That's the one I'll be jumping into with both feet, whatever it is. Because to make it worthwhile it will have to be something that puts HD-DVD/BR to shame, whether its from a convenience, quality, or cost standpoint, or most likely a combination of all three. For instance, I suspect it will be some sort of flash ROM or something (think 1 TB game cartridge). There would be no moving parts in the players or fingerprints/dirt/scratches/physical defects to worry about, and a very fast load up time that then allowed instant navigation.

Guess its time to join.

I'm not too keen on the club threads, but is this a joke? That's not a deal at all.

A few questions since I haven't had a CH account for over a year and didn't even see this thread until today:

1. Are the HD titles available yet on their site?
2. If so, does anyone have a list of them?
3. Are the HD titles available at CH.com and at what kind of prices?

See post #1. There have been no updates on Columbia House's web page.

Interesting. I may actually start using my Columbia House account again. I haven't used it for so long because the shipping is so ungodly that any discount that they offer ends up being ruined by the shipping costs. They used to combine free shipping with their 50/60% off deals, but I just have not seen that for so long (I don't check very often.)

The other reason I stopped, however, was because I have been buying almost exclusively Blu-Ray and HD DVD.

I will be interested to see what the deals are. I clicked on the details for the current 60% sale, and noticed this:

"Unique club discount," eh? Sounds iffy whether it will be worth it or not. I guess we'll see when they roll out the HD titles.

^

You need to start checking the better offer thread more often. thejester has been extracting Buy 1, Get 1 Free codes with free shipping for quite some time now. Adding up my enrollment package with using a free shipping BOGO code, my average price per title is under $5.

Whether HD DVD/BD titles turn out to be a good deal may depend on whether they can be used as fulfillments in the regular club. If so, the relative cost could be pretty good, so long as there are other SD DVDs one wants as well. But if one is just buying them on an existing, fulfilled, account, it seems unlikely that CH prices would be competitive with Amazon and DDD during the semi-annual 20% off sale.

If the high def discs are in their own club it remains to be seen if we can turn them into good deals.

It may take some time before Columbia House offers HD discs at prices that are worthwhile (consider that they may have to pay a fairly high price for them, as compared to the $3 or so they pay for SD DVDs). Nevertheless, the fact that they are going to offer them at all is encouraging.

We shall see how it shakes out.

Do you guys think they will stock Fox & Disney Blu-rays since they don't sell their standard dvds on the site?

I highly doubt it, but one can dream!

Hi,

I'm thinking of joining ColumbiaHouse sometime later this year (still drawing up a list of stiuff I want). Some of you may recognize me from the BMGmusic thread on this site.

Anyway, when does "fall" start for ColumbiaHouse? I ask because I have some stuff that I want to buy, like the Dirty Dozen 2-disc CE, but if they're going to add Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, I'll hold out and just get those, instead of first buying the DVD and then the hi-def version. I'm just trying to figure out if I should join now or later...

Thanks - this site is a great resource. I was up till 2 last night reading all the CH threads here. I never realized that you could pick up DVDs for under $5/title. From what I'd read, CH always got a bad rap, but yesterday I realized that most of these people were using the standard offers...Anyway, thanks

I'd go ahead and join the DVD Club now. I suspect the HD movies won't be as great of a deal initially. I remember when I opened my first CH DVD account way back when and titles were rather expensive.

What I would do is not buy regular DVD titles which you will be buying on HD DVD or BR. Buy those titles which you know you still like, but won't necessarily buy them on HD.

^I'll second those suggestions. It remains to be seen how many HD DVD/BD titles Columbia House will carry and whether we can work good deals if they do carry a lot of them.

My guess is that the HD titles won't be available for enrollment for some time, if ever. That means that one needs to purchase SD DVDs as enrollments (or SD DVD sets from the "TV Edition" club as enrollments). This is a problem for those of us who are mostly buying HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc titles nowadays. As someone mentioned in another thread, the HD selections could be purchased from CH.com for 40% off, but that isn't any better than one can find from other on-line stores using deals (for example, the semiannual DDD 20% off sale).


ec461, welcome to the Clubs Forum. As you have discovered from reading all these threads, we can get many DVDs very inexpensively, despite the skepticism of those who hang out in the main Bargains forum. The downside is that we have to do a lot of work to optimize our accounts to get the lowest cost and deal with the occasional screw-up by Columbia House. Some don't have the patience for it. Others have purchased hundreds of DVDs from CH and can't imagine paying the high prices that others do.

It helps if you treat optimizing CH memberships as a game IMHO.

Definitely treat it like a game. I always enjoy seeing how low I can get my cost per DVD average. I just completed an account where my average was around $7(usually my average is well under $5). However, I got a TV Box Set, two Criterions and an HD-DVD as part of this membership. You cannot beat $7 for each one of these items with a stick.

To sign up I got 7 DVDs for $12.50 and to fulfill I got the Almodovar box, a Blu-Ray, and 2 Criterions (free) for a total of $55 and change on the fulfillment. Total expenditure for everything (assuming the fulfillment order goes through to completion, but I did get a confirmation) was about $68. This means if you count the box set as 8 movies, it is $3.80 each per movie on average. If you count the big box set as one item (ridiculous, but for the purpose of argument) it is still only a little more than six dollars per title. Considering some of those titles are box sets, classic 2-disc special editions, Criterions, and a Blu-Ray, that's not shabby.

It's a game. I like this game!

Just tried a B1G1 code on Blue Ray and HDVDs, and as suspected, they don't work. Guess I'm not buying my Blue Rays at CH...

It's premature to draw this conclusion. Sometimes a title won't show up as the freebie when it has just been released. Out of curiosity, I tried to get the regular version of 300 as the freebie and it didn't work. I also tried Hot-Fuzz and it also wouldn't come up as free. There's a strong possibility that HD discs won't be available as a freebie. Only time will tell.

Now 300 regular shows up as B1G1, but the HD version does not work no matter how you try it even with a set. Neither does the Blu Ray version

right now, the best option seems to be get 6 enrollments for .49 cents

Then have 3 to fullfill which you use with B1G1s w/ free shipping and HD-DVDs and expensive titles like the criterions to fullfil (at $30 each)

So you'll end up with 6 regular enrollment DVDs, 3 Criterion (or other expensive titles) and 3 HD-DVDs / Blu-Rays for $92.50 + tax. Right around $100 (including tax) for 3 HD-DVDs alone isn't good. But if you have use for the other 9 DVDs you get, then i guess it makes sense. Otherwise, have patience and maybe one day it'll work.

The other option is of course to sell your extra discs on DVDPlanet, secondspin, or ebay. DVDPlanet's quote machine is down, but on secondspin they pay about $5-$7 per dvd that you trade in (especially for newer releases). DVDPlanet always gave better quotes in the past. So you can basically end up with $60 of credit on DVDPlanet for every account you open on CH, which net works out to about $40 for 3 HD-DVDs. Not bad, but again, seems like a lot of work.

Shrek the 3rd is now available for pre-order in hd dvd and blu ray. Although when I click on the hd dvd link the page comes up blank, no price or anything. Hope they add more hd!

Sweet! Keep 'em coming CH.

They just added Spider-Man 3 Blu-Ray for $29.21.

A couple of more new additions-

Disturbia HD-DVD, Blu-Ray
Surf's Up Blu-Ray.

Hopefully they will start adding some catalog titles(such as Batman Begins).

Awesome. Gonna definitely pick up Disturbia, which has been sitting in my netflix cue as a very long wait

IMO, their HD policy sucks. Can't use the B1G1 coupons and you can't use Funcash. I won't be buying any HD discs from them until they change their stupid rules.

Well, we can't really expect them to be as cheap as SD can we? At least not yet.

And I thought we could use them as the B1 part of B1G1?