Are you new to HD DVD?

Yea it is the first. I've been hooked up w/ HDTV for a few years and always just DL'd Blu-ray & HD-DVD movies from newsgroups and played them on the UltraVision Plasma but with the price sooo nice at wally world last week I picked the A2 up along w/ happy feet, transformers & sleep hollow. Got myself a netflix sub (waiting on the movies now) and have really been enjoying the HD-DVD player so far. I bought another one for someones birthday present while I was there...

@ this price point how can you not want to see what it's like? There was no way in hell I was going to get a PS3, lulz... we have 1 TV in the house (down from 3 years ago) and the last thing I want is some fugly game console. If I want to game I just go to one of the 4 computers around the house (gaming rig is OC'd 6700 w/ 8800gts). I'm not that worried as I can still stream movies (hd & blu) from the home Gigabit nas.

Yeah, no way I could pass on the $98 A-2 at Walmart, even though I currently use a ED plasma. But the A-2 is a GREAT SD-DVD player (480p via HDMI looks best into the ED plasma, BTW) and gets me ready for HD-DVD when I upgrade to a 50> 1080p plasma next year.

Ive been a longtime fan of HD-DVD but once the Best Buy deal popped up, I had to jump on it, and let me tell ya, it was one purchase that was worth it.

HD-DVD is fannnntastic!

Question for those new to HD DVD who bought the 98.00 player?

Now are you ready to buy the 30.00 movies?

well I bought 3 already. I didn't ever have a big collection of SD DVD movies as I rented them. Also I just DL HD/Blu movies from newsgroups.

Don't really see why you have to buy them? Netflix seems to work just fine in my area of the country, where do you live where you have to buy them?

I am new to the HD-DVD market, I purchased an A3 at Best Buy this past weekend and walked out with my 5 free movies, and just this morning mailed in my rebate form for 5 more.

$199.99, and 10 Free movies....The cost of the movies alone pay for the player.

I figure if I can support two competing next gen consoles, why not two next gen formats.

Yup.. got the deal on the A3/$199/10 free at BB on Saturday. Happy with the results so far.

Ordered Mine Sat Night....waiting for delivery. Im more excited about upconverting my old collection more than anything...but the free HD-DVDs was a huge factor since it was gonna be 169.99 at sears on black friday and i work there. the two extra dvd's instant with bb was a big deal. and I will buy HD-DVD discs in the future even at $30

New to HD-DVD. I have had a 622 Dish HD Receiver for a year. I have the AT 250 package, HBO , the HD package and HD locals. I had "to move" to get HD LOCALS (ABC,NBC,CBS,FOX). I have a 55" Mitsubishi CRT RPTV. It was the last line of CRTs Mitsubishi built in 2006. Great picture; I have a Professional ISF calibrator coming in December.
I did not realize that HD DVDs were not "full screen". This bothered me at first then I read the technology and sorta understand.

Another happy new HD DVD owner here! I actually have 2 brand-new A2s right now (1 still in the box). I bought one at CC for $158 with the $40 off coupon, then picked up one for $99 at Wal-Mart last Friday. I then called CC back and they price-adjusted the A2 I bought from them to the WM price! Now, rather than return one of the A2s, I'm trying to find it a good home.

As for movies, unfortunately, the WM I got the player at had only 3 copies each of 3 of the $14.96 movies so I didn't get any. That said, Saturday night after dinner, we stopped at another WM and they had a bunch of the $14.96 movies so I grabbed Backdraft. As I was walking away my wife said "What about Seabiscuit? I always wanted to see that." So, I ended buying that as well. I also have Transformers on order and plan on picking up Shrek 3 and the Bourne Ultimatum as soon as they're released (I'm hoping they'll be some deals on a Bourne HD DVD 3-pack - anyone know anyting about that?).

No, but I'll gladly buy them for $14-$15 like I did this weekend.

Sleepy Hollow
12 Monkeys
Seabiscuit
Last Samurai
Italian Job
Unforgiven
Casino
Blood Diamond

I'm sure BF will bring some good deals also. I was an earlier adopter of DVD back in 1997-98 and remember the discs running $25. Once DVD got some momentum behind it, the prices dropped significantly. Until that happens with HD-DVD, I'll probably rent or catch the sales.

And yes, I'm new to HD-DVD. I got in on the WM deal for the A2, couldn't resist.

This is my first HD media player of either kind, but I was ready to buy one. It wasn't a pure impulse purchase.

I've been watching HD TV OTA for a couple of years, but held off on buying a player partly because of the format war and partly because there wasn't any content compelling enough for me yet. (I'm not a big movie buff.) When the Star Trek original series box set was announced, I decided to go with HD DVD and was figuring on waiting to buy a player until Thanksgiving weekend, right about when the ST box should hit my doorstep. In the meantime I was reading up on the various players and monitoring prices. When the Best Buy offer turned up on Thursday at lunchtime, I jumped on it.

My HD-A2 purchase was an impluse-ish buy. I had planned on sitting out for a while yet. At $100, though, I couldn't wait. That said, I don't plan on buying any movies at $30. I bought Batman Begins at WM for $18 when I got the A2. My movies Christmas list changed from all DVD's to HD-DVD's, except for a stray Fox title, and those on the list can be found online for $20-ish.

ive known for quite a while that i wanted an hd-dvd player, however, i was afraid to bite the bullet - when the xbox 360 add-on dropped down to $179, i ALMOST jumped on it there - the only thing that stopped me was the fact that i dont have an hdmi output on my 360 and wanted to take advantage of the upscaling of sd dvds

i ordered the a2 on thursday night for $99 - and let me tell you how pleasantly surprised i was when i got the email informing me that my order would be upgraded to an a3 - ill be going back later this week to get my third free hd-dvd (they were only giving away 2 when i picked mine up) so, needless to say, im thrilled

all in all, due to a best buy online error, im coming away with 12 free hd-dvds and a toshiba hd-a3 for a grand total of $108.99 (in addition to the 2 free hd-dvd's i picked up in-store, bb.com is shipping me another 2) - thats a deal i just could NOT pass up

and do i "like" the fact that some hd-dvd's are $30? not really - but ive purchased a few and ordered a few more online - none of them were over $19.99 (with the exception of the total recall import i ordered) - thats something i can definitely live with

i watched the bourne identity last nite - after that, im glad to say i have NO regrets whatsoever!

I couldn't pass up the $199 A3 deal with the 10 movies. I have an older Hitachi 50" RP HDTV with a DVI connector. I had previously been using a Sony upconverting dvd player with a HDMI to DVI cable. So I just swapped out the Sony for the A3 and started wathching HDVDs.
My only issue is the overly report/posted Error while playing movies. It happened right out of the box with 300 and Bourne Identity. I upgraded the firmware and got Bourne to work but 300 still gives me problems. Batman Begins and Serenity played without issue though. I have yet to try the wash/rinse/repeat work around with my 300 disc.

Anyway as posted already for the price of 10 movies (some of which I am forced to pick from 5 that aren't that interesting to me) you are effectively getting the A3 for free.

Wow-60 percent new as of Monday afternoon 11/5/2007. AVS Forum has a lot of new viewers/members, then. Welcome!

Thanks :wavey:

Yep....i was waiting for either of the HD formats to hit $150.....ended up getting the A3 at BB for $199......the 10 free movies offset the $49 over my self imposed pricepoint of $150

Bought an A2 last Friday...spent 35 bucks to get Batman Begins and Big Lebowski and sent off for my 5 free movies.

I bought an A3 on Friday right before they started offering the 3 free, I only got the 2 free. I don't plan on going back and arguing though, because it is an hour drive to get to Best Buy. Quick question, are the older movies that are coming out on HD DVD actually in HD or just reformatted to HD DVD disks?

<<< new guy

I bought the Samsung Hlr-6178 when they first came out, I then bought the Pioneer elite vsx-74txvi from BB before they even had one on the shelf. But I did not want to jump on any HD DVD/Blue R players until the prices dropped.

At 100 bucks, no reason to wait any longer. I just hooked it up after installing the firmware upgrade. I watched about the first 15 minutes of Transformers and WOW. The picture on my Samsung is incredible. Absolutely stunning. If you have the TV waiting, you are crazy to sit out any longer with these low prices.

Now I am only upset that my receiver needs to be sent in to get a firmware upgrade so I can pass the signal from the HD-A2 through HDMI.

I have to run the HDMI directly to the TV and use optical for the sound to my receiver at the current time.

By the way, no way will I be buying 30 dollar movies. Netflix will work just fine.

Bought our first HD TV this August (Pio 5080). Have become a HD junkie to say the least. Have been following the HD forum for about a month thinking that eventually I would purchase the A30 or A35 for Xmas. Found out about the less than $100 offer for the A2...didn't hesitate. May find that we want a upper end player later but for now this should serve our needs adequately. Proof will be in how well this thing plays SD DVD's. Juror is still out...won't get the HDMI cable till Fri.

Before last Thursday I had no intent to but any HDM anytime soon. I was also leaning more toward blu-ray as well. But when I heard about the Wal-Mart sale I couldn't resist. I waited in line for an hour that I should have been at work only to witness the guy in front of me buy the last one. Later that day on my way home I stopped at BB more out of habit than anything else and came across the $199 A3 deal and felt like I actually got a slightly better deal in the end. Then I went to BB today and got another free movie with the price match.

This is my first HD DVD player. No, I will not pay $30 for a movie. I'll purchase media as the prices drop. Until then, I'll rent.

I hope the studios are reading this. I do buy movies at or near $30, but I buy a lot more when they are on sale for less than $20.

I do not expect HD DVDs to sell for $7-10 the way so many older DVD titles do, but if they can get the majority of them down to $20 at most stores with a few cheaper and a few above, then disc sales will probably take off the way player sales have with all the recent offers.

Yes, they are in truly high definition. In fact, many of the oldest title releases such as Grand Prix from 1965 look super clear and detailed.

Yup, I'm a first time HD-DVD owner.....but I've been researching them for a looooooooong time, was just waiting for the right time....and boy did Wal-Mart help with my decision