Right on SteveM. It's rather insulting. Are HD DVD owners stupid for choosing a format they thought would at least stick around for a while longer due to lower price points for the players? For most products the prices are very important. There was a time when it was not clear which side would win, or even if there would be a single winner.

The reason Netflix is doing this is because they will start charging more to rent HD discs. They have already hinted that they intend to do so. When there are more Blu Ray discs available in the future it will be hard to justify charging more to rent Blu Ray or HD DVD if there are less HD DVD discs to rent.

I bought the HD-A2 for $220 new. The output is spectacular in HD DVD and it upscales very well for standard DVDs. My previous player did not upscale so this purchase was an upgrade for my DVD collection as well.

While there is some justified concern about picking the wrong format, this feels like a safe buy for an early adapter. If I purchased a Blu-Ray player it would cost about twice as much. I figure even *if* Blu-Ray prevails in the future, the price for a new Blu-Ray player will have dropped to be the difference in price as it currently stands between the least expensive players from each format.