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Originally Posted by RayJr
...I had a chance to have a fairly long talk with a gentleman who is a independent video store owner, in that conversation he told me that he would much rather have heard from end users like us..than that makeshift poweruser panel....
RayJr
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I had exactly the same thought go through my mind. When I first heard of the "power user panel" I envisioned people like ourselves (who is more of a power user than someone with 5 HDTVs, 4 dual tuner HD DVRs, many thousands of titles, etc. etc. etc.?) And I looked forward to hearing what our fellow fanatics had to say. I was a bit surprised that the "power user" tag was all about using the various media outlets (video stores, Netflix, etc.) and not really about the hardware. But in retrospect I now see that since the audience was mostly Video Software dealers and such this was an appropriate panel. And I do think that the EMA might have been better served to have two panels - one involving power software users and one involving people like HTF members who are "power" HW and SW users in a more literal sense. Maybe next time. A guy like Leo LaPorte can certainly moderate a panel with a bit more of a technical emphasis, given his background.
I will say that one of the more enlightening things I heard came out of the so-called "Power Users" panel. Specifically, when the lady with the five kids and the new HDTV was asked which HD player format she was going with and she didn't even know that there was both Blu-ray and HD-DVD out there she stated something to the effect, "I own an HD-TV so I'll be getting an HD-DVD player. I don't want to have to buy a Blu-ray TV!" To me that really nailed the issue to a large extent. I'm willing to bet that the majority of ordinary folks have the same "understanding" of the format war. Like I said, that single statement underlined the whole "format" issue for me.
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