Circuit City abandons HD DVD, clearances all players?

[charper1]

I too am an owner of neither, yet usually an early adopter, and yet have had no need at all to jump into this. With all the first run and live HD on TV, along with some of the decent rerun HD on premium TV, and a great upconvert DVD; I see no need to step onto either ship just to to be "cool" just to see it sink later. I choose to stay dry and wait this one out; I think we shall have a real winner by Christmas if not sooner.

 

[TheForce]

A bit of a recent history lesson- CC was first to announce they would stop selling VHS and only support DVD.

It sure seems that HD DVD is quickly on its way out and availability will be more difficult. However, HD DVD, in my mind is the clear supperior format due to it's present state of the art in features offered to the consumer. BD seems to be a year away from that and by then so many of the disks will not have those features. This is clearly a case that Sony is FIRST buying the market to establish dominance and second, offering the public the same features as we now have in HD DVD.

Here- I get a BR Disk release, watch the movie and return it to BB and rent another. When something comes out in HD DVD, I watch the movie and keep it out for several more days as I experience all the additional stuff on the disk. I hate to see HD DVD lose the war and had hoped both would prevail but it looks like the general public and the media wants one to win. Sony is certain to spend its way to make that happen! Here's one example- Sony has a new kiosk at BlockBuster with a 1080P screen to demo the BluRay movies. They have also expanded the Blu Ray disk sales to several asiles, making the traditional rental store about 20% shelf space now for retail sales. They have one asile dedicated to for sale HD DVD but no demo kiosk. The title offering is about 4 to 1 favoring BR now and the gap is growing. It was 2 to one back in October2006 when I signed up at this store.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Well, hopefully we'll get some confirmation today. Ive seen everything from no price drop, to CCity is dropping them posted. The a35 is now "not available in stores:

Interesting fact about CCity dropping VHS.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Looks like Wally world has the venturer on clearance. I didnt even know they were selling it.

Venturer High-Definition DVD Player, SHD7000 - Wal-Mart

 

[bpickell]

Our local CC don't even have any Blu-Ray players either, so that's really no big surprise. Our local CC is terrible. Every time I go in to buy something I can stand in one spot waiting for a salesman for a good three hours before someone acknowledges that I'm there. If Best Buy wasn't a total polar opposite I would shop there, but I can't take two steps without being bombarded by sales staff there.

 

[mike123abc]

I was just over peeking at a blu ray forum, and I could not believe how they are salivating over this news! Rumor=fact to many Blu Ray supporters. I sure wish both sides would wait for the facts before posting "facts". They are all expecting an official announcement on Monday (along with dream of a big price drop on the PS3). I could not believe how they were attacking HD DVD supporters. I wonder if Warner had gone the other way if they would be spouting the same mantra that they were glad it was over and that everybody should dump their Blu Ray players. Fat chance. If there should be an official announcement denying that CC is discontinuing HD DVD, it will be fun to look at their responses. I am not saying that will be the case, but if it is, it will be fun.

If Universal and Paramount were to announce they were going to start making BDs, all the salivating would end. The war zone will become very boring. The main reason all the BD people are anxious to see HD-DVD fail is to finally get BD out of Universal and Paramount. I do not think most will really care how long Universal and Paramount make HD-DVDs as long as they make BDs too.

 

[foghorn2]

Let the images speak for themselves.

High-Def Digest Forums - View Single Post - Circuit City: 3rd-Gen HD DVD players on Clearance

Guess you were wrong again Georgie!

 

[allargon]

Guess you were wrong again Georgie!

Nope. Circuit City is still selling HD DVD. Toshiba gets outblogged and out-FUD'd again. Even Swanni didn't bite this apple--just Engadget, Gizmodo and a few others going ape over nothing.

Punch Jump :// NEWS - Circuit City to back HD DVD; clearance 'inadvertent' - Other

 

[gadgtfreek]

The news has enough valid anti hddvd press/comments lately. I think many have just quite caring and are under the impression whatever HDDVD does, it wont matter.

 

[diogen]

Nope. Circuit City is still selling HD DVD. Toshiba gets outblogged and out-FUD'd again.

A repeat of the story about Target endcaps. Initially hailed as another "nail in the coffin", it even triggered our local business expert to chime in

You guys miss the value of endcaps in retail. Encaps while a small are are usually 15 to 20% of a stores retail during the holiday seasons.

Was Target on any radar screen ever since?

Diogen.

 

[gadgtfreek]

The endcaps at Target are a joke, just like the HD-DVD and Blu-ray end caps at Bbuy.

 

[JoeSp]

You guys ever manage any retail? Endcaps are not where the consumer buys -- it is where he starts. I will give an example, a few weeks ago I was in my local BB and while watching the LG BD/HD-DVD demo I watch several couples stop and not only watch the LG demo but on the left side was a HD-DVD demo and on the right was a Sharp BD demo. All these demos were endcaps so what they effectively did was act like a beacon to casual shoppers.

One couple had the guy telling his wife how inexpensive HD-DVD was to BD and that they could easily afford it - they were in the 30s. Second couple in their 50s had the wife asking what the demos were and her husband explaing BD and that it was expensive and for $100 they could buy a DVD player that could upconvert their movies and they would look just as good. Third couple had the guy asking a BB salesman why there were more BD players then HD-DVD players as it seemed that Toshiba was the only HD-DVD player they had in the store.

I did not stand around to see if anyone actually purchase a HD player but the endcaps started the process of exploration by the consumer and that is what they are designed to do. If the endcap is done right it will spur sales as the consumer will ask questions and begin the process of selling themselves on what they have been looking at. I will tell you that the endcaps in Target are not very well done and could be change and would have a dramatic effect on Target's BD sales.

Another example, once again at the BD but this time at the Video endcaps. The PS3 was getting hit on by a few guys in their late teens or early twentys. The Xbox360 was not getting any play but my oh my was the Wii getting abused by the kids. There must of been 8 to 9 of them laughing and pointing at what one of them was doing on the Wii. This is another way the endcap works for the retailer. It not only shows you who is interested in the product buy also the age group. This also shows folks like myself who is a grandfather that if I had grandchildren in the 6 to 14 age group that they would be thrilled with a Wii and I would buy them one.

The use of endcaps and how they affect buying and selling in a B&M is very important to the end result for the retailer and that is in increasing sales of a particular product. And they do their job very well if they are setup correctly.

 

[AllieVi]

… It sure seems that HD DVD is quickly on its way out and availability will be more difficult. However, HD DVD, in my mind is the clear supperior format due to it's present state of the art in features offered to the consumer. BD seems to be a year away from that and by then so many of the disks will not have those features. …

I’m not in the game yet and don’t expect to be a buyer in the foreseeable future. Most consumers seem to agree that the time to buy hasn’t yet come. I and others will get more interested when there’s a large selection of movies available (both current and vintage releases) and the format war has been settled.

It’s clear to me that HD DVD will be the loser in the race. It really doesn’t matter if BD’s current features are inferior if the market isn’t ripe. They have lots of time to perfect the system and add features before people start replacing their DVD players in droves.