(English)
By EMILY GREEN, April 6, 2008

Did you plop down big dollars for a high-definition DVD player using Toshiba's HD DVD format -- which recently lost the battle with Sony's Blu-ray format?

Well, depending where you bought it, you may be eligible for a refund or a gift card to ease the disappointment.
(Dutch)
Amerikaanse winkels geven geld terug voor hd-dvd-spelers, Door Robin Vreuls, dinsdag 8 april 2008

Twee Amerikaanse winkelketens gaan geld teruggeven aan klanten die na een bepaalde periode een hd-dvd-speler hebben gekocht. Wal-Mart geeft restitutie op spelers, terwijl Best Buy een tegoedbon geeft.

Here in Austria we have something at Saturn. You bring you HD-DVD Player. No matter which one. And you play just 199€ for the Sony BDP-300 instead of 349€. I am not gonna do it though, since I already have over 90 HD-DVD's. I will just buy an additional DVD Player.

Quoting Battling Butler:

Quote:
This is an out right rip-off in my opinion. 
They want to pay pennies on the dollar and will then turn around and re-sell for more profit.
Don't do it.

I agree that the trade-in program is a rip-off.  I'm keeping my player and discs and still enjoying them.  Still, if you're set on dumping your HD-DVD hardware and software and can't find any takers, it's better than nothing.  I work with a guy who is desperately trying to dump his X-Box drive and movies.  I have no idea why, but something like this might appeal to him.  Of course I've offered 3 times now to buy movies from him (based on title and asking price of course).  I know for a fact that he has a couple I'd pickup if the price were right.  But he keeps ignoring me.

I will probably Never go Blu ray just for the principal of how Sony got the One studio ( Warners) to manufacture one format only, and all brick and mortar stores as well as the other studios all got cold feet and jumped in as well  to shut out Toshiba HD, all within weeks, as if HDD  had the Bubonic plague., .       
I say, for my money HD DVD  was and is  the superior product , never needed one firmware update and have never had a problem with playback or stability of video,.
Plus I was able to pick up ALL the titles I wanted, and needed , ( still got more to go with the current library and, Toshiba never reneged on their 5 disc promotion.
I will not be persuaded, by BluRay to go their evil ways... 
( too bad there wasn't a smiley for upyurs)....   

Having a Blu-ray player didn't prevent me from watching Top Gun and Face/Off on my HD DVD player this weekend.  It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Quoting widescreenforever:

Quote:
I will probably Never go Blu ray just for the principal of how Sony got the One studio ( Warners) to manufacture one format only, and all brick and mortar stores as well as the other studios all got cold feet and jumped in as well  to shut out Toshiba HD, all within weeks, as if HDD  had the Bubonic plague., .       
I say, for my money HD DVD  was and is  the superior product , never needed one firmware update and have never had a problem with playback or stability of video,.
Plus I was able to pick up ALL the titles I wanted, and needed , ( still got more to go with the current library and, Toshiba never reneged on their 5 disc promotion.
I will not be persuaded, by BluRay to go their evil ways... 
( too bad there wasn't a smiley for upyurs)....   

I do not want to start an argument, but up front I did luck out and choose Blu-ray. I picked the right horse this time, who knows about the next... If you are an early adopter, you do take a risk - now that I think about it, I picked VHS even though Beta was what I thought was a superior format.

That said, is it really fair to condemn Sony for getting Warner onside? Toshiba did the same with Paramount and Universal, actually before Sony got Warner. We can perhaps agree to disagree about which format is better, but it appears for the time being there will be only one producing High Definition Discs. Formats aside, I just love how sharp and clean the video is, coupled with incredibly good sound.

If Sony really ticks you off, there are several other producers of Blu-ray players to choose from.

With all due respect the only one that will lose from not going to HD is you. Toshiba is totally over the loss of this war and moving on to bigger and better things. If anyone really stuck it to their customers, I suggest it might be Toshiba. They didn't really offer an apology to all those who bought their players, they just closed the production lines and moved on.

Oh yeah, I got my 5 discs as promised too. The firmware updates on my PS-3 keep making wjat is an excellent player an even better one.

Best of luck,