Guess where I’m headed tomorrow morning… Select Walmart stores will be carrying a limited quantity of the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player for a low $98.87. At that price, I don’t care if Blu-ray ultimately crushes the HD DVD consortium. In fact, even if I can’t score a unit, the $165 Xbox 360 player (with many free HD DVD discs) is looking good. Especially since I need to replace my Xbox remote (long story). The Blueman Blu-ray Group could have ended this format war months ago if they had only dropped hardware prices – Now, who knows?
(Thanks, Kevin!)
Depending how the holiday sales season plays out, more studios could decide to support both formats.
Damn it guys (bloggers). I’m never going to be able to score one if everyone keeps talking about this “secret” sale! Grrr. ;)
John
You know, I actually debated posting for that very reason – I want one and my odds decrease the more people I inform. Oh well, we roll the dice here at ZNF. (:
If you strike out, Mr Z, remember that Sears will have the HD-A3 for $170 on Black Friday. And rumblings around the forums say that BB, CC, et al are looking to match that when it happens. So, I might be going to Walmart tomorrow and if I fail, well, there you go.
Also, Best Buy currently has the A2 for $99 as well and it’s a fire sale. If you can actually find one in stock, you also get 2 free HDDVDs at the store with the purchase!
Hooray! Now us poor nerds can watch Serenity in ultra high definition!
http://www.amazon.com/Serenity-HD-DVD-Joss-Whedon/dp/B000FA57N0/
Dave – I’ll look where I am from and see if I can score 1 or 2…. but I think my back up plan is HD for my 360 also.
I really regret getting the 360 add on out of the gate (epically since there is no HD audio support). This sounds like a good deal, but I’ll wait until BF to step up my player.
I’m getting one as well. Will probably ditch my XBOX 360 HD-DVD add-on if I can score an A2 tomorrow.
i am debating whether or not to sell my soul to the devil and walk in Wal-Mart for the first time in years. I might have to pay some kid to run in there for me.
Got 1 – the Walmart here had lots – I was in line with 5 guys (some bought 2) but they said they had more than 20 at that store.
I overslept. Can’t say I was overly motivated to drive 20 miles through DC rush hour traffic though. Maybe I’ll give the store a call now.
Update: The closest store said they sold out quickly – they had about 150 people lined up this morning. Betcha some of these units end up on ebay shortly.
Let me know – I can go back and try for you.
John, I appreciate the offer but we’ll blow at least $20 and the effort trying to ship it. Let me see what I can do online – I’m not going to sweat it either way. :)
BestBuy for Business has it now for $99.
Use SURV7DAYS for another 10% off. $105 shipped for me.
Missed the Walmart sales. Hope this goes through.
John
J4y, Nice find – thanks for sharing! Just placed my order for $103.91 shipped. I know the regular online destination and all the local Best Buys were out, so hopefully the Business unit really has stock… wherever they pull it from.
No problem. I saw it on AVS, who saw it on Fat Wallet.
John
J4y, Shoot with that much exposure my odds are probably low in getting the order fulfilled.
John S, I did catch that earlier in the week. It’s been pretty busy at work (for Mari too). I got about 5 stories in the hopper, hopefully a couple will make it up today!
Did you notice that Walmart has the “beta” for their movie download up now?
Yeah, shortly after you replied saying you got an order in, it sold out. Hopefully they can ship to the orders that got in. We’ll see.
John
Dave – I figured you were on top of it! :)
The Toshiba HD player also has net hook up – will be interested to see what its for.
john s, the network port is used for interactive features (Transformers for example) as well as to perform software updates.
If you perform an update, it should bring your version up to 2.5, which is the latest.
John
Cool thanx John!
Got one too.. Actually my sister got it and is shipping it to me. I got up early and thought to look on Ebay and there have already been some going for under $100 the last few days.
John S, Not sure what the new coverage of Wal-Mart’s video store was about last week, but it doesn’t look like much has changed since I discussed it in February. Some prices are lower, but it’s still purchase only and requires Windows Media Player 10 (or PlaysForSure on portables). Amazon Unbox’s management system is superior and they also offer rentals – which is key for me.
As far as my Best Buy Business HD-A2 order, the status hasn’t changed from ‘processing’ …
This would definitely be nice to have!
Don’t give up on the BBB order yet Dave. It could still be cancelled, but people on an AVS thread are saying that they called CSR and they were told that the A2’s might be substituted with A3 if they can’t find any A2’s.
I went ahead and jumped on the 10 free movie $199 A3 Best Buy deal Sunday. I’ll gift the $89 A2/3 if it goes through.
john
This is the comment I got via e-mail when I inquired as to the status of the order:
“We are currently reviewing orders for this product. We cannot offer a guarantee that we can fulfill this order, but we are expecting that we will be able to fulfill all orders for this product, possibly with an upgraded model. We will be communicating with you about your order shortly.”
Not sure if you’re still tracking these comments Dave, but my order now shows a A3 instead of an A2. Looks promising.
John
John, I have the blogging software (WordPress) email me every single comment. So I’m always following along. And thanks for the tip – my order also says A3 and links to it. I hope Best Buy pulls through and I don’t really care which model shows up – $99 for any high def DVD player works for me. Other than the 360, I don’t have a DVD in the living room these days anyway.