In Defense of HD DVD at Best Buy

[Hoopnoop]

So, my local Best Buys are really pushing the Samsung Blue Ray units which are now prominently displayed on the end caps while the Tosh's are now shoved into a side aisle. I'm not sure what Sony has done to sell BR but the Blockbuster sales guys are buying it hook line and sinker.

Anyway, I'm checking out the HD DVD movies at one of the Best Buys and there is a guy and a salesman looking at the Tosh. The salesman is totally trashing the Tosh (really slow to operate and not 1080p) and touting the Samsung. Of course, I have to interrupt and let the poor guy know that, at the moment, the Tosh is blowing away the Sammy in terms of PQ and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to pay $500 more for what is currently an inferior product. The salesman says that it doesn't do 1080p and I say it really doesn't matter a lot. He retorts that it will matter in the future and we disagree. The potential buyer asks about playing regular DVDs on the Tosh and I tell him it's an excellent upconverting DVD player and may be worth the purchase just on that. I leave with my copy of Blazing Saddles and the salesman goes back to pushing the Sammy.

So, I left with this sort of sinking feeling inside. I couldn't help but really feel crappy for these poor consumers who are essentially getting duped by these BB salesmen. I guess they are getting a good margin on the Sammy or something because they've clearly been told to push BR.

Now, I'm all for the best format winning but, at the moment, it clearly appears to be HD DVD. Maybe we can figure out a way to defend HD DVD against this kind of crap. Maybe we should all just hang out for awhile on Saturdays and Sundays at our local Best Buy and correct the misrepresentations being made by these inept salespeople! I just hope Toshiba will put some more effort into marketing HD DVD!

 

[vurbano]

If your TV properly deinterlaces 1080i and upconverts to 1080p it doesnt make any difference.

 

[jgantert]

Probably because Best Buy doesn't have any of the Toshiba players IN STOCK. I looked on the website, and the nearest 6 stores are sold out. Closest store to me that has them is White Marsh, MD.

-John

 

[rockaway1836]

Probably because Best Buy doesn't have any of the Toshiba players IN STOCK. I looked on the website, and the nearest 6 stores are sold out. Closest store to me that has them is White Marsh, MD.

-John

That does not seem to be the case near me. In my quest over the past couple of weeks there has been at least one player on the shelf (for sale) at BB ,5 out of 6
times that I have been there. The RCA model (last time I checked) was readily available on-line via CC. Now I'm not trying to knock the HD-DVD format here in any way. I have said in the past that I will end up buying both. But please don't try to make it look like these things are as popular as you seem to make them sound. I for one find it very interesting that there are so few posts about the RCA unit. http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=65994 (That was about the only on I colud find.) About the only person's opinion that I would trust on this board would be Vurbano. I beleive him to be an honest broker when it comes to this format war.

 

[jgantert]

Well, no Best Buy in Baltimore or DC has more than 1 in stock (other than the floor model), except the Golden Ring store which has 5! Even online, they are sold out. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...CategoryId=pcmcat80500050007&id=1134699969167 (try my zip 21045, you'll see)

I'm not saying they're real popular, just sold out. Maybe Best Buy didn't get many players. Who knows.

BTW, they did have the Samsung BR player there showing House of Flying Daggers and it looked horrible (pixelated, and lots of "noise" in the colors -- not sharp at all!). It looked worse than the CBS (or was it NBC) HD loop the rest of the TVs were playing.

-John

 

[teamerickson]

From some of the posts I've seen it does appear that BB may have some BD bias. That concerns me.

 

[rockaway1836]

Well, no Best Buy in Baltimore or DC has more than 1 in stock (other than the floor model), except the Golden Ring store which has 5! Even online, they are sold out. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...CategoryId=pcmcat80500050007&id=1134699969167 (try my zip 21045, you'll see)

I'm not saying they're real popular, just sold out. Maybe Best Buy didn't get many players. Who knows.

BTW, they did have the Samsung BR player there showing House of Flying Daggers and it looked horrible (pixelated, and lots of "noise" in the colors -- not sharp at all!). It looked worse than the CBS (or was it NBC) HD loop the rest of the TVs were playing.

-John

Using my Zip 10989 I find that they are availble in 6 stores in my area. It's not like you walk in and there are stacks of these things either. I have never seen more than one at a time. So far I can say the same thing goes for Blu-Ray. Heck, I bought the only one they had at my local CC and the BB denied even having any for sale at all. They did have one on the shelf for display, but not hooked up to any TV for demo. In my case both stores are in the same mall. So it's easy to just go up or down 2 floors to compare the two. EDIT: I'm sorry my bad. I misread the avaiability in my area. Looks like there's none left at all now.

 

[KimmiKat]

I saw that myself in a Worst Buy Here's a link on another mboard about the BB Bait and Switch...

Link: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=691181&page=2&pp=30

 

[rockaway1836]

It may come as a shock to some. But it is standard practice in retail for a company to pay for retail space and displays in stores. I owned a Pepperidge Farm bread route for almost 18 years. I had to go up against this kind of thing all the time. Even though I would outsell some competitors, they would often be allocated more space and better position on the shelf. So to me this no surprise. I don't think it's right but that's the way it is.

 

[KimmiKat]

It may come as a shock to some. But it is standard practice in retail for a company to pay for retail space and displays in stores. I owned a Pepperidge Farm bread route for almost 18 years. I had to go up against this kind of thing all the time. Even though I would outsell some competitors, they would often be allocated more space and better position on the shelf. So to me this no surprise. I don't think it's right but that's the way it is.

When I worked in a C-store, Philip Morris use to pay the owner $$ for extra counter space near the registers, and they probably still do.

 

[jayn_j]

So, my local Best Buys are really pushing the Samsung Blue Ray units which are now prominently displayed on the end caps while the Tosh's are now shoved into a side aisle. I'm not sure what Sony has done to sell BR but the Blockbuster sales guys are buying it hook line and sinker.

Just the opposite at my local BB (northern Colorado). The Toshiba is prominant on an end cap viewable from the main aisle. The Samsung is buried in the back.

Yep, I also noticed that the BR player was noticably softer as well. I was thinking it was sloppy setup on BB part. Now I need to go read the other threads.

They still don't have either one playing on what I consider a reasonable monitor though. Really hard to tell anything when they have a $1k player going through the cheapest 50" set in the place!

 

[jgags6]

At my bb Rockford, IL, they have both at endcaps, being played on. But since HDDVD came out i havnt seen any boxes there, but i have seen about 8 bluray boxes.

 

[Hoopnoop]

At my bb Rockford, IL, they have both at endcaps, being played on. But since HDDVD came out i havnt seen any boxes there, but i have seen about 8 bluray boxes.

Interesting how different areas are handling it differently. At my BBs they have shoved the Toshes into the aisle and put all of the movies there as well.

I also noticed the BB and CC have Blue Ray prominently in their ads this weekend -- don't recall any ads for HD DVD but perhaps I am wrong. It seems that Sony is putting a lot of marketing money into BR and perhaps Tosh is putting a lot of their marketing into discounted prices. I still think it's very early and the battle will ultimately be won by the 2nd and 3rd stage adopters.

 

[jgags6]

Last tuesday when bluray launched my local newspaper had a picture on the front page and a huge article about whether or not bluray was worth it. They didnt do anything like that for HDDVD, and they didnt even mention it in the article.

 

[Spin]

My local Best Buy has both on Display playing next to each other. I think they both look great. The Blu-Ray is on a 61 Sammy 1080p and the HD-DVD was on the 60 Sony SXRD. (they wanted to put them both on the 61 sammy so they could switch between them but the hd-a1 does not work with the new samsung dlp line via HDMI, Way to go Toshiba!)

I personally like the Blu-Ray better because of the player, I got to play with it for a while since I can't afford one yet. I did get the HD-A1 and I cant stand the thing. If my system is powered off without the disc in it, and I want to watch a movie, it takes a freaking 2+ minutes before I can even start the movie. But hey it does look amazing when it's up and running. I have never been happy with a toshiba dvd player and so far they are standing up to my past experiences. I can't wait until another company puts out a better hd-dvd player. I'll be selling the A1 as soon as someone gets a good player out.

 

[mike123abc]

The day BR came out HD-DVD disappeared. The display they had set up for HD-DVD became the BR display. I did not search the store enough to find what they did with HD-DVD, but it was not in an obvious place... They certainly did not have it hooked up to a TV.

 

[MikeD-C05]

At my local Best Buy they have blue ray dvd player on one end cap in front and two isles away they have an end cap with the Toshiba hd dvd player set up . They are getting equal coverage with an isle between them. Neither is selling that good either according to the Best buy clerk I talked to.

 

[vurbano]

I just read a thread over at AVS on Best buy and Blu ray. Someone posted a picture of his local Blu ray display in Best buy....... powered by a toshiba HD-A1!!!!!!!!!! on top of the TV was all of the Blu ray titles in a Blu ray display. No mention of HD DVD.

 

[rockaway1836]

I just read a thread over at AVS on Best buy and Blu ray. Someone posted a picture of his local Blu ray display in Best buy....... powered by a toshiba HD-A1!!!!!!!!!! on top of the TV was all of the Blu ray titles in a Blu ray display. No mention of HD DVD.

I stopped in to my BB today. They had replaced the HD-DVD player with the Sammy, but the discs around it were all HD-DVDs. The Blu-Ray discs were on a shelf in an aisle next to the new home for the HD-DVD player. Go figure!

 

[vurbano]

Maye its incompetence to the point that it looks like deceit?