Best Buy is giving $50 Gift Cards to Customers Who Purchased an HD-DVD

[PaulGo]

Hopefully they will use it towards a Blu-ray player.

Mar 19, 2008
Best Buy Stands Behind Customers By Awarding More Than $10 Million in Gift Cards to HD-DVD Purchasers

Leading Consumer Electronics Retailer will Send $50 Gift Cards to Customers Who Purchased an HD-DVD Player from Best Buy in the U.S.
MINNEAPOLIS --(Business Wire)-- Mar. 19, 2008 With Blu-ray declaring victory over HD-DVD in the high definition movie format war, Best Buy, the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer, is giving $50 gift cards to customers who purchased an HD-DVD player or HD-DVD attachment from its U.S. stores before February 23, 2008. Customers will get a gift card for each player or HD-DVD attachment that they purchased. Through this program, Best Buy will distribute more than $10 million in gift cards to customers across the country.

"The DVD format war has divided our customers in a way we haven't seen since Betamax took on VHS more than 20 years ago," said Brian J. Dunn, president and chief operating officer for Best Buy. "At Best Buy, we understood and shared our customers' frustrations as they were being asked to choose one format or the other. Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the right technology for their needs."

Most Best Buy customers won't have to do anything to receive their gift card. As a demonstration of its commitment to its customers, Best Buy will proactively mail cards to all customers that the company can identify as having purchased an HD-DVD player. Members of the Best Buy Reward Zone program, customers who purchased Performance Service Plans (PSPs) or who made their purchase on BestBuy.com should look for their gift cards in the mail by May 1. Other customers who may not be easily identified can call (888) BEST BUY to receive their gift cards with proof of purchase through a credit card or their Best Buy receipt.

"The beauty of this offer is that it doesn't require our customers to give up their HD-DVD player," said Barry Judge, chief marketing officer for Best Buy. "We know that many people who purchased these players have HD-DVD movies that they would like to continue to watch. We're telling our customers they can keep their players to play these movies as well as their older DVDs and use the $50 to treat themselves to anything else in our stores."

HD-DVD players can actually deliver greatly enhanced video performance with standard DVDs by upconverting the video resolution.

Beginning on March 21, customers who do want to get rid of their HD-DVD players can visit Best Buy's Online Trade-In Center at http://www.bestbuytradein.com. Visitors to the site will receive instant estimates of the value of their HD-DVD players and movies. Those who agree with the estimates can then ship their goods to the Trade-In Center free of charge by downloading a prepaid shipping label and will receive an additional gift card as payment for their trade-in. This service is open to HD-DVD owners regardless of where they bought their player.

[skrill]

Awesome -- I guess that is $100 in GCs for me. I bought one Xbox add-on (later sold it) and bought an A2 for $89. All from BB.

[The Big Blue]

Best Buy

So spending hundreds of dollars on Blu-ray at Best Buy gets me... squat.

[FilmmakingFiasco]

Originally Posted by The Big Blue

Best Buy

So spending hundreds of dollars on Blu-ray at Best Buy gets me... squat.

If you want to trade in your Blu-rays for a crap gift card, I'm sure I can mail you something that would greatly depreciate the value of all your Blu-ray purchases.

[Elandyll]

Some redsters on Engadget are already saying they will use the $50 to buy ... clearance HD DVD discs.


I guess it makes sense .. in .. a ... weird... HD DVD kind of way...

[skrill]

Originally Posted by Elandyll

Some redsters on Engadget are already saying they will use the $50 to buy ... clearance HD DVD discs.


I guess it makes sense .. in .. a ... weird... HD DVD kind of way...

They better hurry -- a BB employee on AVS posted that all remaining HD DVDs are going back to the manufacturer on Wednesday.

I guess we can look for them at Big Lots.

[Beast]

Originally Posted by The Big Blue

Best Buy

So spending hundreds of dollars on Blu-ray at Best Buy gets me... squat.

No, it gets you a great collection of movies that can be used for something more than coasters.

The same which cannot be said for HD-DVD discs.

[tqlla]

Awesome.... HD-DVD has been a Dream come true for me. My total investment on HD-DVD is now $25! Thats for a 1080p player, 3 free box sets, 5 free movies. $25 total!

1) Bought the 360 add on for $180 in october, promo mistake gave me the Matrix, smallville, heroes FREE
2) Sold the add on for $140 = $40 invested
3) Bought an HD-A2 for $100 = $140 invested
4) Got my 5 free movies.
5) Sold back my HD-A2 to Circuit City for $100 = $40 invested
6) Bought the HD-A20 for $35 = $75 invested
7) Get $50 giftcard from Best buy =$25 invested

$35 for the HD-A20 from Circuit city and negative $10 for all these movies from best buy... Smallville S6, Matrix ultimate, Heroes Season 1 and 5 free movies.

[Jeffnnc]

Originally Posted by Beast

No, it gets you a great collection of movies that can be used for something more than coasters.

The same which cannot be said for HD-DVD discs.

Maybe I'm just mistaken, but I didn't think HD-DVD's stopped working as soon as the format war was over.

[Beast]

Originally Posted by Jeffnnc

Maybe I'm just mistaken, but I didn't think HD-DVD's stopped working as soon as the format war was over.

No. But when players start breaking down there's not going to be many other choices.

Not like you can go out and buy a BetaMax or Laserdisc player anymore either.

[unreal1080p]

Originally Posted by The Big Blue

Best Buy

So spending hundreds of dollars on Blu-ray at Best Buy gets me... squat.

Best Buy is rewarding stupidity... is'nt that the American way?



KUDOS to them about this however:

Beginning on March 21, customers who do want to get rid of their HD-DVD players can visit Best Buy's Online Trade-In Center at http://www.bestbuytradein.com. Visitors to the site will receive instant estimates of the value of their HD-DVD players and movies. Those who agree with the estimates can then ship their goods to the Trade-In Center free of charge by downloading a prepaid shipping label and will receive an additional gift card as payment for their trade-in. This service is open to HD-DVD owners regardless of where they bought their player.

They are doing North America a great service by disposing of as many DUD players and movies as possible... even accepting DUD's not purchased at their own stores

[Jeffnnc]

Originally Posted by Beast

No. But when players start breaking down there's not going to be many other choices.

Not like you can go out and buy a BetaMax or Laserdisc player anymore either.

I still have a DVD player that I bought in 1997 that still works great. If I can get 10-11 years of of my HD-DVD player I'll be happy. If nothing else I plan on getting a HD-DVD drive for my computer and ripping the movies and burning them to Blu-ray when that gets affordable. I may not even do that since by then physical media will be obsolete and even Blu-ray will be a non factor.

[moviefan]

Let's see ...$10 million/50 is 200,000. Best Buy is claiming they sold 200,000 units? Guess no one bought them anywhere else!

[Beast]

Originally Posted by Jeffnnc

I still have a DVD player that I bought in 1997 that still works great. If I can get 10-11 years of of my HD-DVD player I'll be happy. If nothing else I plan on getting a HD-DVD drive for my computer and ripping the movies and burning them to Blu-ray when that gets affordable. I may not even do that since by then physical media will be obsolete and even Blu-ray will be a non factor.

Yes. It's all going to be downloads, right. And movies will also be delivered by magic fairies.

[FilmmakingFiasco]

Originally Posted by Beast

No. But when players start breaking down there's not going to be many other choices.

Not like you can go out and buy a BetaMax or Laserdisc player anymore either.

From what I hear Toshiba has pretty good build quality on their DVD and HD-DVD players. Toshiba will still support repairs for a while to come. And most people who aren't stubborn headed are going to pick up a Blu-ray player so I'm guessing that while the HD-DVD player will still be used, it would be less over time as their Blu-ray library expands, thus, decreasing the 'workload' that the player would normally see.

[Crème Blu-ray]

Mods: Please merge in this parallel thread.

[Beast]

Originally Posted by FilmmakingFiasco

From what I hear Toshiba has pretty good build quality on their DVD and HD-DVD players. Toshiba will still support repairs for a while to come. And most people who aren't stubborn headed are going to pick up a Blu-ray player so I'm guessing that while the HD-DVD player will still be used, it would be less over time as their Blu-ray library expands, thus, decreasing the 'workload' that the player would normally see.

But hey, it's a great up-scaler right. A couple hundred bucks for an upscaling DVD player. What a deal!

[Caligula]

Originally Posted by Crème Blu-ray

Mods: Please merge in this parallel thread.

ill be watching this one!

[skrill]

Originally Posted by Beast

No. But when players start breaking down there's not going to be many other choices.

Not like you can go out and buy a BetaMax or Laserdisc player anymore either.

My XA2 is covered by a 4 year Mack warranty. I expect the players to last a long time.

I still have my first 3 DVD changer that I bought in 1999 (for $400 ) -- it it works fine. I use it for CD music.

Anyway. My HD players and media will continue to work for years to come. No worries about coasters.

[skrill]

Originally Posted by Beast

But hey, it's a great up-scaler right. A couple hundred bucks for an upscaling DVD player. What a deal!

True. My $250 XA2 is a better upscaler than just about any DVD or BR player out there (and definitely any currently for sale for less than $600). Thanks for reminding me. And yeah -- I still have lots of SD DVDs that are great to watch.