HDDVD.com is a place for people who are into HD DVD. One of the things we do to make the site a useful resource for HD DVD owners is round up the weekly deals, and it’s about that time of the week again.

Considering that the Superbowl Sunday commercial is likely to generate some interest in HD DVD this week, I took an early look around to see what kinds of promotions the various retailers have planned to complement the marketing push. These are likely to be geared towards new owners, but there around a million of us existing users who thrive on the same kinds of deals and specials.

I’ve seen the following sales on players and movies so far, and this post will be updated as more are unearthed. If you come across anything, then email me (check out the ‘About’ page to find out how).

HD DVD Players
A list of players is always there on side-bar to the right of these articles, and you can click-through to the popular retailers that usually have sales of some kind. The suggested list prices on players are $149 for the HD-A3, $199 for the HD-A30, and $299 for the HD-A35. If you see anything less, then it’s obviously on sale. Amazon is notorious for dropping the price for a few hours or days, while the B & M (bricks and mortar) retailers set their pricing on a weekly basis.

This is probably a good opportunity to let people know that Circuit City is NOT clearing out their HD DVD players. There was some kind of pricing mistake last weekend, and some store managers provided hasty explanations. That’s not just me making stuff up, it’s the official word from a corporate spokesperson to at least two websites. Read about it here and here.

HD DVD Movies
Best Buy’s two-for-one deal, also known as a BOGO (buy one get one) ran out yesterday, and word on the various forums indicates that a lot of people came away with slightly larger HD DVD libraries last week.

Amazon.com has all the BOGO action this week. It’s actually a 50% off sale on 103 titles from Universal. While not officially a BOGO, getting a disc at half-price achieves the same purpose without any extra steps to sign up for or request that second disc.

Amazon’s earlier sale is still on, and some of the movie sales from last week are still active. Online retailers rarely announce when a sale begins or ends, so if you’re at all interested in these titles showing up at $15 or $16, don’t miss your chance.

• 50% of on select HD DVD titles at Amazon.com
• Up to 53% off on select titles at Amazon.com
• Buy.com has a similar 53% off sale but with an extra buck off.
• Movies under $16 at DeepDiscount.com
• Tower.com has movies up to 52% off, go through the list and find your gems

UPDATE: Planet Earth for $54.95 at Amazon. The most popular HD title of all time, your hd collection is incomplete without it.

There are a lot of HD DVD players out in the wild, and the lowered prices on them helps to get more of them distributed. But even when there were only a few hundred thousand users, one of the biggest problems has been the high cost of movie ownership. The “buy one get one free” deals on HD DVD movies only started happening around Christmas, and that has made it difficult for HD DVD owners to build their collections.

As expected, Best Buy started the latest BOGO (buy one get one free) deal today, Sunday, January 27, on 14 titles. You buy one, and get a second one of equal or lower cost for free. Movies are $25 and $30, so the BOGO math means you’ll end up spending half that amount per title in the end. The catch is that you can only pick from 14 titles (but some people get lucky and can get a manager to approve a movie that’s not on the list).

The deal runs through February 8, which is actually a longer time that we’d expect on such promotions2. The easy way to guarantee that you can get the more popular titles like Transformers and Shrek the Third is to order online and pick them up in the store, instead of visiting a store to try your luck.

Anything else on sale? Amazon still has that sale on a bunch of movies at around $16 each. Maybe they’ll get into the sales mood and start something new and exciting as the week goes along. Buy.com got into the spirit and is offering most of those Amazon movies for about a buck cheaper. Finally, Deep Discount still has a lot of titles for $16 and less.

• Best Buy buy-one-get-one from January 27 to February 2
• Save up to 53% off on Select HD DVDs at Amazon
• HD DVDs on sale at Buy.com
• Movies under $16 at DeepDiscount.com

Another week in the still relatively new year, and it’s time for another set of HD DVD sales.

Amazon’s recent 44%-57% off sale is over and has been replaced by one featuring up to 53% off on a lot of Warner titles. Most of these are older catalog movies and going for $16, and I’m pretty sure they were not included in the most recent sale. I think Amazon keeps track of which movies are involved in different offers so they can minimize the price matching confusion that might happen when sales overlap.

I’ve read at forums where people aren’t sure about ever buying another Warner movie again. It’s a lot like when the Blu boys wanted to boycott Paramount last year. Well, part of that decision has been made for you by Warner already, because in a few months you won’t have that choice. Buying movies demonstrates that there’s a market for titles on HD DVD, and if you really like a movie, don’t let format war politics get in your way, because it might be harder to track something down later on.

Best Buy has the other notable deal this week, of 9 movies with the purchase of a player. That’s 2 movies already in the box (300 and The Bourne Identity), 5 free via the eternally ongoing mail-in rebate, and two more movies to select from at the store (or online).

Their website reflects current pricing on the HD DVD players, but the printed ad does not. That’s because these ads are actually designed weeks in advance and things can change by the time those circulars come out. Consequently, the $299 price mentioned in the Best Buy print ad is two weeks old. If you go for this deal at the store, make sure they ring up the player for the current price and not what the ad says. If you do it online, then there’s less room for such issues, and you’ll get to pick from a larger set of movie titles than you normally see stocked in a store.

Amazon has a sale on their HD-A3 to around $130, but the extra couple of movies at Best Buy has you coming out a little bit ahead at for only $20 more — after all, HD DVD movies never go on sale for $10 a piece. If you visit Amazon, don’t forget to sign up for their 100 HD DVD Movie Giveaway, which also includes a player.

Finally, DeepDiscount.com still has a lot of HD DVD movies at $16 and less. If you come across any noteworthy deals, feel free to share them in the comments.

According to an article at The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount’s HD DVD release slate for the first quarter of 2008, originally to be unveiled at CES, will be presented on Thursday, January 17, 2008.

From past statements and educated guessing based on 2007 releases and delayed discs, we can pretty much guess what many of these movies are going to be, but the formal announcement should make things a lot clearer. For example, we can already guess that Beowulf, Bee Movie, Into the Wild, and Things We Lost in the Fire will be mentioned (since they’ve been mentioned before), as will an update on last year’s The Jack Ryan Collection which was recalled due to problems with the discs not containing any of the advertised bonus materials. We’ll report on the release slate after the information is made available.

Meanwhile, fellow HD DVD-exclusive studio, Universal, has been busy with a couple of movie announcements in the last couple of days. They’ve announced that the critically acclaimed, American Gangster comes to HD DVD on February 19, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age on February 5. They had also previously announced Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution for February 19.

Warner still has HD DVDs to crank out for at least the first half of the year, such as Invasion, and I Am Legend among others. As a side note related to Warner, it’s been reported that BBC titles will continue to be distributed on HD DVD. Though BBC discs are released through Warner, the BBC has some independence in asserting their support for HD DVD. After all, the BBC is not a Time Warner company — they’re just a studio that needed a local distributor for their discs, and the HD DVD version of Planet Earth has outsold its Blu-ray counterpart any way.

So that’s a little bit of a peek into the movies coming in the future. If all of that has whetted your appetite to pick up a few movies, you can click on any of the movie links above to get to the pre-order pages (if available) on Amazon. For more instant gratification, you can check out these sales on movies that are already out:

• Amazon still has their sale on 84 HD DVD movies with plenty of titles at $14.99
• Circuit City has 34 HD DVD and Blu-ray titles at $17.99 until Saturday, Jan. 19
• Tower Records has a sale similar to Amazon’s but on lots more movies and slightly more discounting
• Deep Discount has plenty of HD DVDs under $20

My HD DVD player was in top form a few nights ago as I watched The Kingdom a third time with Peter Berg’s director commentary on. My guess is that the player’s going to keep on working just great as I find the three hours to watch Zodiac this weekend, and dozens and dozens more HD DVD and DVD discs in the weeks and months ahead.

Much of this story is going the be same for most of you with HD DVD players as well. To that end, you should know that Amazon’s got a good sale on HD DVD discs going on (link goes to main promotion page). The 84 movies are discounted anywhere from 44% to 57%. Past history with these kinds of sales suggests that the number of titles will decrease as the sale goes on, so act quickly.

Most of the movies are $14.99, with a few dipping below that, and just a few titles closer to $20 and $22. Transformers, Shrek the Third, Shooter, Stardust, and Disturbia are all $22.49, and there are too many titles to list at $14.99.

I know that some of you may be thinking that this is a fire sale on HD DVDs to empty all inventory, but Amazon’s actually got a 50% off sale on Blu-ray discs too. And Amazon’s catalog of HD DVD movies is way more than just these 84 titles. Way, way more.

There’s also a sale on HD DVD players with some really good prices there. As I write this, the HD-A3 is $147, the HD-A30 is $172, and the HD-A35 is $299. The reason that many people get the HD-A35 is because it has the extra audio output jacks to plug in to their home theater’s receiver, while the HD-A30 does not. The HD-A3 is modest with only 1080i, but it turns out that there are a ton of people with 720p and 1080i HDTVs who can’t use 1080p any way.

Listen, I’m fully aware, perhaps more aware than some, about all the stuff that’s going on with the formats. But the reality is that all the headlines in the world don’t change that fact that I’ve got a machine at home that works really great. They also don’t change the fact that I’ve got a bazillion HD DVD movies in my Netflix queue, and lots more deals from Amazon and others coming along that are going to give me even more HD DVD movies to enjoy. If I have to get a second kind of player in another ten or twelve months, then so be it. My high-def world hasn’t suddenly melted away just because a few companies or fanboys had unfavorable things to say.

• Amazon HD DVD disc sale

Most of our coverage at HDDVD.com is for the North American HD DVD market, but HD DVD is actually an international product with sales ramping up in other parts of the world.

Each world region has its corresponding promotions and rules about players and movies, and as many of you already know, many movies that are not available on HD DVD in North America are readily available in Europe. This aspect has been covered in a previous article about region coding.

Today, December 29, marks the European debut of Venturer’s SHD7001 player on the QVC shopping channel. Toshiba decided not to market the HD-A3 in Europe (and other parts of the world), and this Venturer essentially takes its place. The SHD7001 is a 1080i player, and is equivalent in almost every way to the HD-A3. The North American version, the SHD7000, has already been on sale for $199 in the USA and Canada for about a month at Walmart. One key difference is that the European player is part of the same free movie deals as the Toshiba players are, but the SHD7000 sold in Walmart is not. You can chalk that up to differences in marketing strategies for each region. In the same vein, purchasing certain Toshiba HDTV models in Australia also gets you a free HD DVD player, but there’s no similar deal in the USA or Europe.

The SHD7001 went on sale for €169.62, but heading over to Amazon.com.uk, we see Toshiba’s HD-EP30 selling for 20 Euros more at €189. The EP-30 is the equivalent of the HD-A30. It seems like too good of a deal to pass up for what’s really only a little more.

Bringing things back to the USA, we have our own sales on players that are worth looking into. Amazon.com has been running a 10-movie promotion on purchases of HD DVD players, and they’re already making news for setting HD DVD sales records with their “Buy 1 Get 1 Free” sale. Amazon likes to keep shoppers on their toes — pricing on the players has been known to go down for a few hours or a day now and then, and the selection of movies in the “Buy 1 Get 1″ has been updated a few times so that titles come and go. For instance, the Harry Potter movies disappear and reappear.

DeepDiscount.com has lots of HD DVDs under $20, with many at $16 or less. Some of these discs are of the scenic variety, meaning they’re along the lines of Planet Earth, except more focused on a particular theme like landscapes or a single country. They also have a lot of concert discs.

And finally, today, December 29, is the last day for Best Buy’s “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” sale both online and in-store. My fingers are crossed that Best Buy or Circuit City come through with something interesting to follow up next week.

UPDATE: Best Buy’s “Buy 3 Get 2″ promotion going on from Dec. 30 to Jan. 5.

After-Christmas sales are usually a great way to pick up huge discounts on lots of goodies, but the selection usually applies to clothing and Christmas-related stuff like giftwrap.

Amazon.com has come to the rescue for HD DVD owners with a Buy 1 Get 1 Free deal that just started this morning. This deal pretty much picks up where their last one left off, and only has about 40 titles to pick from. If you recall, the last time they did this, the selection was narly 80 movies, and it slowly dwindled to just over 40.

Go! Get your libraries stocked up now!

• Buy 1 Get 1 Free at Amazon.com
• Buy 2 Get 1 Free at Best Buy going on thru December 29. Select from over 200 movies.
• 10 Movies with HD DVD Player Purchase at Amazon.

UPDATE: This has turned out to be the least expensive way to get the entire Harry Potter set of movies, since all four can be had via the Amazon sale for $40, and then you’d pay full-price on the fifth. Admittedly, the selection is not the greatest, but if you like even one of those movies, this is a great way to take a chance on a second that you weren’t sure about.

Best Buy is helping make Christmas week a little brighter for everyone who’s already got their HD DVD player hooked up, or are about to find one under the tree this week. They’re following up last week’s Buy 1 Get 1 sale on a few movie titles with a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal, where you can pick from 200 titles. The sale has already started and runs all this week, expiring on December 29. You can take advantage of this sale either in-store or online.

All of the movies seem to be discounted at least $5 or more off their list price, with most of them going for $24.99. I’m sure the selection in-store is probably not as vast as what you can pick from online, however shopping at the store has the advantage that you can come home with your movies right away.

This deal goes along nicely with Amazon’s 10-movie deal with purchase of an HD DVD player.

• Buy 2 Get 1 Free at Best Buy from Dec. 23-29
• 10 Free HD DVD Movies with HD DVD player purchase at Amazon

Not that you’d be able to get any of this delivered for a Christmas present, but Amazon has resurrected the 10-movie HD DVD Player deal. This is where you pick three movies at the time of purchase, get 300 and The Bourne Identity in the box, and five more from a mail-in form.

The prices on players are pretty darn cool too:

• A3 for $178
• A30 for $246
• A35 for $350

I’m not sure how long this sale runs, but check back to this posting because it’ll be updated as information about other deals comes in.

• Buy an HD DVD Player and get 10 Movies at Amazon.com