actually any blu-ray player you get will give u 5 free movies from sony via mail in rebate. if u buy the panasonic blu-ray player it already comes with 5 movies inside as well which include transporter 2, priates 1 and 2, crank and fantastic 4.

Also blu-ray will be winning this one. Server/media storage, IT companies picked it due to the higher capacity for backup. Also there are i believe last i checked 5 exlusive blu-ray release companies and only 2 for HD.

Also despite being a higher price point at last check about 3 months ago blu-ray players *exluding ps3* are outselling HD players 3 to 1 and blu-ray movies outselling HD movies 6 to 1.

For those who say that everything sony does fails.. well im sure sony became such a huge and powerful company by making nothing but failures..

as for memory stick being a failure, i was at a panasonic seminar today and they gave out information on market share for different kinds of memory media. SD wordwide holds 70% and memory stick holds 22% the rest of the 8 is comprised of mostly xd.. then the remaining compact flash..

so 22% for something sony ONLY worldlwide... is not considered a failure. Imagine the success if lets say GM sold 20% of the worlds cars.. etc etc..

And for the plays regular dvd's.. for anyone who asks the blu-ray players will play regular dvd's as well as upscale them to 1080p as well. also the ease of use with blu-ray companies supporting HDMI CEC would make it very convenient to make it an addition to a part of a home theater especially with most new blu-ray players having HDMI 1.3.

Also consider this.
Toshiba supports HD dvd. Their pretty big sure..
But panasonic is blu-ray only.. and their bigger.
samsung is blu-ray only and their bigger still..
sony of course is blu-ray only and their huge..

time warner was releasing a HD/BD player combo but they cancelled it based on market of HD stating the project was not going to be worth it.

LG currenty makes a combo player and so their not one way or the other. Sharp doesnt have a side.

anywho if u really want a deal call around some sams clubs. their stopping to sell the HD dvd drive and in some states people were picking them up for 62 bucks. I know one of the sam's somehwere off 85 near the perimiter had it for 121.