Warning: this television may cause a severe urge to urinate on the floor below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/25/arts.artsnews

Makes me want to go find my Ace Greenberg 50th Anniversary Yo-Yo. Now that's some good schwag!

It can be possible to identify fakes from pictures. For example, an expert on Tiffany may know that a pattern or style was never produced by Tiffany, ergo the item up for sale is a fake.

That being said, my own experience with reporting fakes on Ebay is that they respond with a form email, and do absolutely nothing. I've even reported items as fakes with extensive and clear supporting photographic evidence that could be understood by a fifth grader, to no response.

People calling for the death of the disc are simply about 10 years premature, and likely spending too much time reading headlines than doing real analysis. Downloads will become the defacto standard, but not until the next product cycle.

Here's why:
HD content is becoming the video quality standard today, and 1080p will be the preferred resolutions for home viewing (although it is not a part of the broadcast standard).

A single, 2 hour movie at 1080p resolution is between 12-15 GB in filesize. The complete series of the Sopranos? approximately 500GB. The fact is that historical per GB storage costs simply won't drop fast enough (nor will download speeds increase quickly enough) to kill the physical disk this time around. When 20TB drives are nearing mass market pricing, this conversation can be had in earnest, but until then a reality check is in order.

Indolent: absolutely true. BD camp pulled this off IN SPITE of sony. But also, to be fair, most of their format war losses since beta/vhs weren't really format wars, just releases of unnecessary formats. It's similar to saying that Howard Stringer's face keeps getting into fights with his own fist - not only does his ass get kicked, but no one wins the fight.

Those claiming that prices are going to go up are swimming against the current (and logic).

1.) More BD player demand means more economies of scale for manufacturers as well as more manufacturers. This, as it has every time in the past, ensure prices go down.

2.) What is miraculous is that if you look at this format war from day 1, the BD camp, particularly sony, has managed to screw up virtually every step of the way and still managed to come out on top. Content is, and has always been king.

3.) History lesson #1: Disney is always on the winning side. NBC is always on the losing side, unless they follow Disney's lead.

4.) History lesson #2: Time Warner and Toshiba partnered in the last format war, which fortunately ended before the format came to market.

5.) History lesson #3: 10 free HD-DVDs with purchase is an act of desperation, not strength.

I feel bad for BBUY and CC return departments.

Ryan,

To answer your first question, it appears that you must already be a tivo owner in order to get the lifetime sub. You actually can't even see the lifetime sub on their website unless you log into your Tivo account. I would call to double check, however.

To answer the second question, lifetime subs have always been linked to the box, not to the owner (do an Ebay search for Tivo lifetime). During cyclical upgrades (as happened with the Series 3 and newer HD box), they have allowed for lifetime subs to be transferred for a limited time in exchange for a "hardware upgrade fee".

@Ryan Comparing cable DVR to Tivo is truly an apples to orange comparison. The functionality is limited as if you were playing back something on tape, as opposed to digital media. Next time you fast forward to the middle of a movie, count the time and subtract two seconds. That's how much time you wasted by not having a Tivo, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I just got off the phone with Tivo and a few clarifications:

1.) the lifetime sub transfer is ONLY for the Tivo HD, not the series 3 HD.
2.) The $599 price for the S3 on tivo.com has the rebate already included.
3.) You may not be able to get rid of your cable box, yet, even if you throw some cablecard lovin' into your Tivo HD box. According to Time Warner Cable (yes, flip a coin for accuracy of the following statement), you would not be able to access ondemand channels via cable card.