Best Buy Canada Blu-ray Deals

[Neild]

Originally Posted by antoinedoinel

There's really no need to bash Future Shop and Best Buy's systems in here, as neild has done countless times.

Actually I just call it as it is. If the truth is there are defects in the system, I report it. You might want to be a fan or promoter for the company, and so long as you aren't a company marketing agent in disguise, that's your right. I do wish then you'd put your efforts into reducing the problems and correcting defects rather than so much energy into coming up with excuses or telling people to ignore them. But again if being their defender is what you want to do, I respect your right but I'll continue to post the facts.

Originally Posted by antoinedoinel

As for this sale: there's more than the occasional omission. A lot of the titles are the same, and a lot of them are not.

Scrutinizing the lists with that in mind, I'm going to say you are quite right about this. There are a lot more differences on the published lists than last time.

Originally Posted by antoinedoinel

It was the exact same scenario the last time they had it

Well actually, no. Last time the lists had a lot more similarities.

Locally, the Future Shop location has brought out all the new trade & save standups, plus bins of old trade and save titles that didn't sell last time, including ones on the Best Buy list. I'm talking Alvin & the Chipmunks, Garfield, etc. That's what makes it seem like they have a lot more in common.

It's worth noting the local Best Buy store still doesn't have the trade and save stock out on the floor. But that's fairly typical, they are often days or sometimes weeks (!) late putting out stock.

If you can find a stray title that is part of the sale and show the clerk the trade and save promo on their website, they will manually discount a blu-ray using a code out of their ops binder. But they don't have their trade-in coupons going yet. They also said you have to bring proof of purchase (receipt) for your used trade-in DVD's (!) Seriously, who has the receipt for a movie they purchased 10+ years ago??? I managed to talk them out of that however...

[Neild]

Originally Posted by Corey31

The film started as a Disney product, then it was moved to Miramax. During the time it was at Miramax they sold some of the international distribution rights (including Canada and the UK) to eOne. This was common for Disney to do with Miramax films (a large portion are distributed by other companies here)

Then when Disney sold off Miramax, they decided to hold onto the product and move it to Touchstone Pictures. Since the rights were already sold to eOne in Canada and UK we get the eOne release which is basically the same except no DisneyFile Digital Copy and no DMR points. Also no silver slipcover that matches the recent Disney 3D releases.

Ah eOne, OK I said Rocket which I think is affiliated with eOne. Do you agree that it's something like the Mexico factory is just doing a special run for the Canadian inventory, leaving out the 4th disc and stuffing the Canadian cover instead of the US one?

[Rhylliam]

eOne in Canada just doesn't do digital copies yet. Took Alliance a long while to start doing it.

I picked up Gnomeo 3-disc, Predators 2-disc, & Funkytown. In the case of the Funkytown disc, none had the trade sticker, but it is listed on their website.

[antoinedoinel]

Originally Posted by Neild

Actually I just call it as it is. If the truth is there are defects in the system, I report it. You might want to be a fan or promoter for the company, and so long as you aren't a company marketing agent in disguise, that's your right. I do wish then you'd put your efforts into reducing the problems and correcting defects rather than so much energy into coming up with excuses or telling people to ignore them. But again if being their defender is what you want to do, I respect your right but I'll continue to post the facts.

I'm not defending them. I've had my own problems with them over the years. What you're saying isn't wrong either, it's just that these threads get derailed or turn into an argument far too often. Personal opinions should be kept to a minimum, especially if what you post is bound to incite trouble.

[Steel Panther]

SO uhh how bout them T&S deals eh....

[britbill4000]

Picked up Taxi Driver, Collateral & Three Kings @ BB for $10 each after T&S.

[DoubleDownAgain]

When I was at BB yesterday I didn't have my phone and accidentily picked up a couple of duplicates, so I brought them back and picked up:

Raging Bull: 30th Anniversary Edition (1980)
Collateral (2004)

For $9.99 after T&S.

[ziggy66]

Picked up a Gnomeo and Juliet for $9.99 as part of the trade and save. Couldn't find any copies in the box displays at the front so i ended up finding one in one of the Blu-Ray aisles. It didn't have a trade and save sticker on it so the cashier thought it wasn't part of the deal but i told her it was on the list of titles on the website.

Also, Best Buy is offering an extra $5 right now on game trade ins valued at $8 or more. I believe that offer is good for this week only.

[Traveler]

Went to Best Buy today with 2 promotional bonus discs and 1 freebie sideshow toys dvd I picked up at a comic convention a few years back.....walked out with Deep Impact, Road To Perdition and William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet for $9.99 each. Even used $10 in rewardzone coupons to sweeten the deal even more. Glad they brought this sale back.

[Exist2Inspire]

Originally Posted by Traveler

Went to Best Buy today with 2 promotional bonus discs and 1 freebie sideshow toys dvd I picked up at a comic convention a few years back.....walked out with Deep Impact, Road To Perdition and William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet for $9.99 each. Even used $10 in rewardzone coupons to sweeten the deal even more. Glad they brought this sale back.

Has anyone had any luck with giving them real DVD's in CD cases? I tried trading in a few DVD copies that came with my Blu's (that I own on DVD already), but they said they needed the actual DVD case.

That, and you guys remember those old-school DVD flippers? Yeah, I got accused to trying to trade in burned DVD ><

[ziggy66]

Originally Posted by Exist2Inspire

Has anyone had any luck with giving them real DVD's in CD cases? I tried trading in a few DVD copies that came with my Blu's (that I own on DVD already), but they said they needed the actual DVD case.

That, and you guys remember those old-school DVD flippers? Yeah, I got accused to trying to trade in burned DVD ><

Yeah i remember when i was trying to trade in one of the Mortal Kombat's on dvd at Blockbuster cause they were those flipper discs and the employee was like i don't think it's real, so i told him to go and read the inner hub of the disc. The issue was quickly resolved.

[cfraser]

Originally Posted by Exist2Inspire

That, and you guys remember those old-school DVD flippers? Yeah, I got accused to trying to trade in burned DVD ><

One of the discs I traded in at FS yesterday was the Fox double feature flipper of The Fly/Fly 2. Yeah, a lot of the youngsters may not have seen a flipper, or the Flipper. Yup, those were the days...not.

The disc I traded in at BB yesterday was the DVD half of a BD/DVD set. In a broken DVD case. You knew those would come in handy one day, right?

You know, I gave away so many DVDs that I had upgraded to better DVDs long ago. Even 5 years ago they were hard to sell around here, not worth my time. D'oh!

[danman227460]

Guys, there is a mid-summer sale at Best Buy. The sale ends in 8 hours but you get 15% off movies.

[wolfbane5]

I was planning on taking advantage of the sale to get 15% off the SGA boxset, but for some reason it's listed at 145.99 on their site, when it's sold for 129.99 in store... Nevertheless, I feel 130 for the set is a bit high - I'm heading to the states in a couple weeks so I'll check it out down there, otherwise I'll wait for xmas/boxing day deals.

[Steel Panther]

the Sony sound bar is 20% off and drops it to $119.99 -- too bad it's not the Sharp one, I'd be all over it

[Neild]

Originally Posted by ryandk

Will Futureshop (in store) match the Best Buy price after the 15% discount?

In my experience, no. Unless you get a rep that is new and still believes in customer service and honoring the essence of the price match policy. Most of the longer term reps seem to take pride in finding valid or invalid reasons to wriggle out of that promise.

One thing I will compliment Best Buy on is that this sale (finally!) included a discount on concert blu-rays. Almost all prior sales of this type would claim that all blu-rays were on sale, and yet buyers would be charged full price on concert blu-rays. You could call in, but the reps were powerless to over-ride the system glitch.

The reason is that their product classification system got broken in the web store 'upgrade' a couple years back. They now categorize concert blu-rays the same as compact discs in the 'music' category.

Rather than fixing the root problem, this sale simply covered both product categories which was reasonably effective.

There's still hundreds if not thousands of miscategorized media products and a disappointing amount of missing titles that other retailers are carrying. But covering both 'movie' and 'music' categories in the sale might be a tiny step in the right direction.

Some might not like these web store flaws being exposed publicly. However after 2 years with no internal progress fixing them, I'm convinced that consumer awareness may be the only way Best Buy / Future Shop will ever be influenced to fixing them and in the meantime it's the best way consumers can fend for themselves.

Some constructive tips when shopping for media at Best Buy / Future Shop:

- Both companies are the same company, keep that in mind no matter what staff tell you
- Both use the same (flawed) Rovi Data for their media data source. Do not put blind faith in the media info being presented as it is frequently wrong
- Both use the same distributor for catalog titles, so generally speaking if one store has 10 copies of something, the other also has 10 copies of it. (there are exceptions)
- Buy concert blu-rays when there is a sale on compact discs (unfortunately these recurring sales are typically only 10% off instead of the 15% saving commonly given on movies)
- Buy concert blu-rays in store during blu-ray sales. The POS system may not give the discount, but a good clerk will agree that a concert blu-ray is still a blu-ray and they may adjust the price using one of their many discount categories.
- Don't put too much faith in the search filters as they will be tripped up by the bad Rovi data mentioned earlier. This will cause some valid products to be excluded, and some invalid products to be included.
- Watch out for doubles of some items. Often this means there is an English packaging and a French packaging. If you find this, look carefully for other clues so you don't order the one wrong. Sometimes it will be a small cue like one of the data categories being printed en Francais, or it might be the cover art graphic showing two languages.
- Start your research on one of the more competent web stores or on fan sites. Learn what the available release packages for a given title actually are. If you find a product that seems too unique on the Best Buy / Future Shop site, it's probably an error. Ordering it will just lead to a hassle for returning it later.
- Use deductive logic to find the package you want. Here's an example:

Say you want to buy ACDC's Live At River Plate on blu-ray.

A search for 'ACDC' can be problematic because their web servers are a bit random when it comes to search language.

So start your search on some other site, and learn that 2 mainstream packages exist: A single disc DVD ($13) and a single disc blu-ray ($25), along with 2 other DVD/T-shirt bundles ($35)

Then navigate on Best Buy for:

Movies & Music
Music
Concert Blu-ray
Concert Blu-ray A

and then find the product called 'AC/DC - Live At River Plate [DVD]' (web ID M2190332)

Ignore the 'COMSCORE not defined' web error that comes up.
Ignore the wrong product picture that appears.
Ignore the wrong title that's listed.
Ignore the empty Production Details, Product Details, and Release Notes
Ignore the broken Release Info hot link.

Compare to product M2190331 which has the same title but a price of $19.99 and is in the Concert DVD - A category.

At a full price of $29.99 it's unlikely to be one of the more expensive T-shirt bundles, and the $19.99 product seems unlikely to be the blu-ray version.

So by deduction, web ID M2190332 is probably the blu-ray. Order, like I did, and you'll receive the proper concert blu-ray.

In the past, the UPC codes were provided, making it much easier to debug these errors. But as mentioned, when they 'upgraded' the web store this valuable piece of data was chopped.

[tsgee]

Originally Posted by Exist2Inspire

Has anyone had any luck with giving them real DVD's in CD cases? I tried trading in a few DVD copies that came with my Blu's (that I own on DVD already), but they said they needed the actual DVD case.

That, and you guys remember those old-school DVD flippers? Yeah, I got accused to trying to trade in burned DVD ><

I had no problems with BB when I traded DVD without cases. They even took import dvd's that didn't work here, from my imported steelbooks (i.e. Minority Report, Scott Pilgrim, Kick Ass and Prince of Persia).

[nmycon]

finally time to get taxi driver for $10! I've been waiting forever for it to drop in-store. Probably Valkyrie for $5 as well

[GreatGreg]

Originally Posted by Patrocks

I picked up the Gnomeo and Juliet bluray and was wondering if anyone else had the same issue. The artwork for my disc is too large for the case so it's just folded up in there. Also the case is a 4-disc holder with one slot empty. I was wondering if I should exchange it or if every copy is like that.

My copy was fine. I got it from FS in a PM to BB. The BB copy I saw was all crinkled though, so I know what you mean.

Those kinds of things bug me.

FS also price-matched RED for me as well even though my BB had sold out. Kudos to FS. They did not even check inventory with BB, but just rang it in at $4.99.

Thanks to posters here for the heads-up. GNOMEO and RED were my wants.

[Steel Panther]

Originally Posted by GreatGreg

My copy was fine. I got it from FS in a PM to BB. The BB copy I saw was all crinkled though, so I know what you mean.

Those kinds of things bug me.

FS also price-matched RED for me as well even though my BB had sold out. Kudos to FS. They did not even check inventory with BB, but just rang it in at $4.99.

Thanks to posters here for the heads-up. GNOMEO and RED were my wants.

Hmm Maybe I'll bring my $9.99 receipt in and try then, the wrinkled art is a piss off -- but the real question is, is your 4th disc slot empty?