Circuit City Says You Can Have a Do-Over
by Pravin on March 6th, 2008 in news.
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)
March 6th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Just have to say I will not be returning anything, in fact I just bought a bunch of movies. Dead format, but Players and discs still work. And look great. And as cheap and cheaper the HD DVD players are, get one back up and be good for years to come until digital downloads or the next thing is out. I will get a blu ray player hopefully it’s true about Xbox360 version. But as long as I have an HD DVD player i’ll get the cheap movies.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Combo player here; no need to trade in! Enjoying the rapid fall of HD-DVD movie prices. :¬)
March 6th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Same here man I will not be returning anything I am going to continue to build up my hd library. It’s cheaper and the quality is unbeatable.
March 6th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
No thanks. I like my player too much and i doubt they would take back 30 movies lol
March 6th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Trade in my player for 1.0 defective junk? No thanks.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
P.S. To my above statement, I should have added that I would willingly buy a BR player if they meet the standard of HD DVD. (Finished spec). I dont want a PlayStation 3.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I’d rather wait to see what the Blu-ray player scene looks like in Christmas 2008 and a year from now before jumping in. That should give all of the manufacturers plenty of time to have multiple players of the same spec to choose from, and firmware updates to a stable level.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
By Do-Over, do they mean we get to “do-over” the format war and have HD DVD win? Because that is what really should have happened.
BTW Best Buy’s pricing applies to all HD DVD (including packs) I picked up the Mark Wahlberg three pack, Italian Job, Shooter and Four Brothers for $35 bucks down from $50. So $11.66 a movie not bad me thinks! Also the Blade Runner 5 disc collectors edition (the one not in a briefcase) for $25. And a back up 360 add on for $50!
I give a proud raised middle finger to CC and their buy back of HD DVD players! You can take your BD players and stick them where the sun doesn’t shine!
March 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Even though I am not returning my A35 (no, never, I love that darn thing), do they accept returns even if you didn’t purchase the player from CC? Do you need a receipt? If so, I am planning to do it on my XBox 360 hd dvd player.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
They’re giving you a store credit, so that strongly suggests you need to bring a receipt.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:34 am
if you haven’t read all, HD DVD release will discontinue after 2 last titles on march. which mean after there won’t be any more new movies out for the format.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:40 am
It’s already been mentioned at this site in other postings, take a look around and you’ll see.
There was word on some German site that Warner might stop early, but I haven’t seen any other sites in the last couple of days confirm that story.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
isn’t waner bros still making movies until may?
March 7th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I think they are, because it’s been a few days since that German article and nobody’s come out in the US media to say that Warner has changed their plans.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I have about 400 DVD’s and 40 HD DVD’s I will never trade my A35. Just whate and see them come out with some type of firmware upgrade to play BLU-RAY format on HD DVD players. Its all about makeing money thats the bottem line money!
March 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Because the physical disc structure is incompatible, you won’t ever see blu-ray play on an HD-DVD only player. But it may be possible to rip a blu-ray and compress it onto a regular Dual-layer DVD for playback on HD-DVD devices. It would be compressed, but remove some of the extras and you could have a broadcast-quality HD movie on your hands. The next DVD Shrink perhaps? Not sure if it’s possible yet but that would be a great solution.
March 8th, 2008 at 4:07 am
This was placed on a “bluray” site just figured you would like to know…. Hopefully LG will not follow suit and the combo players will be around for a while.
Samsung has announced that they have canceled plans to introduce their second generation hybrid Blu-ray and HD DVD player
@ Pravin: If you are a member of Best Buy’s reward program they should have a record of your purchase on their computer…. I think it also applies to any purchases paid for by credit card…
@ Vinnie: I really do not think that a firmware upgrade will be in the works…. Or possible for that matter….
March 8th, 2008 at 5:05 am
If a firmware update is all that it took to make an HD DVD player do Blu-ray instead, it would be the equivalent of running a whole new operating system on your computer, and not like adding a device driver to enable a second mode. I don’t think there’s enough space on the flash memory to support two entirely different operating systems, and I’m not sure if Blu-ray’s Java based system requires more RAM than HD DVD’s HDi. The flash memory and RAM on a consumer electronics device are usually only big enough to get the job done. Making them a lot bigger adds expense that may not be justifiable.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 are actually computers with lots of RAM and hard drive space, so it’s much more likely that they’d be able to support multiple formats easily.
March 8th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
@ Pravin: Do you think that the 360 add on would have a better chance at a firmware upgrade? Being that they could access the memory of the system itself to override the units programming? If so then would a hacker may have a better chance in doing it?
March 9th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Yes, Warner canceled their last titles for Germany which means we will get six more titles from now on and after March HD DVD is done in Germany. The US are probably the last country to still get HD DVDs after the begin of April.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
The 360 can easily support all the heavy-lifting required to play Blu-ray movies. I am not convinced that Microsoft will be coming out with Blu-ray support any time in the immediate future for the 360, but I wonder if they’d let some third party come out with an external Blu-ray drive instead as well as the accompanying player software. This could be a way to bypass some of the issues Microsoft has had with Sun over Java.