Circuit City 'forgets' to mention HD DVD
by Matt Burns 
posted Jul 24th 2006 at 11:14AM
Go grab your Circuit City flier from Sunday's paper and turn to page 17. What do you see? We see Circuit City trying hard to educate their would-be customers about the different ways to get a high-def signal. Good for them, but the only problem is that 1/4 of that page is dedicated to Blu-ray. Yes, a person can easily acquire and view high-def content via that medium but what about HD DVD? Circuit City does have more HD DVD titles then Blu-ray but yet they failed to mention them on this page. Circuit City's love with Blu-ray doesn't stop there. if you search for 'HD-DVD' or "HD DVD" on their home page you get sent to general product categories where if you search for Blu-ray, you get an info page comparing them. The part for Blu-ray clearly indicates more points for that format and our favorite is the one that indicates that Blu-ray has drives for computers already. Do that search for HD DVD again but add Toshiba too. Do you see the same Toshiba laptop with HD DVD as we do? Good. We thought were going crazy here.
So it looks like the Blu-ray Association has Circuit City in their pocket.
[via Digg]
Filed under: Programming, Industry, Advertising
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
B.Greenway @ Jul 24th 2006 11:47AM
I forget the exact details, but this stems back to some beef with Toshiba. Do a search for “Toshiba” at CC. As you can see computer related products are about the only thing CC carries from Toshiba.
Although they do have the RCA player… http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/RCA-HD-DVD-Player-with-HDMI/sem/rpsm/oid/149876/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
Wanax @ Jul 24th 2006 12:20PM
Can you really trust the company that tried to bring us the original pay to play Divx?
Leeloo @ Nov 8th 2006 6:32PM
That Toshiba has a HD-DVD player, but not a burner. The new Sony computers come with a Blue-Ray burner. I think that's what they were talking about.
oggusfoo @ Jul 24th 2006 2:09PM
Apparently, you can't get HD content through Dish Network either :)
Project Z @ Jul 24th 2006 2:22PM
I noticed this too while looking at the weekend circular for Circuit City. I just assumed Sony or the consortium provided ad dollars to promote Blu-Ray because they not only highlight Blu-Ray and fail to mention HD DVD, they also show Underworld ads all over the place.
Best Buy in a sense did something similiar when Blu-Ray first appeared. I noticed they removed their HD DVD display and replaced it with a Blu-Ray display. For a couple of weeks, I couldn't even locate something that would even show that they were selling HD DVD in their store, but at the same time they were also sold out of the players.
Hopefully HD DVD will get some equal opportunity somewhere down the line.
Nick @ Jul 24th 2006 3:15PM
I wrok at a fortune 500 company and am in chanrge of promoting our products. It's the office industry so things may be a little different but we do this all the time. Use promotion funds to secure advertisement in the store locations, beating out the competition. The only reason Besy Buy and Circuit City send out weekly ads is because they get money for every item displayed in it. If toshiba does not pay, they get no space. And I can tell you this, only store search engines are for purchase as well as manufacturers bid on the best search results just like you would pay google for ad words.
Don @ Jul 24th 2006 3:37PM
Blu-Ray will put a heck of a lot more money in the store's pockets then HD-DVD. Sony touts that it will sell 100 million units easily. Well, all those units need games which will be delivered via Blue-Ray discs. That means even more sales and money for retailers. So it is easy to see way retailers are lining up behind Blu-Ray. There's more money to make on that format. If Xbox 360 launched with a built-in HD-DVD and their games took advantage of the media, it would have a much better chance of winning. Both formats have a great picture although Blu-Ray from what I have seen seems to be lacking a bit (I have viewed the Samsung unit only). I will have revisit the stores after the "Samsung hardware bug" is fixed to see if the picture is improved.
Heather @ Jul 25th 2006 8:16AM
Best buy is pushing Blu-Ray also. Seems to be the one that will make the stores the most money.
Jim Messina @ Jul 25th 2006 11:17AM
I work at a Circuit on the east coast, and we don't even keep HD DVD movies or players in stock. Theres that RCA player on our website but its not in stores. The company clearly is backing blu-ray but honestly I think it's better that way anyway. It may not be right for the company to choose for you, but my customers still don't understand the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. The goal is to not confuse customers, and if your going to choose 1 format as a store, wouldn't you choose the one that makes you more money?