While this week's Blu-ray announcements from Best Buy and Wal Mart were big news, a study by J.D. Power and Associates shows that HD-peddlers across the retail landscape made the move to Blu back in January. Like a fleet of automatons, mystery shoppers sent into the field posed as new HDTV owners who were looking for a nameless dedicated HDM player. They reported back with numbers showing a decidedly Blu sales force: 25-percent didn't recommend one HDM format over the other and 67-percent recommended Blu-ray, leaving less than 10-percent sticking up for HD DVD. But the hits keep on coming: not a single HD DVD recommendation came from Best Buy and not a single salesperson suggested HD DVD would become the dominant format. Sorry, HD DVD; we may have just put you on deathwatch this week, but salespeople have had you in repose for quite a bit longer, it seems.


[Via FormatWarCentral]

JD Power and Associates has released the findings of their 2007 Large Screen HDTV Usage and Satisfaction Survey, and there are some very familiar names in the winners of the three categories. As judged on overall satisfaction, picture and sound performance, ease of use, features and styling, the HDTVs were then divided into 37- to 49-inch, 50- to 65-inch and rear projection 50- 72-inch ranges. Sony's BRAVIA LCD line took the smaller category with a five out of five rating in every area, but lost out to Pioneer's plasmas when competition went over 50-inches. Samsung's DLPs won the rear projection award, despite having a lower picture and sound rating than Sony, JVC, and Toshiba. Take a look at the overall results and then let us know how you think your HDTV measures up.