Dave's Download

Circuit City's Offer to Take My HD DVD Drive

By David LaGesse

Posted: March 7, 2008

I'm not biting. Circuit City is quietly offering to let customers return their HD DVD players and apply the cost toward one that plays the Blu-ray format, which recently won a two-year format war. The offer covers any HD DVD drive bought in the past 90 days. It's a nice gesture by Circuit City.

But the math doesn't work.

A low-end Blu-ray player costs $400 at Circuit City. My HD DVD drive cost me about $100 a few months back. So I'd pay $300 for the upgrade.

For now, I've got HD DVD disks that I can rent from Netflix. And by the holidays, even Sony's Blu-ray drives should cost only $300 or so. Cheaper players could be as little as $200 by then.

I'll wait. The HD DVD drive does a good job of upconverting standard DVDs. Plus it's supposed to play my home videos in high definition, though I haven't tried it yet. It'd be nice if I can burn a few minutes of HD-quality video to a standard DVD and play it in the HD DVD drive.

Seems like a keeper, even if it is a loser.

at least

At least they will let you return the player for credit.

And as of right now, and probably for at least another 12-18 months the best blu ray player is the PS3 and you can get it for $399. It has the most updates, and features minus the 5 or 7.1 surround sound. PS3 also loads movies up within 20-25 seconds. I have played with other blu rays in stores and they can take 2-3 minutes to load, they are really slow. PS3 is sonys baby, so it will get the most firmware updates. As for blu rays dropping in price, not likely that much, we may be seeing some cheap ones from the no name brands, but as for name brands, they have no reason to drop in price now. there is no competition. however, there will be sales and promotions.

edddie brock of IN @ Mar 09, 2008 15:41:17 PM

The Truth about CC's HD DVD offer

Dave is spreading some incorrect information about Circuit City's offer. It's not a trade-in program. It's a generous extension of the company's normal 30-day return policy.

Anyone who brings back an HD DVD player that they'd purchased at Circuit City within the past 90 days will get a store credit (gift card) for the purchase price. They can use the credit to buy anything they want.

I hope this information is helpful...and have a great weekend

Jas in VA of VA @ Mar 08, 2008 09:02:59 AM

HD-Quality home Video on the HD DVD Drive

I've used a feature of my home video editing software that will burn a 4.7 disc with HD DVD quality video that can be played in my HD DVD drive.

It works pretty well and I have been happy with the result but the limitation is that you can only get about 23 minutes of video this way but it is a noticable difference in quality over SD video.

I agree that Circuit City is not giving anybody a bargin on this offer. A regular up-convert DVD player is not much less than the HD DVD player I purchsed so even though I won't be able to get or rent new HD DVDs in the future, I did get a competitively priced upconvert player anyway and on a 720P HDTV, it looks pretty good.

Jon of IA @ Mar 08, 2008 08:03:43 AM

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Our in-house gadget guru, Senior Writer David LaGesse, checks out the latest technologies and gizmos, from computer software to GPS systems -- and reports back to you in plain English.


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