Popularity of HD DVD and Blu-ray in stores
 

I've been noticing that the best buys that have HD-DVD demos setup they don't seem to have many people coming over to take a look.

I was of course taking a look at it and was watching the trailer dvd that they had looping and wasn't floored at the pic quality myself. Anyway, long story short is that I hardly noticed anyone watching the demo. I saw more people watching this DTS demo DVD being played.

I remember when DVD first came out I saw many many people over at the demo displays that were setup, but hardly any for HD-DVD. This doesn't seem like a good sign to me. I'm surprised that no one at Best Buy was promoting it which could have contributed to the lack of people looking at it.

How is the popularity in stores near you? I live in Los Angeles by the way.


Edit: Since Blu-Ray came out I wanted to guage the popularity of this format as well. I haven't seen any demo kiosks in any Best Buys or Circuit Citys in my area as of yet.

I got a view of it. They were only allowed to use a demo disc to my dissipointment and not any real HD-DVD movies. The quality of the trailers varied. While King Kong and Corpes Bride were both fantastic some others looked a bit grainey. However you can't judge a format by trailers and I have yet to view an actual HD-DVD movie.

I just am trying to guage the popularity of the format in the stores because that's what will most likely drive the format into the mainstream.

Well, my local BestBuy also had the HD-DVD player playing a less-than-impressive loop on a too-small screen and it didn't look any better than an average DVD. It was also set up in an out of the way end-aisle with crummy speakers instead of the much nicer Magnolia HiFi section (which surprised me, I went to look for it in the Magnolia section first).

But then again, they were sold out of the players with no replacement stock coming anytime soon so it's not as though they had to actively market the things.

In Japan the sales are really slow. I can still see a few models on display and for sale. More software would be better.

None in stock that I have seen and Best Buy seems to be putting no effort into demos around me. Can't really judge at this point if there are building momentum or dead in the water.

best buy is known for not tweaking their equipment or trying to show how good the tvs are..

take for example the other day, they connected the s video cables into the LCD HDTV that i wanted and said look at the HD... i said "dude you connected the s video cable... thats not hd"... and then he explained to me this complete bullshit of how s-video is the same thing... i then said " wow... your an idiot" rotfl


i left but they are morons there

i work at best buy and we cannot keep the new toshiba hd dvd players in stock. they sell out the same day we get them in, ala the xbox 360.

How many have you sold? How many are you getting in weekly?

we got 4 on the first day, we sold them all. Including the display model. since then we have had 3 shipments of 5 each, all gone the same day. we do not even have a display model at this moment. We also get about half a dozen calls a day asking if we have any in stock.

They never have, why should they start just for a new technology?

I've not been able to find one in my area either. I can only make a weekly trip (Sunday) and they are gone by then. The employees say they sell out within a day of each new shipment.

some salesperson strolled up to the demo player/display with a customer at the Best Buy last Saturday and started to play around with the disc player - without saying a thing to me like 'hi, let me show off this to both of you' instead he just blatantly ignored me (the little shit - I was standing directly in front of the TV). The Best Buy still didn't receive it's Apollo 13 and Doom discs to sell.

I agree that they didn't market this very well in stores. You'd think there'd be more than just a stupid end cap display for it. I haven't been into Magnolia since it came out, but I'd think those guys would be where you'd want to go to talk about and demo the machine.

What in blazes? A week before launch BB tolk me the website only until the Fall time. They now have displays? Interesting..

Well that's easy. All HD-DVD is is a fancy DVD. VHS to DVD was a completely different format (plus I don't think it hurt that they looked like CDs.)

DVD was appealing to me because of the chapter skip ability and the cleaner video quality. Since HD-DVD doesn't offer much more than SD DVD, it doesn't surprise me that the average consumer isn't fired up about it.

True but HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is backwards compatible. Thats a huge plus. Imagine how fast DVD would have grown if it was backwards compatible with VHS and Laserdisc.

Imagine how successful the most successful home video product in history could have been?

I strongly concur! This reminded me of when I was in Best Buy a couple years ago, just browsing around, passing the time away before going to work, and I'd overheard a salesperson stating to a customer that: " DTS is not a multichannel". Appalled, I quickly left the store.

:lol:

I see your point but I do think backwards compatibility is going to be a bonus for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

If they wanted to really show people how good these were, they would have them on projectors and show people a 100" screen. That would make their eyes bug out. It would probably sell some projectors as well.

Does Best Buy even sell 100 inch screens.

Not in the least! Screens as such are only sold at high end, and state of the art home theater specialty retailers.

Any BB that has a Magnolia brand will have semi-dedicated showrooms with FrontProjectors, screens, etc...