UPDATE: It was hinted at in this article, and became official the next day: The HD DVD Promotional Group has shut down down on March 28.

Quite predictably, most of the big news in the world of HD DVD has slowed down in the last few weeks and there hasn’t been a lot to report or comment on for the site. There haven’t been any new sales or promotions on HD DVD movies at Amazon and DeepDiscount, but most of their lowered pricing from February has continued through to March, and a few retail stores such as Hollywood Video, FYE, and Virgin Megastores have been moving their inventory out at some hefty discounts.

One result of these lowered prices, which are close to “fire sale” amounts in a few cases, is that there has been a surge in HD DVD sales numbers as people make sure they are well-stocked for the months ahead. With Blu-ray player prices not seriously expected to get to $199 or lower until some time in 2009, it still makes some financial sense to feed the HD DVD player you may already own so that you have at least some pure HD content for your HDTV until you eventually move on to your next HD source.

Will your next HD source be a Blu-ray player? Some people already have one, others are planning on getting one in the future, and there are many who think they’ll be happy with digital downloads, or turn to their satellite/cable provider for HD and HD on-demand. There are some people who have decided they’ll never go Blu-ray. We may understand that sentiment when it comes from the most hardcore of the HD DVD fans, and I can also see how getting involved with all the shenanigans of the format war every week has been a drain.

One person who is not going Blu-ray (at least in a business sense) is Ken Graffeo who plays double duty as the co-president of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group and Executive Vice President of High-Def Strategic Marketing for Universal. Those positions might soon be mentioned in the past-tense, since Graffeo’s obviously going to be out of the HD DVD position after the recent dissolution of that group, and in an interview with Video Business he’s said to be figuring out his options at Universal as well. Ken Graffeo played a big role in Universal’s HD DVD support, and I know he had to handle a lot of mean spirited comments over that studio’s HD DVD exclusivity. It’s not impossible for a person like him to continue on and take a role with the studio’s Blu-ray strategies, but I honestly wouldn’t blame Graffeo for taking a break. I’m sure he’s going to have some interesting behind-the-scenes stories to tell about HD DVD, especially from his unique vantage point.

In other news, I’m sure you already know that Toshiba had planned for HD DVD supplies at stores to expire at the end of this month. That means you can probably expect HD DVD players to be rare or non-existent at Circuit City, Best Buy and anywhere else as we say hello to April. In fact, Best Buy stores have already started pulling HD DVD movies off their shelves and returning them to the distributors. It’s likely that other retailers will either make the same returns or look into fire sale pricing to get rid of whatever inventory they already have.

We are likely to see movies continue to be available through online merchants like Amazon, DeepDiscount, Tower, etc. since they are less affected by warehouse and shelf space issues. The other thing we’ll be on the lookout for are liquidators moving in to get rid of excess inventory. Let’s face it, not every movie that came out on HD was worth $30 or $20, or overly appealing even at the hugely discounted price of $8 – even when that price is close to or matches the standard DVD pricing.

On the hardware scene, both Plextor and Buffalo have recently introduced their HD DVD/Blu-ray combo drives for use with PCs. This is certainly one way to make sure that you have a back-up player for your HD DVDs, but you may need to put some time and money into making sure that your PC is upgraded enough to properly handle HD, both in terms of hardware and software.

On the software side of things, both Paramount and Universal released the last of their HD DVD titles. A few of the smaller studios have cancelled some of their April and May releases, but Warner continues to announce and release a few titles through May.

That’s much of the useful news to close out March. Let’s see what April brings…

• Graffeo to leave high-def post at Universal at Video Business
• HD DVD store at Amazon.com
• HD DVDs on sale at DeepDiscount.com
• Fry’s has discs for $9.99 and others on sale too
• Tower also has HD DVDs at great prices

HD DVD owners have demonstrated to retailers that they’re interested in HD home theater, which implies they may have purchases coming up, such as a Blu-ray player or other equipment. It makes sense to reach out to this base, and build up as much good will and brand loyalty as possible, especially when we’re on the verge of receiving a few hundred dollars in our economic stimulus checks.

Best Buy has jumped on the “hold on to your HD DVD customers” bandwagon by starting a gift card program worth over $10 Million for their customers who purchased HD DVD players before February 23, 2008. Walk in and show that you made such a purchase, and you’re eligible to receive a $50 gift card for every HD DVD player you bought from them. If Best Buy has some information about your purchase already in their system, then they’ll mail these cards out automatically. This includes customers who:

• Bought their HD DVD players from BestBuy.com
• Purchased Performance Service Plans (the extended warranty)
• Bought through the Best Buy Reward Zone

Those customers can expect to get their cards by May 1. You can also call (888) BEST BUY to receive a gift card if your proof purchase is a credit card transaction or Best Buy receipt.

Barry Judge, Best Buy’s chief marketing officer says,

“The beauty of this offer is that it doesn’t require our customers to give up their HD-DVD player. We know that many people who purchased these players have HD-DVD movies that they would like to continue to watch. We’re telling our customers they can keep their players to play these movies as well as their older DVDs and use the $50 to treat themselves to anything else in our stores.”

It’s nice to hear such positive remarks about HD DVD players and owners. Many of us are hanging on to our players because they still work on the many movies we already have and we can still get a lot of use out of them, whether and when we switch to Blu-ray or not. We can also use them to upscale regular DVDs.

Best Buy is also allowing HD DVD players into their trade-in program, where you can get an estimate of the trade-in value of your player and movies, and get an additional gift card if you send those materials in. This aspect of the program applies regardless of where the player and movies were purchased.

In the end, you could easily take your $300 (or higher) tax refund check, and combine it with $50 or more in Best Buy Gift Certificates and have some nice toys for the summer.

Best Buy is also an interesting place to visit nowadays becuase they have a 30% off sale on their HD DVD movies, and if you’re lucky (meaning the manager or cashier cooperate), you can get them to price-match their own web site’s prices on the movies and get many titles for just over $10.

More information about the gift cards:

• Best Buy’s HD DVD Action Center

UPDATE: This offer applies to the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive as well. Click on the Best Buy link above for more details on the offer.

There’s a saying that “it depends on what you are made of whether you take on a polish or get worn down.” Life might send upsetting things in one’s direction, but it’s up to us how we react to these challenges.

Good sportsmanship means that you accept victory and defeat gracefully. In the spirit of showing some good sportsmanship, here are some instances of jokes made at HD DVD’s expense, as well as some that poke fun at Blu-ray.

This list is not comprehensive, and I left out things that I didn’t think were overly funny, or that I felt were insulting — to both formats or owners of those players. Some are funnier than others:

Making fun of HD DVD:

• How to Rationalize at Basic Instructions
• HD DVD Eulogy at Joy Of Tech
• HD DVD Funeral Attack of the Show clip on YouTube
• HD DVD vs. Blu-ray consumer apathy at ExtraLife.com
• A political cartoon, one of many such jokes

Here’s another along those same lines.

This video clip from Der Untergang has been used many times, and its use for HD DVD was right on the mark in many ways (be warned of the strong language):

(click here to view the video at YouTube if it is not visible above)

This clip has also been used to parody (more strong language):

• Hitler’s Xbox banned (over 2 million views)
• Hitler’s car stolen

There are a few other variations, and the best of the clips demonstrate an excellent working knowledge of the subject being made fun of.

Here are a couple of older Blu-ray jokes:

• Exclusive Interview Blu-Ray Speaks at Aeropause.com (from August 2006)
• Why We Are Switching to Blu-ray at The Onion

And just for you Blu-ray fans who come around here in the spirit of bad sportsmanship, here’s one about the greatness of Blu-ray (over 7 million views). (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Add some of your own in the comments, but forget about it if they’ve got a derogatory tone or are unfunny. I’ve seen some where the joke’s punchline is simply to show a player thrown in the trash or to call the owner an idiot. Besides these people’s family members, I’m not sure who else would think those videos were funny.

UPDATE: In their March filing, the loss posted was actually about $670M, not the billion originally reported by a Japanese newspaper.

Despite the recent devaluation of the dollar and inflation, $100 is still not chump change. In fact, $1K and $1M still count as large amounts of moola, and most of us would be happy with that amount of cash added to our bank accounts.

Coming from our world of personal finances, it’s a little difficult to relate to the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars that are routinely exchanged by corporations in the course of their business activities. But that’s just spare change compared to many other deals. For example, I’m sure you’ve already heard about Microsoft offering to buy Yahoo! for $45B. The price tag was a lot lower, but Electronic Arts, famous for their Madden games offered $2B for Take Two, most famouly known for publishing Grand Theft Auto.

The day that Toshiba announced they would cease HD DVD production, they also announced a partnership with SanDisk on a flash memory factory in 2009, and two more of their own. This continues their prior ventures with SanDisk where they’ve spent $2.6B in 2004 and $3B in 2006 on the factories that have helped both companies gain significant market share in flash memory (that’s the memory on your usb stick, phone, mp3 player, and many other devices).

I’m getting you accustomed to the billions being thrown around here so that you can better comprehend how much Toshiba is about to write off on their HD DVD investment: it’s “only” one billion dollars. That’s a lot of money for you and I, but it’s money that Toshiba will easily make back in just about a year. In fact, they’re still on track to post an overall profit of $3B (though I’m not sure if that’s before or after subtracting $1B on their HD DVD loss).

If you were going to criticize Toshiba for making such a big investment, consider whether you’re also willing to criticize Team Blu who had to have spent at least as much to keep up their end of the format war. $1B is nothing compared to the tens of billions of yearly profits that both sides had their eyes on.

In the end, it’s all business. Like this deal where Sony recently sold off their Cell manufacturing to Toshiba for $835M. These are the CPUs used in the PS3 (which essentially won the format war for Blu-ray), and Toshiba has been interested in using them for their own purposes to enhance HDTVs. Sony put $1.6B into building that factory in 2003, and selling it for half price is sure to have hurt a little — but that’s how life goes: If you don’t take the risks, then you’ll never reap the rewards.

Just because Brad Pitt hugs Eva Longoria, it doesn’t mean she’s going to have his baby. Along similar lines, people have been wildly speculating that the Xbox 360 is going to be sporting a Blu-ray drive of some kind. Afterall, the 360’s relationship with HD DVD is over, and the Xbox needs a new partner to fool around with.

Some people say the Blu-ray drive will be built-in and others have the more realistic speculation that it’ll be an add-on just like the HD DVD drive was.

These rumors got their start with some statements by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the MIX08 conference, that Microsoft would “support Blu-ray in ways that make sense” and something about Blu-ray device drivers. That’s basically all he said. Ballmer didn’t even announce any hardware or software products. A reasonable interpretation of Ballmer words is that Microsoft will probably have better Blu-ray support in Windows Vista and Windows Media Center. The more sensational interpretation is that the 360 is getting a Blu-ray drive.

Just as with Hollywood stars, it seems like this 360/Blu-ray speculation is based on wishful thinking and wanting to create news based on assumptions. Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, came forth to halt all of this 360/Blu-ray crazy talk. In a Reuters interview, Greenberg plainly states, “Xbox is not currently in talks with Sony or the Blu-ray Association to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience. … We’re the only console offering digital distribution of entertainment content.”

If you’ve followed this blog for the last few months, then you know I never believed the rumors about Microsoft building an HD DVD drive into the Xbox 360 either. Their business model has been to make sure that the game console gets into as many hands as possible. This allows customers the option to use it as a media device should they choose to.

Unlike Sony, Microsoft is not a consumer electronics company. The majority of their energy is focused on developing new software and software standards, not inventing a better LCD panel or electric blanket. Microsoft makes their big money on software, and their hardware efforts are actually pretty small. Whatever hardware standard is popular, Microsoft will be interested in getting their software into that device or system, or into a competing device or system.

The Zune and 360 are Microsoft’s only significant consumer electronics products where the company offers its own hardware standard, but in the overall strategy, these products are ultimately related to extending the reach of Windows into more places.

While a Blu-ray drive is possible future peripheral for the 360, all this talk about Microsoft dumping HD DVD and immediately going Blu-ray is really more like talking about some handsome actor serially dating starlets. That gossip doesn’t always make sense with the movie stars, nor in the world of consumer electronics.

• Microsoft says no Blu-ray for Xbox 360 – Reuters article

It’s the first week of Daylight Savings Time, and it’s also turning out to be a time for many HD DVD owners to crank up the savings at various retailers.

There’s talk that Blockbuster video stores will be following in the footsteps of Hollywood Video and start selling off previously rented HD DVD titles at $10 a piece. That might sound like a good deal on some of the more expensive titles, but check with the online retailers to see whether they might already be selling them brand-new at the same prices or just a couple dollars more.

The fire-sale pricing hasn’t kicked in across the board at Amazon yet, and most Warner titles are still at their February price levels, but we have seen significant moves recently on Universal titles and numerous Paramount discs at $12. DeepDiscount and Fry’s have a lot of discs selling at around $10, and Tower isn’t too far behind.

If you’re looking for the absolute best pricing, then you need to click around at multiple websites and scroll through at last a few pages there because these merchants are all a little different in which discs get put on sale. For example, Tower has a lousy price on American Gangster at $26, but they’re among the cheapest for the BBC version of Planet Earth at $54.85, and a buck cheaper than Amazon on Batman Begins. Similarly, DeepDiscount has Planet Earth at a ridiculously high $70, but they’re beating Amazon’s $12 price on several Paramount titles by offering them at $10.

Retail stores are eager to make room on their shelves and in their warehouses for new products, which means they’re likely to offer unannounced discounts and deals on HD DVD movies. So if you’re in the neighborhood, you might want to drop in and see what your local Best Buy or Circuit City are up to. One way to get deals at BB and CC is to try to get them to price-match. However, luck seems to be a major component at dealing with these stores because they may not have titles in stock, and it may be up to the cashier or manager’s whimsy whether they’ll honor a price that you think you should be getting. But if you’re persistent (and try another set of employees at the same store), you might walk away with some good deals.

A shopping tip I can give you from my past attempts at tracking down discountinued toys and videogames is don’t hold out just to save an additional 80 cents on something. If you really need or want an item, and the price is generally within your expectations, then order it before it goes out of stock everywhere and you can only pick it up used, or maybe never.

So here are links of interest for your HD DVD bargain hunting for the week. It seems inevitable that Amazon will have to offer all their sale-priced discs on a special promotion and present them on a set of pages for easy browsing, and we’ll update the links here accordingly.

Here’s what Amazon’s got right now for 9.95:

And for $8.95:

Links to these and other online retailers and deals:

• Fry’s has Paramount for $9.99 and others on sale too
• Tower has great prices on lots of discs, but not on all of them
• DeepDiscount.com has great prices on lots of discs
• Selected Paramount titles for $12 at Amazon (goes to previous posting at this site)
• Universal titles on sale at Amazon (goes to a search on ‘Universal’ at Amazon)
• 56 Warner discs on sale at up to 57% off at Amazon

Universal was supposed to have lowered their suggested retail prices on all HD DVD titles on March 4, and everything should have become $10 cheaper. I reported on it that morning with titles like American Gangster going for $17, and plenty of others at $12. But those prices didn’t last the whole day, and they all went up a few dollars and stayed that way for the remainder of the week.

I’m not sure how long it’s going to last this time around, but as of this morning on March 8, it appears that Amazon has updated all of their HD DVD pricing again with plenty of titles going for $10 and $12 which had been selling for a few more dollars earlier in the week.

Here’s a sample of the titles now at $10, the first one is NOT from Universal:

These Paramont titles are $12:

Click here for Amazon’s Universal titles, and you’ll see a bunch at $13.95, and even $9.95.

Click here for the entire HD DVD collection at Amazon where you’ll find savings on titles from all studios. That link is supposed to be sorted by price, however it seems that Amazon’s system could use some math lessons from my 8 year old since the sorting is not quite perfect.

I’m not sure how long it will last this time around, but if you’re even the least bit interested in any of these movies, then go ahead and follow your impulse and buy it now before you’re out of luck and they’re gone for good.

I bought a few earlier in the week when I first noticed the sale, and have been waiting for prices to get back down. The movies I’m looking for are the ones that I wasn’t necessarily interested in at a higher price. Once the price is down to something where I don’t feel like I’m throwing away a $10 or $20 bill, it’s a little easier to add them to my cart. Afterall, I’m not sure when I’ll get a Blu-ray player, and I certainly don’t know how much longer after that all these previously HD DVD exclusive titles will come out on that format. Might as well enjoy them in their fully interactive glory for the next several months than do without.

You can also check out the deals at DeepDiscount.com which have recently been a buck or more less than Amazon, and they seem to have some titles that Amazon is only offering from its associated vendors.

After internal memos describing the plan leaked out in the last couple of days, Circuit City has finally come clean and gone on the record to state that they will accept returns on HD DVD players purchased in the last 90 days.

You wont have to bring your attorney friend along to help present your case as to why you should be allowed to return the device so long after the purchase, because CC is going beyond their usual 30 day return policy which also included a restocking fee. You’ll receive store credit which you might presumably use to buy a Blu-ray player, but it’s your money and you can even buy one of these instead.

Circuit City spokeswoman Jackie Foreman told ABC news, “We did not make a public announcement about extended returns for HD DVD players, but we have instructed our stores to take care of our customers. Therefore we will accept returns for HD DVD players within 90 days of purchase. Customers returning these products will receive store credit for the purchase price.”

Not that you needed expert commentary on the move, but NPD Group analyst Steve Baker said, “I think it’s nice that they’re willing to do that. I think that’s a way for them to bring traffic into the stores for customers who are willing to be high-end customers. I think given the number of players out there, the cost isn’t going to be prohibitive.”

Best Buy has not responded with any similar plan on trading in your HD DVD player for a Blu-ray. Elsewhere in the world, Sony has a HD DVD trade-in program going on in Switzerland, and Japanese store Edion was first to make news about their exchange program a few weeks ago.

• Circuit City Offers HD DVD Credit at ABC News

There’s a video to watch as well, where CNet editor Brian Cooley has a few interesting things to say about HD DVD and Blu-ray

UPDATE: Apparently, Future Shop in Canada has been inspired by this news and is offering a trade-in promotion where you get a discount on a Samsung or LG combo player. (More info here)

Universal kicks off the month of March with freshly lowered prices, and retailers are busy updating their price lists to pass the savings along.

Universal essentially reduced the list prices of their already released discs by $10, and then you throw in the standard discount from your favorite retailer. This means you can now get American Gangster at Amazon for only $16 instead of $26, and the entire Bourne Trilogy for only $30. In fact, most of Universal’s movies are now only $11.95 at Amazon.

This pricing will show up in some form at all the other merchants, and I’ll update this posting as news about those sales comes in. We’ll start with Amazon first and add to this list as the other retailers chime in. DeepDiscount is included here, but at the time this article was posted, their prices did not yet reflect Universal’s new discounts (compare with Amazon’s pricing). Click-through and see if that has changed by the time you read this.

• Universal discs on sale at Amazon.com (goes to a search results page for ‘Universal’)
• Universal titles on sale at DeepDiscount.com

UPDATE: It looks like Amazon’s pricing has gone up slightly from earlier in the day. American Gangster is now $19 instead of $16. Click through to see whether the lower pricing has returned. The Bourne Trilogy is still $30, however.

UPDATE: Our friends at FormatWarCentral.com are reporting that Best Buy has put their HD DVD discs on sale at 30% off. The online pricing is still a little more than Amazon and DeepDiscount, but it appears that the deals at the stores are more compelling. Read more at FormatWarCentral.com…

UPDATE: March 6 – It looks like Amazon has lowered prices on Beowulf to $20.95 and American Gangster to $17.95 and other titles are a buck or two cheaper as well. Click through to the links above and see if you get the same or lower pricing.