HD DVD HD-A2 hits $199 at VE

I can't believe how fast HD DVD players have come down in price after only 15 months. Value Electronics has the HD-A2 w/ a free HDMI cable, and free shippingfor only $199. And Toshiba has extended its 5 free movie offer. :shock:

Even if HD DVD loses the format war, you can thank them for driving down the prices for both formats faster than expected. Competition is a good thing. Now hopefully this will make the prices of Blu-ray standalones to come down more too. I hope that the Panasonic player comes down a couple hundredfarther so I can nab one by Christmas.

http://www.valueelectronics.com/htf.htm

Yeah, I've been looking out for an "open box" one at my local American TV. Apparently there was a HD-XA2 for $349, that's about $200 off! The funny thing is that there is never anything wrong with what people return. My dad got 5 Energy C-100 speakers for $65 each. They're normally around $200! The price for each one was $120, but they got confused and gave him the pair for that. He's went back 3 times since then and has gotten a full set. There are some slick deals there if you look often.

Even at $200, and if the format fails, you still have a pretty good upscaling dvd player. I mean if I had to choose between a $200 Oppo upscaling player and a $200 HD-DVD player with 5 free movies, it's a no brainer, you can't lose.

I manged to get an A2 for my dad about 2-3months ago when they were $399 (before even the $100 sale). I bought a Toshiba 65inch DLP from Circuit City and they had a deal for $200 off the A2 with a Toshiba tv purchase, so I got it for my dad. Then there was a spot in the tv and I decided to exchange for a Sony SXRD and they let me keep the $199 price on the player. Then finally I decided to return the Sony because I couldn't take 60inches anymore after tasting 65inches. That time I didn't get a different tv and only kept the player, and the customer return service left the player at $199 :)

My dad finally got the 5 free movies after nearly 2 months. A bugger is you can't freely choose from all the titles. They set up rows of titles that you pick 1 out of. So you if there were a bunch in a row you wanted you only could pick like or something, or you may end up having to choose something you don't want from a row that has nothing good to you.

I already have the Toshiba HD-A1 from launch day. Too bad they removed the 5.1 analog out on the A2.