January Amazon Sale Featuring 84 HD DVDs at 44%-57% Off
by Pravin on January 12th, 2008 in shopping.
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.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:17 am
It might stink of censorship, but comments are heavily moderated. If you only came by to spit on me, the site or the disc format, then move along.
January 12th, 2008 at 6:13 am
I come not to spit, but to praise. Thank you for the class way in which you’ve run this site. Like you I’m looking to add to my HD DVD collection, not sell it off. I got the HD-A2 when it went on sale for $99, and it’s been a wonderful experience. In the time during which so many have been wringing their hands waiting for a format to win, I’ve been watching films in the best presentation this side of a theater. I got to see The Searchers and Casablanca each for the first time, and that alone was priceless. So whatever happens here on out, I’d say all of us who’ve had and will continue to have HD DVD players have been very lucky.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I have not let the news of the Warner shift effect my buying of HD DVD in the least. I just picked up Pitch Black and Bourne Ultimatum this week and each looked great! I do have BluRay in the form of the PS3 so I am somewhat proofed against the format war. But whenever I see a movie that is available in both formats I tend to go with HD DVD. I know this is merely personal preference but I firmly believe that the OVERALL experience with HDDVD is better than BluRay. Things like interactive menus and Internet options ARE important to me and HD DVD is far superior in those areas. In fact I would look at the Warner defection as an opportunity if I were Toshiba, to become even more aggressive in cutting prices on players and movies. Get creative! Manufacture a player coupled with a hard drive and allow the user to record HDTV direct. That would be a sure incentive to come over to the red camp.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:40 am
I wonder if anyone noticed that Microsoft is slowly adding all the blu-ray studios to the xbox live marketplace so no need to get a blu ray player.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am
On Amazon today I noticed that the MSRP of all the Toshiba HD DVD Players has been permanently reduced a significant amount.
New MSRPs:
HD-A3 $149.99 – Amazon Sale price $144.28
HD-A30 $199.99 – Amazon Sale price $182.98
HD-A35 $299.99 – Amazon Sale price $192.98
Is this Toshiba’s response to the Warner announcement of January 4th, 2008… more permanent price reductions and a continuation of the price war? Or is this throwing in the towel. I hope it’s the former rather than the latter. Lower pricing could force studios to rethink their strategies as Toshiba’s player prices keep falling, and the players find their way into the hands of ever new consumers in big numbers.
I hope their strategy works!
January 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I”ll definitely take advantage of this deal, did you also see that they lowered the prices on the 3rd generation players? On a side note, if HD-DVD loses, Im going back to SD and will just upconvert using my A30.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I’m sure that you will not bother to publish this comment since the HD-DVD camp have chosen to provide their own version of the truth lately. However, I still wants to say that I think you should really stop this crap.
The facts are that Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD no matter what metric you choose to compare by. The fact that Paramount and Universal was stupid enough (it’s not the only stupid thing Paramount has done lately) to take that bribe and screw, not only themselves, but the entire user community by prolonging this useless format war, is the only reason that this war is not over.
Everyone can see how they in agony to get out of this deal. If they where truly commited to the format there would have been no reason to pull the lists of titles to publish, would there? Anyone can see that they are now in the process of damage control. They will publish the minimal amount of titles that they can get away with until they can switch to Blu-ray.
Stop screwing everyone by confusing the market, drop HD-DVD. Sony had to accept reality with Betamax, it’s time the HD-DVD camp does the same, for the better of the entire HD community.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I don’t operate this site for Blu-ray users, it’s here for people on the HD DVD side. That alone should explain a large part of why I might approve certain comments. If someone needs to express their hatred, then they have their own venues to do that.
The HD DVD camp has been very cautious with their words recently, Jonsson, and there’s been no stretching of the truth from them. There has been lots of retelling of stuff in support of Blu-ray, however. It’s completely normal for a person who supports one side to view the words and actions of the opposing side in an unfavorable light, and you’ve fallen right into that pattern.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Pravin, first of all, I do not whish to express hatred in any form. I do think the HD-DVD camp have been stretching the truth but it’s perhaps no point getting into a debate over that at this point. I do respect the work you do with this site (ehe site as such is actually better than the Blu-ray one) and I very very much respect you for actually publishing my comment despite the fact that it was perhaps written a wee bit in anger.
However, I wish the format war to end, period. Until it does, I’m sticking to standard DVD’s.
I do not think any format has a distict advantage over the other. I do think Blu-ray is slighly better than HD-DVD (emphasis on slightly). As things stand now, I think it’s time to stop this war. Everyone is loosing out as it is now. If Warner would have gone HD-DVD I would have said the same thing to the Blu-ray camp.
I want to by my HD equipment and start to watch HD material and that is not going to happen as long as there is a war going on.
Anyway, best regards Pravin.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
There’s a lot to be upset about in the world, and it would be great if consumer interests had a greater say in the matter than business dealings.
You buy one MP3 player instead of another and inherit all the results of the business dealings that the manufacturer might be part of. Want to automate your home? Will you choose ZWave or Zigbee? It never ends.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Ive been putting off getting a HD-dvd player because I had a feeling Hd-dvd wouldn’t be able to pull through in the end. There’s so many good universal movies I really want to see in HD too. With this sale going on its almost a to good to pass up deal. Get a player for under $200 and a few movies is great but then it might all become obsolete in a few months to a year. So I’m really confused on weather to buy now or wait to see if these well be on blu ray in the future.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:51 am
For people like me who already have players and discs, it’s easy for us to continue enjoying those players and pick up more discs or rent them. I can understand the quandary for someone who doesn’t have a player at all.
Something can be obsolete in the marketplace, but that doesn’t mean it’s obsolete in your household. If you’re a disc collector by nature, then all the titles you acquire are still playable for a long time. Also consider this: many of the better HD DVD-like features aren’t going to be available on Blu-ray players for many months, and it’ll still take many more months after that for lots of titles to get released or re-released with those features.
When these interactivity features did not exist on Blu-ray players, many Blu fans would say those were unimportant. Considering that this was a large part of the CES booth presentation, I’d say that the Team Blu decision makers disagree, or else they wouldn’t be working on Profile 2.0 players to release later in the year.
If you are not in any big hurry to get a high-def player, then you have all the time in the world to wait. You have to factor in whether the lost opportunity of watching movies now is worth holding out.
Also, you don’t have to repurchase all of your movies — that’s a misconception. You’re most likely going to make new purchases based on whether the movie is available for a certain system, and which version is better.
For example, I never bought the Nintendo, Xbox and PS2 versions of a game, but only the version I needed to. On format-exclusive games, the choice was already made for me.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Toshiba A3 is at costco for $129.00
January 13th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
What HD-DVD (TOSHIBA) needs to do is cut the price of all HD-DVD players for like at least a month. There will be heavy losses for the company. But, if you flood the market with your product and people start to buy movies for that HD-DVD player a lot of movie studios are going to feel stupid. And possibly migrate back over… depending on sales maybe exclusively.
Think what they did for Wal-Mart when they cut the price to 99 for a weekend. Do that for 4 or 5 weekends and that will really for Sony’s hand to catch up.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
It’s definitely going to be interesting if a lot of players get sold at these lower prices.
I think we’re all very eager to find out exactly what the official plans and strategy are going forward.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Toshiba has reduced the price of their current HD DVD player, the A3 series across the board, at this time these are the new prices, and are not temporary. I have a sneaking suspition they were planning on it before Warner made their anouncement but didn’t state it to anybody because they didn’t want a dip in player sales, hopefully this is followed by a disc SRP reduction soon also.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
My Sony DVD player was acting up in the last couple of weeks and I was thinking of getting one of the up-convert DVD players until the format war was over. However with these new prices from Toshiba I ordered the A30 and received it in two days from Bestbuy along with two disk in the box and the gift of five more disk by mail. What a deal, $200.00 for the player and seven movie titles we watched 300 last night in HD and it was awesome. I’m going to check out the sales at Tower an Deep Discount now, thanks for all the info at this site.