Apple Inc (AAPL)

[baldrick]

"But I defer to you on this topic. "
Thanks but my knowledge of their consumer lineup is probably no greater than yours.... odd that the pages I looked at made no mention of their s/ware being able to deal with moving pictures over USB. I've only had a quick peruse of their US site, but I haven't found a camcorder w/o Firewire/ iLink yet.

Re: combining monitor and TV. On the surface I agree this seems a good idea, but i think with the current numerous imcompatible DTT standards, putting the decoder in the monitor would be a guarantee of built in obsolescence. Keep it in the PC for now I say, hopefully with the move to Intel there'll be more choice. Now if your PC monitor had at least analogue RGB/ S-video/ composite in you could use it with whatever cable/ DTT/satellite box you like. (Analogue's compatible with anything you see ).There are monitors with composite and S-video In, but no RGB AFAICS. (BTW analogue video RGB ain't the same as VGA, though I'm sure you knew that ).

I'm not expecting things to settle down any time soon.
In the UK Sky are going to start pushing their HD service next year, while the BBC is looking at originating all content in HD in the next 3 years. There'll be a big push (via the BBC of course) to HD probably in 2008 onwards. That'll really p*** the public off

I'm in no hurry, I only recently got a Freeview (DTT) box, the sole reason being the last series of 'Six Feet Under' wasn't being shown on analogue. Best drama serial to come out of the US in recent times IMO.