by Pravin on July 22nd, 2008 in shopping.
Walmart is finally getting into the HD DVD firesale action. Word at the AVS Forum, and confirmed by a few people who’ve bothered to check, is that Warner HD DVD titles are on a 2 for $10 sale at Walmart stores in Canada. This is great news for those of you living in Canada, or some of you who live near enough to make a quick trip.
If you happen to be over in or dropping by Canada, you might also want to check over at Future Shop stores (related to Best Buy) and see if their 50% off sale on HD DVD discs is of any use to you.
The other 2 for 10 sale is happening in the UK at dvd.co.uk who have a 2 for £10 deal, but on Universal titles. Prices at the site show £6.95, but the discount on buying two is applied at checkout.
Feel free to share about any other sales you might come across. The last few posts have been about sales at Fry’s and other places, and some of those deals are still available.
by Pravin on July 16th, 2008 in shopping.
You’d think that so many months after February when Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD, and even after May when the last of the Warner Bros. releases came out, and we’re heading into July when Universal finally puts out movies on Blu-ray, that there would be nothing to talk about in terms of HD DVD.
Nope.
There are still sales on HD DVD discs here and there. The few that I just came across today are located in the US and UK. One US deal is from Borders.com, who have a $9.99 sale on 34 Universal titles. The prices listed range from $16.99 to $24.99, but the discount takes effect during checkout. Best Buy has a similar sale, with some movies selling for $8.39 and others getting closer to $11. It’s not as big of a sale as the one at Borders, but it’s still something.
HD DVD fans in the UK are not left out of the big sales with the £2.99 and £3.99 sale at HMV.com. This is a great deal even if you’re US-based and ok with importing discs, because this amounts to about $6-8 per disc! The selection of titles is just slightly greater than at the Borders sale, and they’ve got many titles for £4.49 (like all the Harry Potters), and many Warner hits. UPDATE: Mark pointed out in the comments that HMV charges £4.25 shipping per disc, so the end result is not as inexpensive as some other retailers who charge for the whole order based on total weight. To that, ‘bigdmelt’ suggests a visit to TheHut.com for better shipping rates on imports.
I know from the emails I get that some of you have already moved along to Blu-ray in some way, by buying a PS3 perhaps. I had thought of doing the same, but I think I’ve subconsciously chosen the most difficult way to do so: I only want the 80GB PS3, like the one from the recent Metal Gear Solid bundle. And this happens to be the configuration that’s always out of stock everywhere, including Sony’s own online store. But I’m not too stressed out over it. I still have a lot of HD DVD movies coming my way via Netflix as well as movies I bought but still haven’t opened up. I also enjoy watching this summer’s big hits with the family at a theater, and that further removes some of the urgency to get all caught up on my home theater viewing. Maybe I’ll get more serious about it a little later in the summer…
- Borders.com $9.99 sale (ends July 28)
- Best Buy 40% off sale
- HMV.com in the UK has discs for as little as £2.99 (note: shipping is a little expensive)
- TheHut.com has prices like HMV, but the shipping charges are better
by Pravin on June 25th, 2008 in shopping.
Australian site, ezydvd.com.au is turning up the summer heat with an HD DVD fire sale and promotion. Buy any three HD DVDs from a list of 28, some of which are going for as low as AU$3.92, and get Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix free. At the current exchange rate, 1 Australian dollar is equal to 95 US cents, so these prices are actually pretty good. Yes, you’ll pay a little more to get discs from Australia, but the final price after shipping is still favorable.
If you’d rather shop more locally for your HD DVD bargains, then look no further than DeepDiscount.com whose 20% off sale has been extended to June 29. Buy.com has similar prices, and the deal is sweetened if you can use Google Checkout to save an extra $10 on your first purchase. This Google discount ends at Buy.com on June 29, so go quickly if you still want to use it.
Even more local than a website is a Fry’s Electronics store, if you happen to have one in your area. They’ve been selling many titles for $9.99, and the selection varies according to the inventories at each store.
Lest you forget, $10 and $15 for an HD movie is a very good deal, and if you can get them for less than that, all the better for you.
by Pravin on June 6th, 2008 in shopping.
Buy.com is the latest retailer taking advantage of the opportunity created by Amazon’s lack of HD DVD sales and promotions. They’re apparently duplicating the same deals currently offered at DeepDiscount.com, but with no coupon code hassles. Same $9.58 price, but no coupon is needed.
Additionally, Buy.com is one of those “Google Checkout” vendors, which means that you can get $10 off your first order using Google Checkout at Buy.com. Taking advantage of that additional $10 discount should result in even greater savings on your purchase.
by Pravin on June 4th, 2008 in shopping.
Many have taken advantage of the $5.99 sale over at iNetVideo these last couple of weeks, and have noticed that a few of the titles over there are no longer $5.99. A few people have been slightly miffed that the iNetVideo discs are Canadian and come with slightly different covers or cases, or that shipping and handling fees bring up the disc cost closer to $9 each.
As June rolls in, prices on HD DVDs at Amazon have also creeped up a little bit. So what’s the HD DVD shopper to do? (no snide remarks about going Blu, ok?) It’s DeepDiscount.com to the rescue, with their big sale, bringing several HD DVD titles down to $8, $9, $10 and $12 a piece, which is at least two to four bucks less than Amazon, and all with free shipping to boot!
Most Universal and Paramount titles are $11.98, but not all of them. It’s better than no sale at all, especially if you don’t have American Gangster and several others.
The sale was supposed to be from June 6 to June 22, however I got an email from them saying it’s already up.
Here’s the best part: use coupon code DDAF to get 20% off. I have read that some people have not had any luck with that code just yet, but give it a try on June 6 and see if it works any better. That means you can get those $11.98 titles for only $9.58!
I’ve also read that these codes might work: SHARK, WGN, DEALNEWS, USATODAY. Please share in the comments if you come across any other coupon codes.
by Pravin on May 22nd, 2008 in shopping.
UPDATE: Some of the site issues mentioned in this post appear to be resolved. Visit this store via the following link:
http://stores.channeladvisor.com/inetvideocom/
Nowadays, most of the really big deals on HD DVDs are happening at European and Aussie sites, but in the last few days, a North American site has suddenly drawn a lot of attention for their $5.99 sale. The company is inetvideo.com and they’ve also been selling discs through eBay and Amazon’s Marketplace for a while. The catalog is largely (or perhaps only) composed of Univeral titles including The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and many others.
There are a couple of things you should know before heading over there. First is that the site goes down frequently because it’s running on a weak server — they didn’t expect so much demand from this HD DVD sale. Fortunately, they have live customer service people who can take your order, allowing you to bypass some of the server issues.
You’ll need to browse through the store to check out their selection, and make a list of the movies you’d like to order, adding them to your cart as you go along. If the stars are in your favor, and your online mojo is close enough to a peak, you’ll probably be able to order a bunch of discs with no worries. However, if you’re experiencing issues with the site, then just contact them via email at support@inetvideo.com or use their live chat feature and they’ll get everything squared away.
You can also bypass these server problems by going straight to their store on eBay, but the product listings are a little more tedious to navigate through, and the “buy it now” price is $7.98.
The other thing you should know is that shipping is around $2 per disc, and your final cost wil be around $8 for each movie. This is still a great deal because most of those movies are going for at least $13.95 at Amazon.
International shoppers trying to take advantage of their currency’s strength over the weakened US dollar might be taken aback by higher shipping rates, but it’s worth a look, just as it’s sometimes worth the effort for a US-based customer to check out foreign stores.
by Pravin on May 12th, 2008 in shopping, news.
Now that the format war is over, some HD DVD owners are seeking out combo players as a way to keep their HD DVD collections viable while they transition to Blu-ray. If you’re in this group, then you may need to pay closer attention to pricing and availability of these models in the near future as Samsung and LG have both announced that the end is near for these machines.
In statements to The Korea Times, a Samsung spokesperson revealed that they already stopped making these units in February, and an LG representative said they’ll stop their dual-format efforts in the second half of the year.
Many months ago, people advised that purchasing a combo HD DVD and Blu-ray player would be a safe way to avoid getting stung too badly in the format war. The thinking was that you’d have a single player that could handle whichever of the disc formats eventually won, and always have the option to pick and choose the best discs in the formats that they happened to come out in.
One of the biggest problems with this approach was that buying a combo player would cost more than buying two players, one for each format. And in the beginning, the LG players only partially met the full HD DVD spec because they left out any web-enabled features.
In the last couple of months, prices on these players have come down quite a bit, and the more recent LG player model is now fully compliant with the HD DVD specifications. Except for the fact that they’re not going to be upgradeable to the latest Blu-ray spec, buying one of these machines is finally a more palatable decision.
If all you’re really looking for is a back-up machine to ensure that your HD DVD collection doesn’t go to waste, then you might want to consider the current sale at TigerDirect (who also now run CompUSA), where you can get an HD-A3 plus four movies for only $80. Two of the four movies are The Bourne Identity and 300, which already come with the player, and TigerDirect is throwing in Apollo 13 and Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift.
Besides that deal, you can also find many used players on eBay and Craigslist, or perhaps an “open-box” unit at an electronics store.
by Pravin on May 6th, 2008 in shopping.
Star Trek Season 1 is only $49 at Amazon.ca. That’s the Canadian Amazon, but they do ship to the US.
Don’t worry about the exchange rate, because Canadian and US dollars are about the same.
Don’t worry about shipping, because even if it cost $20 or $30, this is still an amazingly good deal. (Shipping is actually closer to $10)
This box set normally went for around $130 on a good day and is currently selling for about $96 at the US store.
Go!
UPDATE: Pay with your American Express card and use code MAPNEWNCSAVE to save an additional $10. Try VISA10OFF40 with a Visa card. Seems that the codes aren’t working for everyone, but it’s worth trying. You might want to try doing it with a new Amazon.ca account.
by Pravin on May 6th, 2008 in shopping, news.
According to a story at Engadget, lucky shoppers in Ireland can pick up Xbox 360 HD DVD players for the equivalent of just under $16 at stores like GameStop. Kotaku had reported earlier that the drives were going for twice that price in the US, but those were refurbished units.
Irish shoppers can also take advantage of the big sales at British DVD sites such as dvd.co.uk who are selling HD DVD titles, including American Gangster, for as little as £6.95, which is about USD $14 (shipping to the USA isn’t too expensive either). If you’ve been following this site recently, then you’ll know that prices from Australian stores have also been really great.
The format war may have ended, but these kinds of prices are compelling and an inexpensive way to get some good mileage from your HDTV and HD DVD. Blu-ray players start around $399 and since the movies aren’t on fire sales, the pricing on most of them ends up being a lot higher. It makes even more sense for existing HD DVD owners to get in on these sales than for someone new starting out with HD DVD. Regardless, these sales are appealing to people faced with tightening entertainment budgets in the months ahead.
UPDATE: Roger mentioned in the comments that www.HMV.co.uk and zavvi.co.uk also have super deals like American Gangster for £4.99 (about US $10, but factor in shipping to the US to see if the deal is worth it).
