Maybe it's just the one Best Buy store in my neighbourhood that is doing this, but I get the overall sense that Best Buy could really care less of HD-DVD's and BluRay discs

The only Disney BluRay they stocked last week, was 'Eight Below' and even at lunchtime a pretty busy time for customers coming in on their lunchbreaks to buy DVD's, they weren't up for display and the delivery box wasn't even findable in the stockroom.

HD-DVD have been relegated to a small standup display that is sits in a very lonely space of the floor and 'new releases' in general - are supremely lacking and pathetic.

Given how aggressive Best Buy is pushing HiDef tv's and monitors, the support for HD software/films is by the worst and downright embarresing. How do they honestly think they can educate or advertise the new HD platform with this type of non-support?

How do other Best Buy's do it, are they any better? This DC location on a grading letter scale would register a solid D in effort and availability.

Best Buy couldn't care less about any of the products they sell, frankly.

Which store? I want to make sure to skip it.

Northwest Washington DC Tenleytown location

The one by my job seems to care.

They gave HD-DVD their own section within their Main DVD sales floor.

BD is still confined to an endcap.

the music selection is also a joke - I had to get someone to get the Deluxe Edition of the new Scissor Sister album today - I really shouldn't have to ask for a product, it just should be out for me to pick up and be on my merry little way without very little interaction with the store employees.

The Best Buys near me are definitely clueless about the formats. All of seem to just have the titles sitting somewhat randomly by the TV sets. One has a two standees (one for each format), but another just has them around a corner, near the DVD players, sitting on a shelf all mixed up with light glaring right down on the spines so you can't read them well.

There's a Video Business article that mentions that Best Buys (in general) are going to start to move the BD/HD discs to the actual software area, with the other DVDs. That's probably a start.


But the chain is pretty notorious for not putting things in logical places. It's always an adventure trying to find something from the flyer on the release Tuesday. My latest ones were the Asia Greatest Hits CD (located on some strange endcap near the refrigerators... but NOT in the new release section and NOT in the CDs under "Asia"). And My Name is Earl, which had a HUGE display -- over by the computer software, completely out of eyesight of the DVDs. None in New Releases, none under My Name is Earl in the TV section.

Earl was my favorite because the employee was rolling his eyes like I was an idiot when I asked where they were. He had to walk me over to them (again, you couldn't see them) and then said "See, a big display, right here". I pointed out that if they have 100 copies, maybe they could spare two or three for, you know, the actual DVD section.



Anyway, not to go too off-topic, but that's really more of the problem than an HD/BD thing. Best Buy really sucks at drawing customers to specific products in general. I feel dirty every time I go in there. Damn store exclusives.

Doesn't this belong in the Store forum?

Thanks for the heads-up.

intermixed or seperate HD-DVD/Bluray subsections? I hope the latter.

'adventure' is an understatement. My BB can't get it's act together to putting out the new releases in a timely matter on Tuesdays. I used to work in retail, that was the first thing I always did on Tuesday morning, make sure all the new releases were out.

Seems to depend on the store in my area, ranging from great to shit:

Hartsdale NY: Nice seperate stand in the DVD section split 50/50 with a great selection of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles facing out and in nice matching rows

Palisades Mall, Nyack NY: Great selection of BD-HD titles sorted spine out on a small 5-6 row shelf above in the DVD player section

Yonkers, NY: End caps for BD-HD with a few titles by the display machines. Crappy selection.

Mt. Vernon, NY: Pathetic two shelf display mounted on the wall in the corner by the CRT TV's. Maybe multiples of about 10 titles for each format, mostly early releases. Had to ask a blue shirt where they were after searching on my own and he couldn't tell me right off the bat either.

The DC store is soooo notoriously bad in just trying to find a helpful 'Blue Shirt'. Too many of them shrug you off to someone else, or do very little...or give you attitude ('my job sucks, so I should give you a hard time').

There are 3 Best Buys very close to me, and there is a noticeable difference in "competency". The best one has all new material already set in place when the doors open on Tuesday and all the HD titles are very nicely presented in the DVD software section. The worst one has employees still opening up boxes of the new material & stocking shelves till at least noon, and all the HD titles are 'hidden' in the DVD player section. IMO local management is a pretty big factor as to exactly how supportive BB is of anything.

Yeah, I actually got lucky this time. He was cool, but didn't know so he had to ask a couple of other people before we were led to the area. He said they don't really sell too many of them.

Just got back from BB.

Actually, I was surprised because the HD DVD/BD stuff had been moved around again. They have now separated the two and given them their own sections. The BD section is closer to the main floor and HD DVD is at the end of a row.

And of course, they're still both together in the home theater department.

I was happy to see the HD DVD demo running in the main home theater set-up and BD still at the same endcap. They're now selling recordable BD's. No idea if they even sell the recorders.

and I wonder why... ?? hmmm (duh!)

I think Best Buy cares about as much about these new formats as the general population, which is to say "not much". Maybe by Christmastime the advertising campaign will kick into high gear and we'll be able to get a little more enthusiasm all around.

they also need to drop their prices a little to be competitive with the online stores like Amazon.

My Best Buy here in Chicago, (1000 W North Ave), seems to really have it together as far as HD DVD is concerned. I just went to pick up the new releases today and was only able to find half of them. I asked this employee who looked like he knew what he was doing where the other HD DVD new releases were. He then told me that they were still in the back because tomorrow they are making a full HD section in the store. He then asked for the titles I was looking for and got them for me. So I thought the HD DVD rack they had was good enough, but now they are making a full section. Sweet!

Last Sunday mine had a couple of shelves of HD-DVDs back with the televisions; probably well over 100 discs. They also had a couple of Toshiba HD-DVD players in stock up on the top shelf. Not sure if they had any players hooked up or not.

Blu-Ray didn't fare as well. They only had, maybe twenty discs in a little display with a player hooked up to a plasma TV, but there was no disc in the player. (Great marketing there, no?)

Just went into mine today and was surprised -- they had an entire row with a heading like "The future of home video" or somesuch, and the rack had an extensive selection of HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs. By far the largest selection I've seen anywhere, and if they don't have everything, it's awfully close.

The BB near me in North Dartmouth MA has 2 sections back to back dedicated to Blu-Ray and then HD-DVD.

I have 2 within 10 minutes of me. One has a small 150 DVD media shelf setup at book ends for both formats. The other is getting upgraded to a Magnolia Theater location and they have moved both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray out of the dark and given both there own 5ft by 6 or 7 shelf section next to each other on the "TV DVD" aisle. They seem to have all titles that have come out on both and they are nicely displayed with a few of each title facing forward and the rest of each title sitting sideways.

While I don't have any Best Buys within 300 miles, I did get a chance to visit one in Broomfield, Colorado, on Friday. On an end cap they had the Samsung BD player, playing the demo disc, hooked up to a 42 inch Samsung LCD. The Tosh A1 was just sitting on a shelf, not hooked up to anything, nor were there any boxed ones available to buy that I could see. Neither player was located in the Magnolia section (where I noticed a very pretty Pioneer Elite 1080p x 1920 Plasma for a mere $7500 or so).

On the disc front I was impressed. There were a dozen or so different HD DVD titles located on a shelf above the A1 player. About thirty feet away, in a high traffic aisle, there were two cardboard floor displays. One had HD DVDs in it (none of the same titles as on the shelf over the player) and the other had BDs in it. So far as I could tell, they had just about every HD DVD released thus far, albeit at rather high prices ($24.99 and up).

While they aren't pushing HD DVD players (perhaps because they don't have any to sell, perhaps because the Samsung BD player is more profitable) they certainly can't be faulted on their selection of HD DVD and BD titles.

Also visited a Circuit City in Boulder. They had a prominent BD setup and display, front and center as one enters the store. No HD DVDs at all, which I gather is typical for that chain.

HD DVD and BD are still niche markets by the standards of those big mass market electronics retailers, so I was pleased that discs were readily available. Where I live, HD DVD and BD are nowhere to be seen.

My Best Buy has both displayed with plenty of titles. I notice in the weekly ads that BD gets much more attention. In the new ad posted in the bargain thread, if you buy 2 BD movies, you get a $10 gift card. Buy 3, and get a $25 gift card. They never offer any kind of HD DVD deals...