According to a Circuit City employee tip-off to Gizmodo, the retailer plans to take back HD DVD players from consumers who've become casualties of the high-def format war.
Instead of its typical 30-day return policy, Circuit City will extend
exchanges through the 90 days before Toshiba's announcement to kill
off HD DVD, according to Gizmodo. Customers can choose between a new
Blu-ray player (and pay the price difference between the two machines),
or a gift card.
Circuit City isn't widely promoting this policy, so your mileage may
vary. Please let us know in the comments below if this worked for you.
But many HD DVD-player owners aren't bitter about being stuck with an
obsolete machine. After all, the prevalence of cheap HD DVDs means many
people can accumulate a solid collection of films to watch on their
players without a big investment. And customer reviews of many HD DVD
players note the high-quality upscaling capabilities these machines
have to turn standard-def DVDs into semi-stunning images.
HD DVD players sold in the last few months were fairly cheap to begin
with, meaning the price difference between them and new Blu-ray players
sold at Circuit City is bound to be high. Why not keep the HD DVD
player and bargain-basement movies for now? Odds are Blu-ray player
manufacturers and sellers will think up other ways to motivate people
to buy another machine. —Rachel Rosmarin
