HD DVD Loses Battle

By Candice Nelson
WSLS10 Reporter
Published: March 7, 2008

    HD DVD players officially lost the battle to Blu-ray. Toshiba announced they won’t make the players anymore. Now, Circuit City is extending its return policy from 30 days to 90 days if you bought your player there.

  “It’s a benefit to our customers who wanted to adopt earlier on in the format war, if you will, the one technology that didn’t win,” said Nicholas Graybill, an employee at Circuit City in Roanoke.

  Graybill says Blu-ray’s success came down to one thing.

  “The studios that backed Blu Ray -Warner Brothers in the beginning of January announced they would back it, and when it went there, a flood of Blu Ray support just went through the roof and HD DVD kinda dropped off,” said Graybill.

    Now, you’ll see the HD DVD prices drop. Circuit City says buying those players, even now is fine. That’s because you can play regular DVDs inside, and it’ll up-convert them, making them look clearer. Circuit City is still selling these HD DVD movies.

  But Graybill says for legal reasons, the store cannot take returns for their movies. However, when you return your player, you’ll get store credit, so you could buy a Blu-ray player in exchange.

    Ten On Your Side talked to other stores. Best Buy says they’re talking to their corporate office on how to handle the situation. Right now, their return policy is 14 days. Also, Wal-Mart says their return policy is 90 days for the players, but that’s a standard for that kind of technology.
 
  As a reminder, Circuit City tells Ten On Your Side that regular DVDs will play in both HD DVD players and Blu-ray players. However, HD DVD movies will not play in Blu-ray players, and Blu-ray movies will not play in HD DVD players.