...

I dont know what has lead to this change but it seems to be happening. And I thought I'd report on it. Score one more for HD-DVD :)

money has been transferred to Best Buy Corporate from Toshiba with love.

Something must be going on because the local Best Buys in my area all of the sudden have HD-DVD displays now too. Both stores used to have two Blu-ray displays each with no HD-DVD.

Interesting.

Same here. Out of nowhere a kiosk popped up.

A brand new Best Buy just opened up near me a week or so ago. A really nice looking place. Nice layout and design.

When you walk in the door one of the first things you see is the HD-DVD shelves. It's the Second isle. The way the rows of shelves are set up they are angled to point at the entrance. I thought "wow thats nice". Gets your attention. When you first walk in you see "HD-DVD". But then I figured with the money Sony throws at Best Buy they probably have a huge 10 foot arrow pointing at the display for Blu-ray with some giant sign or something. :rolleyes:

I kept looking for Blu-ray and couldn't find it anywhere. I thought, hmm thats odd. I went to the back and found a nice display set up with a big ole TV for HD-DVD. And there I saw a Blu-ray set up also. But still no sign of the Blu-ray discs.

After getting my Happy Gilmore HD-DVD I began to leave. And thought I'd look one more time at the HD-DVD's. And as walking up from behind I see the Blu-Ray shelf....on the back side of the HD-DVD's shelf. Angled AWAY from the entrance :D It's actually quite hard to see even if you are leaving the store. And if I wasn't still looking for Blu-ray I might not have even noticed it. Both Formats had the same amount of Shelf space though. Which was aslo a big change however for HD-DVD. Because before Blu-ray used to have 3 times as much at the other older store!

It's seems things are changing with Best Buy and the formats. We seem to keep hearing reports of how HD-DVD keeps progressing there and moving in on Blu-rays territory. Well at this one it seems HD-DVD has passed it up for the lead position!

I dont know what has lead to this change but it seems to be happening. And I thought I'd report on it. Score one more for HD-DVD :)
Thanks for reminding me with this post. I went to Fry's yesterday to pick up a few HD DVDs, and perchance I stopped at the local BB which I used to consider as BR exclusive, just to see if they had a few HD DVDs on sale and was amazed at what I witnessed! Right at the entrance there was an HD DVD A2 playing Riddick on a 42" LCD. If that was not shock enough, they had another one in the DVD players area endcap, an A20 playing MI-III on a Toshiba 1080P Regza.
This prompted me to look at their HD DVD and BD movies selection. At first look one would think that they had more BDs than HD DVDs because the BDs seemed to have more space; but upon closer attention I realized that the HD DVD shelf was 2 sided, it had one side facing the isle, and the other facing the other shelf. I guess BB has come along indeed. Most impressive.

Things have really changed. I went to CC to help a family member buy a camera. I had to talk to the manager at the sales counter. A guy was there buying a BR player and the salesman was telling him that he will most likely be back to exchange it for a HD-DVD player. I was shocked because this has always been the other way around. I said "the salesman is right, HD-DVD is a better deal". The guy was really puzzled now and said "but Blockbuster is not going to carry them". I replied "Blockbuster will be gone in another year, doesn't matter. I use Netflix". The salesman nodded his head in agreement. The guy left looking so confused. I told the salesman that it is rare to find a HD-DVD backer in these stores. He mentioned he likes HD-DVD and the other salesman he works with likes BR. On another note, here in Kansas City there is a huge store called Nebraska Furniture Mart (5 stores in 3 states). They are big in Electronics and they have a huge Toshiba HD-DVD poster on the side of the store. I am going by there tonite and will take a picture.

Something must be going on because the local Best Buys in my area all of the sudden have HD-DVD displays now too. Both stores used to have two Blu-ray displays each with no HD-DVD.

Interesting.

I noticed the same at a couple of my local BestBuy stores and FutureShop as well. HD DVD front and center, where it should be.

Unfortunately, as we're all aware, Best Buy still blows. They now just blow slightly less.

I'll continue to get my HD DVD's at Amazon.

The new line of Regza LCD TV's by Toshiba is a major push by them to capture >10% of the LCD TV market. This line features 120Hz refresh and xvYCC color space. I even think there may be deals to bundle HD DVD players into these sets.

Things have really changed. I went to CC to help a family member buy a camera. I had to talk to the manager at the sales counter. A guy was there buying a BR player and the salesman was telling him that he will most likely be back to exchange it for a HD-DVD player. I was shocked because this has always been the other way around. I said "the salesman is right, HD-DVD is a better deal". The guy was really puzzled now and said "but Blockbuster is not going to carry them". I replied "Blockbuster will be gone in another year, doesn't matter. I use Netflix". The salesman nodded his head in agreement. The guy left looking so confused. I told the salesman that it is rare to find a HD-DVD backer in these stores. He mentioned he likes HD-DVD and the other salesman he works with likes BR. On another note, here in Kansas City there is a huge store called Nebraska Furniture Mart (5 stores in 3 states). They are big in Electronics and they have a huge Toshiba HD-DVD poster on the side of the store. I am going by there tonite and will take a picture.


Things have changed SOMEWHAT.

I went to my newest local BB and, yes, they now have an A20 displayed in the same general section as the two BD displays. However, the display sits on top of an EMPTY disc display rack while the BD racks nearby are stuffed with discs.

Something defintely is up here in Winston Salem,NC...Best Buy has end capped the A-2...hooked up to a 42" LCD...Only Problem was that Happy Feet was not playing...but before leaving the store,I made sure it was! :)

BTW..it looked stunning!

A couple of days ago I was at our local BB and there was a pretty cool HD DVD setup...A20 to a Tosh Regza LCD...looked excellent....they were playing happy feet. And underneath the display were some more HD dvd movies. I had a smile from ear to ear. :p :D

Edit...Oh I forgot to mention they were totally out of A2's....Tosh needs to stock these players better if they want people to buy them. :(

If I had my own electronics store, I would put up a big format war poster that reads: WHO GIVES A SH*T?!

A new BB is getting close to opening @ I-70 & Tower in Aurora, CO. It will be interesting to see if this store has the same layout.

If I had a nickel for every one of these 'my nearby store favors format X' threads. . .

If I had my own electronics store, I would put up a big format war poster that reads: WHO GIVES A SH*T?!

Thank you :)

A new BB is getting close to opening @ I-70 & Tower in Aurora, CO. It will be interesting to see if this store has the same layout.


Different stores have different physical layouts and to a certain degree, products, primarily based on their demographics, location, and physical size. You can go into several Best Buy stores in one area and they will have most of the same stuff but some will carry exclusive products (such as the Xbox 360 Elite) in their store while many will not and some will have large Magnolia home theater rooms with near top of the line gear while others will put the top of the line stuff from the regular sales floor in their area.

In my opinion, all along, the best money spent in promotion is active end caps at Best Buy. Hundreds of interested people (targeted dollars) see them each day in each store.

Art

Went to BB in White Marsh, MD last night.

I went straight to the HD media section to see if they had those Warner titles still on sale. They had about 1 and a half shelves dedicated to HD DVD. Lots of titles. I noted that they had three HD-DVD setups, I didn't check the luxury HT section though.

AS a side note, I recently went to Wallmart to see what kind of selection they had. They only had three HD-DVDs and about 20 Blu-Ray. :mad:

Link -> Best Buy on board?? - AVS Forum (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=872608)

My BB has about the same size HD DVD and BD media section and, it's on the second row of DVD shelves.

My BB still but BD players upfront more often and on the more visible end caps. I just exchanged my A1 for an A2 and the lady in the HT department couldn't find any of the 4 A2s that the computer said they had in stock. After about 5 minutes we found them on an end cap at the back of the store next to the washer and dryers.

The other funny thing was she said I should try an expensive Monster HDMI cable because the cheaps can cause the skipping and pause I was seeing on my A1. She claim the Monster one has more bandwidth, therefore it can put more of the image through quicker. She said the cheaper ones can't do that which causes the skips and pauses, because the image isn't getting to the screen quick enough. I didn't have the heart to teacher the truth about HDMI and HDMI cables. Just amazes me the flat out lies these sales people come up with to try to sell things. More reason why I don't shop at Best Buy as much as I use too.

Went to BB in White Marsh, MD last night.

I went straight to the HD media section to see if they had those Warner titles still on sale. They had about 1 and a half shelves dedicated to HD DVD. Lots of titles. I noted that they had three HD-DVD setups, I didn't check the luxury HT section though.

AS a side note, I recently went to Wallmart to see what kind of selection they had. They only had three HD-DVDs and about 20 Blu-Ray. :mad:

I wouldn’t let your Wal-Mart experience bother you. In my experience the reason Wal-Mart has few HD DVDs is because they sell them. It’s purely anecdotal evidence, but if I go in on a Monday after midnight or early on a Tuesday morning my local Wal-Mart will have about a dozen HD DVD titles (about 5or 6 older titles that don’t sell like TGS and Willy Wonka + new releases) then if I go back to the same store the following Saturday or Sunday they only have about 5 or 6 HD DVDs (the same older releases TGS, et al) They always have an entire case with BDs, but they are the same BDs; a bunch of catalog titles that don’t sell and a few new releases that do. My local Target Stores are the same way. Look closely and see if you don’t notice the same thing at your local stores.

Best Buy ad this week features some interesting deals. Sadly no great deals on Hd software.
Blu software has buy 2 save $10 buy 3 save $20, Best Buy did the same deal for HD back in May.
The interesting part was the LG player was $1200 with 10 free movies, you can pick any format Hd or Blu in the store.

The page (pg 16) had two blu players the Panasonic $600 (w/5 free movies in the box I think) and the new Sony $500, Bottom of the page had the Toshiba A2 for $300.
This is a little different form the way they had been advertising the players in the past.

It's about time! :D

same at my best buy. a while back i made a thread about a poor hd dvd display at best buy, but its completely opposite now. the bluray setup is unplugged and sitting in a corner, while HD DVD is up front.

i guess sony stopped feeding bestbuy.

maybe this way Toshibas marketing strategy all along. the first few months to a year they dont need to market because the av fans will buy the product up anyway while the average consumer waits for price drops. and now that hd dvd prices are low enough, they will advertise at best buy as much as possible.