Uconn, what you don't understand, is fez needs the basement to store all the never quite a standard equipment he buys. See, his hate for sony and the "bigger" companies that he buys any off the wall standard and technology in hopes that it dethrones the big boys. HDDVD is just his latest failed venture. There are other, like his copy of Bob, OS/2, his sperry, geo windows (or whatever it was called), etc...
If he puts in the the basement, there is no more room for these technology leading and failures to be stored.