Target To Promote Blu-ray In Stores

[Ian]

You gotta wonder how much money Sony and Disney are shelling out for this. I really can't see too many Target shoppers shelling out $500 for a Blu-ray player.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/ ... 52696.html

Target Corp., the nation's second-largest retailer, will start selling a Sony Blu-ray high-definition DVD player during the critical holiday shopping period and feature the player along with Blu-ray discs in store displays, dealing a potential blow to the rival HD DVD format.

The move, which the companies will formally announce Thursday, is another step in resolving a format war that has kept confused consumers from rushing to buy new DVD players until they can determine which format will dominate the market.

Target said it will sell the Sony BDP-S300 for $499 in October and display it along with Blu-ray DVDs from three studios, including Sony Corp. and The Walt Disney Co., at the ends of store aisles.

[dolphinius_rex]

Actually, if you read through the whole article you'll see this:

Target would not say why it decided to sell only Blu-ray players in stores. Sony is paying a fee to have its products featured in the end-of-aisle display, called an endcap, although Sony executives said the retailer contacted them about the decision.

(my bolding)

So yes, Sony is paying for the endcaps, but it was Target who approached them with the idea it seems.

[Ian]

Grafeo is at it again...

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/h ... e_id=10947

“All they are announcing is they are merchandising an endcap with Blu-ray, which is normal merchandising at any retailer,” he said. “Just like HD DVD has a dedicated endcap at Best Buy, and a dedicated endcap at Circuit City, and dedicated space and fixturing at Wal-mart.

“Target is not making any statement about the format. They are merely providing an endcap, with a cost associated with it. The question I ask is, knowing that HD DVD is the most affordable high-definition format, it will be very interesting to see how the Sony player will appeal to Target guests.”

What he is saying is true.. but he neglects to add that Blu-ray also has displays at Best Buy, Circuit City and Walmart.

[Grain]

There's a lot of propaganda being distributed these days, by both camps.

[dolphinius_rex]

I love watching Toshiba's attempts at damage control

[Grain]

I particularily liked the quote from the main page story "Blu-ray Lead Adoption of Next-Gen DVD Players in the US".

According to the report, consumer confusion is still prevalent with less than 10% of U.S. consumers stating that they are familiar with the HD DVD or Blu-ray formats.

This "war" is far from over, and the winner may end up being a loser too.

[Wesociety]

Even if Target stores don't sell many Blu-ray players (which they probably will), this move will increase consumer awareness of the Blu-ray format as a whole and make the public more likely to "want" or look forward to a Blu-ray player in the future...

The HD DVD group can deny any damage or shrug off this news all they want, but it is a big win for Blu-ray.

[dolphinius_rex]

Even if Target stores don't sell many Blu-ray players (which they probably will), this move will increase consumer awareness of the Blu-ray format as a whole and make the public more likely to "want" or look forward to a Blu-ray player in the future...

The HD DVD group can deny any damage or shrug off this news all they want, but it is a big win for Blu-ray.

I just spoke with a good friend of mine over at NCIX.com, he handles most of the major important vendors for them. I asked him his opinion of the whole format war, and his response was simple "Didn't Blu-Ray already win? I read that news about Target....".

A lot of people like to make comments about how HiDef only represents x% of the total market, and that the war at the moment doesn't mean anything.... but really, this war will not be fought indeffinately unless there isn't a clear trend by sales numbers. However, there is a pretty clear trend, and obvious choice by consumers. Retailers are following suite, and eventually there will effectively be only one format.

But I won't disagree that a winner in the format war doesn't guarentee mass adoption or survival.

[dolphinius_rex]

This is interesting....

Check out www.target.com, and see how many HD DVD stand alone players you can find still listed there

I was under the impression that HD DVD stand alones would continue to be sold by Target online... but now they only have the XBox 360 add-on drive, and Blu-Ray players.

[vinnie97]

Admit it, that makes you as gleeful as a schoolgirl.

[dolphinius_rex]

Not as gleeful as the fact that now www.costco.com has followed suite. (no idea about in store though)

Actually, I'm still in shock. I wasn't expecting this to happen until after Christmas.

[Wesociety]

Not as gleeful as the fact that now www.costco.com has followed suite. (no idea about in store though)

I just got back from my local Costco store. They still have HD DVD players stocked and available ($249).

They also have Sony Blu-ray players ($449) along with one player hooked up to a 52" HDTV playing a demo disc that shows off the difference between DVD and Blu-ray picture quality. This display is near the front of the store where you walk in, so it's probably getting viewed by a lot of eyeballs.

Nonetheless, it doesn't appear that either players are flying out the door... Both are still stacked up their respective pallet and I don't see anyone grabbing them or checking out with one whenever I'm in there.

[dolphinius_rex]

Not as gleeful as the fact that now www.costco.com has followed suite. (no idea about in store though)

I just got back from my local Costco store. They still have HD DVD players stocked and available ($249).

They also have Sony Blu-ray players ($449) along with one player hooked up to a 52" HDTV playing a demo disc that shows off the difference between DVD and Blu-ray picture quality. This display is near the front of the store where you walk in, so it's probably getting viewed by a lot of eyeballs.

Nonetheless, it doesn't appear that either players are flying out the door... Both are still stacked up their respective pallet and I don't see anyone grabbing them or checking out with one whenever I'm in there.

Makes you really wonder what would cause Costco and Target to pull the players from their websites though....

[Grain]

Costco doesn't seem to stock anything too regularily. It appears like they bulk buy a batch of something or other, if it sells well replace it if they can still get them, and if they are still similarily priced at the bulk level. I've gone into 2 different stores in the same week, and they've different electronic product's, ie brand name's etc. My local Costco still hasn't had any standalone BluRay players at all, just PS3's. Not that their HD-DVD selection is great, just a RCA job.

[dolphinius_rex]

Costco doesn't seem to stock anything too regularily. It appears like they bulk buy a batch of something or other, if it sells well replace it if they can still get them, and if they are still similarily priced at the bulk level. I've gone into 2 different stores in the same week, and they've different electronic product's, ie brand name's etc. My local Costco still hasn't had any standalone BluRay players at all, just PS3's. Not that their HD-DVD selection is great, just a RCA job.

Yeah, but in store and online are very different. But I'll agree it's not unlike costco to remove something after it's sold out, and never see it again... or see it a few months later.

[Ian]

For those of you that don't have a Target near you, here's the endcap. I've actually seen a number of people sit there and watch the video discussing the benefits of high-def and Blu-ray.

[Grain]

Going to be an interesting Christmas!

[dolphinius_rex]

I've seen a lot of news about promotions for Blu-Ray players for $349 and even $299 now.... things are really heating up! HD DVD players seem to be more in the $150-$199 range (with the exception of a few <$100 sales for brief periods of time).

Looks like Onkyo has officially pulled their HD DVD stand alone unit however, citing pricing issues and an inability to compete with Toshiba, who manufactured the unit for them. They've still got another unit coming out next year though, which will either be a Blu-Ray player, or a combo player.

[Grain]

The price drops of the XA2 have made it hard to compete for Onkyo. Apparently the A3 series of HD-DVD players have ahd their optical audio stiffled by Dolby. The A1 & A2 series of players would convert the new Dolby codecs (Plus and True) to full bitrate DTS(1.5 Mbps) before outputting it to the optical connection, resulting in a relatively good sound for those that can't use HDMI connections to their receivers. Apparently Dolby made a lot of noise, so now the A3 series only outputs at 640Mbps through the optical outs, whether as DTS or Dolby I don't know. If it's still DTS I suspect it will actually be 768Mbps.

[Justin42]

It's DD 640kbps on the A3.

I hadn't heard anything about Dolby squawking, though-- what would be the issue? The only thing I've heard speculated is the DTS 1.5 was causing issues on a significant number of older amps that weren't properly tested under DTS (or didn't support it at all) and as such people couldn't get surround via optical at all.

Of course, pressure from Dolby might explain why it never became a user-selectable option (DTS or DD downmixing)

[Grain]

I believe the issue Dolby had was their soundtracks showing up on receivers as DTS, ie they aren't getting "credit - face time" for their product. I personally thought it was a great way for things to work, as Dolby+ was basically being properly decoded onboard players, which worked well for consumers with older (ie maybe only 6 months!) receivers.

[Wesociety]

Speaking of in-store displays... I saw an HD DVD display at the end of an isle at Fry's Electronics while shopping there on Black Friday.

The display was utilizing a Toshiba HD-A35 (1080p) player, but it was hooked up to a 720p TV. Way to go nit-wits!

[Grain]

When I was HDTV shopping a few weeks ago I came across a store selling (trying that is) a 1080P TV, but they were feeding it a nonHD cable channel, stretched to fit, using a thin freebie composite cable as component for the video inputs

[dolphinius_rex]

*EVERY* time I walk into an electronics store, I see several displays setup in almost the worst ways imaginable to show off HiDef technology. I usually comment on it to the people there... to date, nothing has ever seemed to come from it.