Future Shop offers trade-in credit for HD DVD players, will donate old decks to charity
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 7th 2008 9:24AM
posted Mar 7th 2008 9:24AM
[Thanks, Josh]
posted Mar 7th 2008 9:24AM
The number of televisions estimated that sit unused in closets.
The EPA estimates that nearly 100 million unused televisions are currently taking up precious, beautiful space. (source: EPA, July 2008)
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
kinda gives you a hint on how big the markup is on combo players as well
wreckedchevy:
No this doesn't give us an idea of what the markup is for these Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Combo players. The demand for HD-DVD owners to future proof their investment is too great for any retailer to sacrifice their markup to offset the end of the HD war.
Keep in mind that Future Shop can receive a tax receipt for these donations based on the original purchase price. So that can factor into the net profit from this transaction as well.
Dan V:
The Combo Player was actually price adjusted to $499
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/subclass.asp?logon=&langid=EN&catid=25325
Under normal circumstances I'd have no intentions of getting rid of my HD-A3. Ever since I bought it, I've come to the realization that I just don't have time to sit down and enjoy it, unfortunately. But if a chain in the U.S. did something like this, *particularly* one that donated my HD-A3 to charity, that would be a good excuse for me to go purple regardless of whether or not I think I have time to enjoy it.
But what are the chances of BB or CC doing something honorable like this? Pfft. Zero. It's a pity, really.
Circuit city is offering a trade in program right now though.
I thought that was only if the original unit was purchased through CC. Mine was not. Besides, if my HD-A3 will end up in a landfill, I'd rather keep it and get a PS3 later on.
@ Josh
no they're not, double check the thread that was on engadget a few days ago, and read all the comments below.
futureshop sells the lg for 800 Canadian dollars (equal to 815 US dollars) and the Samsung for CA$900. A quick search on Amazon.com reveals that you can get the LG for US$600 or the Samsung for US$515, so this is not a very "charitable" offer on Future Shop's part.
I agree Leo. It's an absolute slap in the face by them. Especially when they were telling people that HDDVD was where things were headed.
OUCH! Will they at least provide a free tube of K-Y jelly with that?!
The option of keeping my HD-A3 and buying a PS3 later on just looked a whole lot better. Now, if Amazon made this kind of offer...
I just had a LONG chat with Amazon last night about their policy as compared to Circuit City's. After going through four agents about the possibility of an exchange, they said this: Amazon will not "issue special concessions or make return exceptions for HD DVD product issues that fall outside standard policy."
FYI "standard policy" might still be better than a $100 CDN credit--they won't issue credit, but you can return for a refund under their open-box/more-than-30-days policies. Maximum refund (not credit) is your purchase price less 20% restocking fee, with additional deductions for wear and/or missing pieces.
If only the Panasonic DMP-BD50 would be out in time...
alas, April 1st is already circled on my calendar as the day I transition to purple land with the Panasonic player. And yet it's the only upcoming BD-Live player that actually looks good and holds it's own in specs. But i'm still not trading in my faithful A3. That thing upconverts like magic. If you still haven't got one and are shopping for an upconverter, as a avid movie watcher with a 90" screen, I can tell you it does a really good job!
I don't know if I will be trading my A2 any time soon as the Panasonic DMP-BD30K is known to have sub-par scaling. Not even factoring in the 30 HD-DVDs, the A2 will make a good scaler.
Though, if I can get money for my A2 to to bring the BD player price to a affordable level, I may do it. Then just snag a HD-DVD player on the cheap down the road. Though... not sure that is actually the best logic, it sounded good in my head...
This is a joke. You can get the bd-up5000 player from visions.ca for $439 in Canada and future shop is asking $899!!! So in reality you could keep your hd-dvd as a good upconverting dvd player for another tv in your house, buy the bd-up5000 from visions and still save almost $400. I hope that nobody falls for this scam.
yeah what a marketing gimmick. Your better off donating your player personally to the charity and then buying that combo player for $200 cheaper elsewhere, and saving more in the end. FS is a complete scam. I used to work there. Everything is grossly overpriced. Only things you can buy there are fixed priced electronics like video games, vide game accessories and dvds. Everything else is like a 500% markup.
I wonder if they will "price-match" before the trade? Might be worth a shot for those interested.
I bought the LG at Future shop about a week ago for $499.99. As of today, it's listed at $799.99. If I were to match this offer, I'd be better off keeping my HD-DVD player and donating the $300 difference to charity.
OK...this is more like it. The LG and Samsung players are now both listed on the Future Shop web site for $499.99 plus you also receive a $50 gift certificate. They must have made a mid day price switch. The offer and (hopefully) new price is good until April 3rd.
Why donate the HD-DVDs to Canada? The country who needs them most is Australia (where region-locked players are unconstitutional). Or even India (although that would spell trouble to VMD out there)
///But what are the chances of BB or CC doing something honorable like this? Pfft. Zero. It's a pity, really.///
Best Buy owns Futureshops of Canada, so in effect, BB already is doing something honorable. Test run in Canada, if it works, do it stateside.
The only two manufacturers of combo players, LG and Samsung, have been getting "less that favorable" reviews from product reviewers and their customers. The Samsung BD-UP5000 is a good example, with numerous threads on AVS detailing a variety of issues, such as audio glitches, inability to play some titles at all, and hangs. Also, it appears that partial support or no support for some of the HD audio codecs is a problem. For example, the BD-UP5000 plays only 2 channels of TrueHD while the disk can provide up to 7.1 channels.
So Futureshop is telling customers to bring in their current HD-DVD player, and get $100 off the purchase of a currently or soon-to-be discontinued, glitchy combo player.
Forgive me for sounding cynical, but this doesn't sound like a good deal for the customer. The old saying about "throwing good money after bad" comes to mind.
Those who bought into HD-DVD only and especially Toshiba's $99 HD-DVD players were cheap. And the old saying goes..."the cheap pay twice".