There was recent activity was over in the comments on a couple of posts, and I had not realized that so much time had gone by since a new posting. There are actually many things to talk about, so let’s see if I can get us caught up.

Traderbora is still delighting lots of Amazon customers with low $5 prices and free shipping on plenty of titles. There’s also the usually reliable InetVideo sale that comes around where you can pick up a few hard to find titles, like Bonnie and Clyde.

Astute shoppers from the AVS forum have found HD DVD discs in unexpected places, like Burlington Coat Factory stores. Some had also seen discs at Kroeger’s grocery stores (Ralph’s in California - although not at any that I went to).

There were reports a few weeks ago about a book by Microsoft insiders which provided a small peek into Microsoft’s HD DVD effort, and explained it as a calculated business decision. Well of course it was! Did you think that Panasonic and Sony partnered over Blu-ray for altruistic purposes? Apparently, Microsoft joined the HD DVD team as a way to encourage more cross-licensing of its technologies. Toshiba and Microsoft already had a close relationship dating back to the PocketPC and Zune, so their readiness to collaborate on HD DVD should be no surprise.

But here’s a big surprise: just a month ago, Warner decided that HD DVD aint so bad afterall, at least for China. Well, it’s not exactly the HD DVD format that we’re all familiar with, but the Chinese version, CBHD. Warner has announced that they will put out their big hits, including the Harry Potter series, while also pushing movies on Blu-ray. Unfortunately CBHD is slightly different enough from HD DVD that this news is not very useful for HD DVD fans.

• Traderbora has $5 and free shipping at Amazon
• InetVideo has a sale as usual
• Microsoft insiders write about HD DVD in a book about intellectual property deals
• Warner endorses Chinese HD DVD format

UPDATE: One week into February, and this deal is still working!

UPDATE: Still going strong on Feburary 16! Traderbora has plenty of movies for $5 and free shipping.

The most recent Amazon-associated merchant deal only lasted a short while before many of the movies stopped being eligible for free shipping. The prices were pretty good, but without free or discounted shipping, the cost-per-disc in the end was not always favorable.

A hot tip at the AVS forum says that at this very minute, and maybe at least for the rest of this day, there’s another Amazon merchant offering plenty of titles for $5.94 and the majority of them are eligible for Amazon’s discounted or free shipping promotions.

Go now and good luck!

• Traderbora Storefront at Amazon.com

UPDATE: It appears that the free shipping only applies to movies that are shipped out from Amazon. Movies sent out from this Amazon-affiliated dealer do not qualify for free shipping. I’m working on a list of the ones that do qualify, hang on…

UPDATE: This deal may be dead or lukewarm. As I went through the selection of movies, I found that many added to my cart last night were no longer being fulfilled through Amazon, and thus ineligible for the discounted shipping. In addition, many movies are now $4.97 and others have gone up by a few bucks. Try your luck with this deal by looking for the movies that indicate “2 new and used for…” and one of those 2 is likely to be done through Amazon, and thus eligible for free shipping. (thanks to ’sdscribe’ at the AVS forum for that hint)

Amazon.com offers numerous channels for retailing. They’ll sell many products themselves, and also partner with stores or resellers in some way, including handling the order fulfillment. It’s that latter case that brings us the most recent closeout sale on 140 HD DVD titles.

“Closeoutmovies Storefront” is a reseller using Amazon’s order fulfilment system, which means that Amazon ships directly from their own warehouses, and that you can still get some Amazon features like Amazon Prime, and Amazon’s free Super Saver shipping on orders that are $25 or more. At the $5.99 price, you’ll have to order four movies and some cheap $1.04 trinket to qualify for free shipping.

All of the movies are Universal Studios titles and selling for $5.99. The Battlestar Galactica and Heroes, Season One box sets are selling for $12.99. I checked over at Buy.com and DeepDiscount.com to see if this might be part of some general sale on Universal discs, but no luck. It appears that this is a closeout only from this particular seller on Amazon.

The other deals that people have been reporting both here and at the AVS forum threads have been great sales at Fry’s, and that Blockbuster is selling their used movies. In some cases, the Blockbuster movies are barely used, and in some other cases, the movies are arriving damaged. Longtime reader, Patrick, has been lucky with his Blockbuster orders as have many others. If you want to try them out, make sure to enter discount code holidaysurprise to save an additional 30%.

Some of you are going to mention that good old inetvideo.com has movies for $3.99 and $5.99, and those are good prices indeed. However, shipping on a $25 order is nearly $14, so it doesn’t work out to be the same great deal right now as this one through Amazon.

• 140 Universal discs for $5.99 via Amazon.com
• Blockbuster’s used movie sale with 30% off using code holidaysurprise

Borders has a “Cyber Monday” deal on Dec. 1-2 of an additional 40% discount on their DVD box sets. The HD DVD sets are already significantly discounted to begin with at around $10 a piece for titles such as The Sopranos, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica, and it will be interesting to see if you can get another 40% off on these. The sale applies to their DVD and Blu-ray selection as well.

Reader Mark left a tip about HD Scape’s clearance of their nature and landscape HD DVDs for a ridiculous price of $3.95. You may never have considered getting a fireplace or aquarium disc at the original prices, but at $4 each, they might make a great disc to play in the background while you have company over for the holidays.

Finally, on a personal and site note, I’m going on vacation for most of the month and won’t be able to post about Christmas deals so much. But you can come to the rescue of your fellow HD DVD bretheren and report deals in the comments. To prevent comment spam, and the occasional format war contribution, all comments at the site are moderated. This means I read and approve each one. I’m going to be delayed on approving these comments, but please don’t let that stop you from sending them along and sharing info about the sales you’ve found.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

• Borders 40% off on box sets (Dec. 1-2)
• $3.95 Nature and Landscape HD DVDs clearance at HD Scape
• Amazon’s $7.99 sale

Here are quick links to the usual places that have HD DVD deals:

• Amazon.com’s HD DVD store usually can’t be beat when they decide to put on a sale
• DeepDiscount.com usually has free shipping and decent prices
• iNetVideo gets creative with their deals

UPDATE: The sale has been upgraded to $7.99!

Amazon snuck in a sale on 99 Universal Studios titles on us, just in time to order for the big Thanksgiving and Christmas family get-togethers coming up in the weeks ahead.

At $8.99 a piece, most of these HD DVD discs are cheaper than their DVD equivalents, and just a few bucks more than what they might sell for as used discs.

For all the talk about not buying any more discs for a deceased format, it’s really hard to pass up some of these deals. It’s all sweetened by the fact that Amazon typically charges no sales tax for most states, and how easy it is to get free shipping by ordering more than $25 of stuff.

Here are the 99 discs currently listed for $8.99:

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The “HD DVD Index” would have solidly outperformed its Wall Street counterparts these last couple of weeks, with prices hovering solidly around the $11 point, instead of swinging through wild ups and downs.

The last big noteworthy sale was from Amazon who had a 66% off sale on 122 titles featuring many Warner discs at $9.99. If you visit what’s left of that sale today, the selection has dwindled to about 40 discs. Amazon solves that problem with a recent sale on about 100 discs, mostly Universal Studios titles, at $10.99.

Also interesting is a “while supplies last” sale on Transformers over at iNetVideo, for $3.99 and $2.95 shipping.

And if you’ve got a Fry’s Electronics or two in your part of the world, then check out their aisles and displays for some deals starting at $5.99.

Below is the list of 122 discs on sale at Amazon for $10.99:

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We were just discussing on Monday how HD DVD sales are still going pretty strong, so many months after Toshiba threw in the towel, and now here comes Amazon with yet another of those fire sales that keeps these sales numbers going.

Amazon has a sale right now on 122 titles, many at up to 66% off. Though several titles are only 25% off, the bulk of this collection is on a fire sale with half of them at $9.99, and some for $11.99 or $12.99. These are all brand-new discs straight from Amazon, and not used titles or products from their affiliated vendors.

Here’s a list of the $9.99 titles, and you can head on over to see the rest of the selection for yourself:

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I wrote about picking up an Xbox 360 HD DVD Add-on drive at Fry’s for $39.99 the other day as my back-up HD DVD player. The limitation with that method is you need to have a 360 or a sufficiently capable PC (and software) to play back the movies. Many people meet these requirements, but there are plenty of others who’d prefer a more straightforward approach and just get a cheap HD DVD player instead.

Buy.com to the rescue! I’m not sure how long this lasts, but they’ve got two versions of the Venturer SHD7000 (essentially a Toshiba HD-A3) for $59.99. One comes with The Bourne Identity and 300, while the other comes with two of the following: Rumor Has It, Perfect Storm, or Firewall.

Lots of people got the last generation of Toshiba HD DVD players and there’s a resulting glut of Bourne and 300 discs in the wild, so I’m betting that most of you might opt for the second configuration where you get to find out which movies you get only when the box arrives.

• Venturer SHD7000 with The Bourne Identity and 300
• Venturer SHD7000 with two of: Rumor Has It, Perfect Storm, Firewall

I dropped by my local Fry’s on the way home from work and saw a nice stack of new Xbox 360 HD DVD Add-On players for $39.99, and picked one up. Now that I have my backup HD DVD player, I can more realistically think about picking up some additional HD DVD titles, with all these crazy fire sale prices.

I brought home a $15 five-pack of old-school Kung Fu movies on DVD, and also got Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon on HD DVD. Sales associates were still marking down lots of titles to $6.99, $7.99 (like Transformers), and $8.99. I saw the BBC Planet Earth for $39.99, but it was that price when I dropped by a couple of weekends ago too.

Visiting the store can be a hit-and-miss proposition because you can only pick from whatever they’ve got on their shelves (and they may also have scattered these around the store at various endcaps and clearance bins). You can get a nice list of HD DVD sale prices over at their website.

You can order from the site instead of visiting a store, but the typical things to consider are that Frys.com does not have discounted shipping (like the free shipping at DeepDiscount.com), and you may also be paying sales tax on top since Fry’s has stores in so many states. (more…)