I get a total value of $589.85, not 485.95 which means it's even a better deal. Plus you didn't even include the value of the AA batteries or the power adapter!

Oops. I just realized that the one on the left is the one for $88.73. Well, deduct the price of the batteries and the power adapter and you still have a bargain, I guess.

Seriously: you can't protect people from their own stupidity. That's just a side-effect of capitalism.

I used to work for a Home-Entertainment company once. We would install DTV and Satellite wall-plates during the building of the house and I never really gave much thought to the pricing.

For those who don't know, DTV wall-plates consist of a coax connection and a phone connection. The Satellite wall-plate consists of 2 coax, and one phone connection.

Well when we did the wiring for my house, my boss told me that he would put satellite wall-plates everywhere because they cost 65 bucks per outlet. DTV installations would cost 90 dollars instead. I could just chose later which system to use.

They all use the same coax cables, they all use the same phone cables. If anything, the satellite with one extra plug (and thus extra cable) should cost more... but nope, DTV costs more. When I asked why we charge that way, boss smiled and said "customers are simply willing to pay more money for "digital" connections and the industry charges them accordingly."

Ah, the power of ignorance. Now you know.

BetterCables=ripoff. Never have bought anything from 'em, never will. Want good cables that aren't a ripoff? Blue Jeans Cable. No association with 'em other than as a very satisfied customer. Gotta love a site that has the 'stones to put something like this up.

If you prefer, we also offer our own breakout adapter, which we produce using Belden 1522A, a solder-type gold-pin HD15, and RF crimp-type female BNCs. We offer this adapter both in three-BNC and five-BNC versions. While technically this is a better product than the AVLink, we have to admit that in most applications there will be no observable difference in performance between the two because the length of the adapter is so short--so we heartily recommend the less-expensive AVLink adapter.

Check the toslink switch ripoff:

Monoprice: 7.90
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_...

3rd Party on Amazon: 29.99
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Optical-Toslink-Selector-Con...

Oh, I see why it's so expensive. They must've spent loads and loads of money designing the remote control, obviously by hiring Herman Miller or some other top man in his field. Then MonoPrice ripped it off. Yeah, that's it.

I have no sympathy for the consumer who's willing to pay these rediculous prices. If he/she isn't going to do any research prior to laying down a big chunk of change, they deserve this. Unless it was my mom, then I'd have a lil sympathy - and make her take that garbage back.

Most consumers are like your mom PJ. Being in marketing and doing focus groups, I've seen over 70% who don't care about the price or research, another 20% who rely on friends for information, 10% who actually do research and are informed (also want's more info). There's also 5% of that group that also wear tin hats and think the government has implanted them all with tracking bugs. Fortunately for us, that 5% work for people like gizmodo and inform us of when consumers are getting ripped off.

Maybe the silkscreened logo has some effect on the video quality? Did you ever think of that?

Kind of like how putting a Type R sticker on a Civic increases the horsepower.

I second the Blue Jeans cable note above. Also no affiliation, just an electrical engineer. ;)

Monoprice is the disease in this factor. They sell product for 5-10% above cost. They killed the market share. Freeport who states they manufacture the switches will sell to anyone. Shame they didnt listen to me and stop selling to Monprice. I use to be the Director of Sales for Digital MAtrix in San Francisco who is the sales and marketing team for Freeport. I resigned after they told me they would stop selling to monoprice. They didnt stop so I left. I lost good respectful customers. I agree Better Cables is very high in price. They can sell it @ 50% advertised price and still make profit. I even called and spoke to them. They denied they knew monoprice and even told me it was not the same box. They stated that many manufacturers make this box..RIGHT! Good thing monoprice cant buy name brand TV's etc and try to cut throat price those items. Major name brand players would stop selling to that bozo. In fact he wouldnt qualify to be an authorized dealer. Thats where Freeport went wrong.

Freeport HDMI switchers can also be found at [www.hdequipment.eu] plus some of their other hdmi products.