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Back about a month ago, I warned about complaints from all those poor saps who bought $99 Toshiba HD-DVD players at Christmas and now are stuck with the 2008 version of Sony's old Betamax machines. Now Best Buy is following Curcuit City and others to offer these casualties of the format war a shoulder to cry on. Anyone who bought an HD-DVD player from Best Buy before February 23, 2008 will automatically receive, or can request, a complimentary $50 gift card for each player. Best Buy also announced it's adding HD DVD players and media to its Trade-In Center program, www.bestbuytradein.com, starting March 21st. In all, Best Buy plans to distribute more than $10 million in gift cards to HD-DVD customers around the country. "The DVD format war has divided our customers in a way we haven't seen since Betamax took on VHS more than 20 years ago," Brian Dunn, president/COO for Best Buy, said in the press release. "At Best Buy, we understood and shared our customers' frustrations as they were being asked to choose one format or the other. Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the right technology for their needs."
Some Help For Saps Who Bought HD-DVD
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to “all those poor saps who bought $99 Toshiba HD-DVD players”: The HD DVD players will upconvert any DVD except Blu-Ray. So you have an extra DVD player, big deal.
Hi I am a poor Sap just not a Best Buy sap. That said this Sap while sadden he would be able to buy newer HD-DVD’s and perhaps will buy a Blu-Ray player… is still happy that he did what he did. Why? Because the movies I own on HD-DVD are great! And their BR counterparts are not going to be any better… so Ok I’ll have some red spine sitting along some blu spine cases on my shelf… all I know is they are better than standard DVD’s and I even have some of them on the shelf and they even sport multi-different spines.
The one’s that I think are SAPS are those dumping their players and HD-DVDs. Now that’s silly in my opinion. Unless you just don’t have the room for the BR player.
Hey guy steele,
you’re wrong that the BD counterparts to HD DVD aren’t going to be any better.
Capacity of a BD = 50 Gigs.
Capacity of HDDVD = 30 Gigs.
the worst BD discs are the ones that share the transfer with their HDDVD counterpart since they transfer is done with the space limitations of the HDDVD in mind.
my god people are so entitled. Everyone knew there was a chance of buying the DVD equivalent of a Beta going in. (that’s why those players haven’t been selling in huge numbers)
If you chose to dive in early and not go with a dual-format DVD player it’s your own damn fault.
I guess at least Best Buy will end up getting that $50 right back when they have to come back to get a BluRay though…
For those with a taste and thirst for all things Hi-Def, the HD DVD was and still is a decent purchase. I guess that’s my opinion, and it’s one that could be argued with. I now own the HD DVD and a PS3 w/ BlueRay and have no regrets.
However, there is no way you can argue that HD DVD is the modern-day equivalent of BetaMax. Not everyone owns BluRay players, or BlueRay discs. Millions of people who buy and watch DVDs at home will never buy a BlueRay player or a single BlueRay disc. Now, they can buy a very cheap HD DVD player as an “upconvert” DVD player, and play all of their current standard definition DVDs, and ones they purchase in the future, on the HD DVD player. Maybe someday, on an HD TV. Playback will be of much higher quality than a standard DVD on a standard DVD player, and even better on an HD TV. The HD DVD is still a viable piece of equipment for millions of consumers who will never succumb to the HiDef temptations, either partly or completely.
Did a BetaMax ever make your current or future VHS cassettes look better? I think that answer is obvious….