As far as buying a dual player, I would strongly be against it. Eventually the cradle will fall and Universal will have to go neutral, so you will eventually see The Thing on Bluray. If not, there isn't much point in paying for a dead format for one movie. Wait till its on Universal HD, Tivo it, and then burn it to a BDR.
The insane prices they are charging for dual players is off the wall. You could buy a PS3 and a cheap Toshiba player for less then the LG Dual format player was introduced at.
But I still wouldn't condone buying into HD-DVD because it is a worthless format in my opinion. With only one major studio exclusive to it, and limited bandwidth and space available to it, its only a matter of time before it is phased out and you are left with a very expensive paper weight, save for the fact that you can watch The Thing, but, really as good of a movie as it is, is it worth 300 dollars?
Try a little patience...
