[muzz]

First off, I will say up front that I am an HD DVD supporter, I do not support Sony, or the BD camp in any way, because since day 1 they have been gouging the general public.

Sony has been doing that for years, and has always tried to build a monopoly.

I tend to spend much more time and $ on stuff like this than Joe Public does, so when I jumped on HD DVD, it was because the format seemed to make more sense to everyone involved.
The customer got great entertainment for the Dollar, as good as BD.

The Price it costs to first buy all new Eqpt to burn BD, for the masses, and the discs themselves are more expensive for the studios, giving me reason to think that they would prefer to use HD DVD instead.. this all go's back to my first point about the cash, if it cost's more to produce, what are the chances that it'll cost less to the consumer? Thanks to HD DVD, BD prices are the same, and lower than the "Combo's" which I've always detested.

Manufacturers of the Boutique brands sided with Sony, probably because they can gouge more outta your pockets, this is partly because Sony had more studio backing, so Toshiba went to cheaper to buy hardware. From what I understand, it costs more $ to produce a BD Player, maybe I'm mistaken.

IMO the masses got the shaft here.

I've seen some fairly well known folks state that they are glad that FINALLY one format won, so we can move on, to help Joe Public decide and push HDM.... what is he gonna decide, that BD is stupidly expensive, thats what... stalling the HD market even longer.

I don't see this as a good thing for the consumer AT ALL, if it wasn't for HD DVD, Sony would probably still be using Mpeg2, on profile 1.0, with prices still as stupidly expensive as when they first came out.

Average price is STILL way to high for the general public to care, and with no competition folks seem to think that Sony and the Cronies will lower prices...

I'll believe it when I see it..

As far as " Sir" Howard Stringer goes-
Yeah, sure Howie, you've always been open to dialogue...and I'm a Mutli-Billionaire !!!

Grow the Market? What?

Who calls themselves "Sir" anyways... Royalty that's who...
Bah

Sad situation really.