Best Buy finally showing respect to HD DVD - sort of

Toshiba needs to send out some reps to calibrate sets. It isn't just HD-DVD though. Stores are mostly horrible about making displays look nice.

Its amazing that with HD DVD - which literally requires only ONE cable to be connected - store employees can still screw it up.

Best Buy in Chesterfield, Va has a Toshiba HD DVD player running to a 46" Toshiba LCD playing a HD DVD demo with HD movie trailers.

No sales commissions at BB. Probably none for Magnolia either. But you'd think there'd be at least one person in the store that actually gave a sh*t.

Having worked for BB's competition, I can tell you for a fact that giving a sh*t is promptly beaten out of you after you are hired. Sad, but it's true.

Marc

I think a lack of training is the killer at BB and the other box stores. When I worked retail 10 long years ago, we stayed late at work when the reps were down so we could learn all about the new technologies (at that time DVD was shiny and new) and products so we could close more sales. More sales, more commision and invariably a more satisfied and educated customer leaving the store, with a product that fit his needs.

Well, the local BB here had "March of the Penguins" playing as an HD DVD demo on the A2 to a 47" LCD. I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but the first few minutes after the title credits looked so grainy and pixelated I couldn't stand it. I tried to get the salesman I'd been playing dumb to to open up a copy of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" so I could "see what it should look like" (he admitted MoP looked pretty bad... the Blu-ray player had "Ice Age" playing several aisles over for comparison). No could do... something about only being able to demo G-rated family friendly movies in the store. Very disappointing. But lest this be seen as underhanded pushing of Bluray, to his credit he did say that he though HD DVD would "come out on top" in the end....

Aw jeez, why did Happy Feet have to be PG...?

EDIT: Stupid penguin cleavage!

As far as BB training goes, there is none... I worked in the Home Theatre dept about a year or so ago and they just threw me in there! I had to ask the other guys in there what the difference between everything was and then did my own research on the internet. They suck...

And back on topic my BB doesn't have any display of an HD-DVD anywhere. They have a sweet BR player hooked up to an equally sweet Sony XBR though...
They just had the A2 and the A20 sitting next to all the other SD DVD players. No love...

I can only speak for my store, but if anyone visits the Norwalk, CT Best Buy, we are not like most I guess. We pride ourself in functionality and our training. Sure not 100% of our employees know everything, but believe me we make sure to go over the new technologies all the time. Sorry, that if anyone has had bad experiences

There is some progress on the Best Buy front, an employee finally admitted that HD DVD is 1080p.

Unfortunately, MotP IMO is pretty damn poor for HD. It rarely looked significantly better than the DVD on my setup. I tried to attribute it to the filming conditions, but when you compare it to the penguin stuff on Planet Earth, it's no contest. That's a VERY poor choice for a demo. Maybe someone selected that one on purpose.

Hahaha.

Atually last weekend when I was looking for a Sharp 32 1080P LCD, not the most readily available item in Brick and Mortars. It would take something like that for me to be spending any real money in a BB these days. I heard a lot of praise for HD DVD... it seems some of the young people working there are figuring out that an A2 is one hell of a bargain. I was surprised. The Tosh players are still practically behind the counter, but the sales geeks are begining to get it. I never brought up HD DVD but they did. They were all going crazy over the Sharp which had an impressive end cap positoning and was being fed by an XBOX. It looked sensational. I did not investigatel closely but I suspect that XBOX had the add on. This was at the store closet to my home. A mile or so away. They did not have any of 32" 1080P Sharps in stock but another Houston store did. It also had a pretty impressive demo going with the LC-32GPU1 attached to an XBOX.

I was really in my local store to look at the Sharp, but I never told the wife that is why we there. She found the Sharp before I did and dragged me over to it with "do you want one of these". I smiled and said, "well maybe"... then geeks came out of the woodwork praising the TV and HD DVD. Sweet wife it was a nice Saturday... love the Sharp it is my PC monitor and is it ever nice.. LCDs are still LCDs even the best ones don't seem to match good DLPs and Plasma for picture quality, but the Sharp is darned good for an LCD TV, and it is a sensational PC monitor. I actually have an XA2 hooked to it currently. An XA2 at 1080P from 2 ft away... we are talkning Sharp!

My store in Manchester, NH has the same display running. It looks great on the Toshiba set.

Why didn't you just say"I'd like to see how that HD DVD looks after you hook it up properly. Would you please do it now?" That would put them on notice that customers know the setup/display is not right and they need to correct it. Had that failed I would ask for a remote and do it myself. Then if theyget upset I'd say I'm not about to spend money on this without knowing if this is the best it can look.

Isn't that dependent on the player?

Also the couple of Best Buys in my area have always had the Toshiba on Display and hooked up to various TVs, helps sell the TVs as well as the player. Currently they have Happy Feet playing on a Panasonic Plasma.

As an aside, when I went to Best Buy to buy my Panasonic BD10A, the salesman politely informed me that I should also look at HD DVD and look at the title selection for both before I made my choice. He wasn't anti-BD in any way, but it was refreshing to hear someone actually coaching customers to make informed decisions. This was in the El Cajon, CA Best Buy.

that would be a good idea if the reps knew something about their products. I met on at a CC who stood by the HD a20 and knew absolutely nothing about it.

Right, now, only if you had an HD DVD player hooked up and running... Last time I was there about 10 days ago, I couldn't find an HD DVD player, not even one sitting on a shelf... How long have you been working for BB?

Those BBBs!

Oooooh! SNAP!

Must be the new SOP from the BDA, otherwise BD could be DOA by Q4.

[quote=theroys88
Best Buy in Chesterfield, Va has a Toshiba HD DVD player running to a 46" Toshiba LCD playing a HD DVD demo with HD movie trailers.[/QUOTE]


Same in Watertown, MA. The Regza TV/HDA20 combination and demo looked great. Nice to see finally. Maybe Toshiba finally decided to pay for an end cap?

When I was at BB the other day they had an A2 playing a standard dvd not an hd-dvd. I could not find an open hd-dvd anywhere so what was a man to do with blueray play in hd a few feet away. I know level the playing field...I inserted a standard dvd in the blueray player .....hahahaa!

Sounds like somebody forgot the first rule of Project Mayhem.

...

OH SH--

Awesome! Attack them...

Year and a half. Our store has the HD-XA2 on display. That is the only model we are supposed to display (as we are giving policies about which players to hook up). Best Buy charges for certain setups, if companies want their new technologies on display in prime locations they have to pay for that. Aside from that the HD-XA2 shows the quality of the HD DVD 1080p signal (unfortunately because many tv companies that back Blu-ray do not want an HD DVD hooked up to it, it is on a 73" rear projection tv). However, since we know that our customers ask about it enough, we have a HD-A2 on display. So, they would also be able to see HD DVD at 720p or 1080i. If the store you go to has a Magnolia department, it will have better displays (and usually better training for associates). We also, have the HD-A2 on a shelf displayed (it is not hooked up). When they remove the HD-A2 from our stores, then we will put out the current model.