Last week's $99 price on Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD players saw 90,000 of the units fly out retailer's doors over the weekend.

 

Video Business reports that the weekend sale saw Toshiba sell as many HD-A2 units as the best selling stand-alone Blu Ray player, the Sony BDP-S300, has sold since it's launch last summer.  Not all retailers are taken into account by the data, so actual numbers of HD-A2s sold is higher. No number yet on how many HD-A3s were sold over the weekend. The HD-A3 is the replacement for the HD-A2, and some retailers were honoring the $99 price on the new model when HD-A2s were sold out.

 

Price matters. A big weekend for stand-alone HD DVD player sales, with the Christmas shopping season just around the corner.

 

 

As one of the main battlefields in the Blu Ray-HD DVD Format War has become more and more reminiscent of the flamethrowing of Usenet past, AVS Forum owners have given their Blu Ray and HD DVD forum area a three day timeout.

 

During the three day closure, no new posts will be able to be posted in the Blu Ray and HD DVD section of AVS Forum. The formal announcement was made yesterday, in which AVS stated their displeasure with some of the behavior that has been occurring in these areas. They also state in the announcement that AVS is format neutral, and would remain so.

 

AVS sees 200,000 visitors a day, and is the internet's premier AV community. Obviously with so many visitors and with such a heated topic as the Format War, they have seen some bad behavior in the Blu Ray and HD DVD area. It shows how thoughtful AVS is of their users, even when their behavior hasn't been so exemplary, that they would take this step before just banning the offending parties, or getting rid of the area altogether. Read the announcement, and mind your manners when the Blu Ray and HD DVD forums reopen.

 

While it was announced last week that Kmart would only be offering HD DVD players in it's stores, the company has issued a statement declaring that the reports last week were false.

 

Jonathan Magasanik, Vice President and General Merchandise Manager of home electronics for Sears Holdings attributed the reports to Toshiba. "Kmart plans to support both the HD DVD and Blu-ray platforms, and has no plans to support either platform exclusively,” Magasanik said.

 

Whether or not this is a case of Kmart backpedaling and then trying to focus blame elsewhere, or another example of a bloodthirsty consumer electronics press taking something out of context and then running with it is unknown.  

 

In the December issue of Consumer Reports, brand reliability gets put under the microscope for both direct view and rear projection televisions. It is the first time that Consumer Reports has published such a study. The study was conducted over a three year period from 2004 to 2007, and was compiled from a pool of 93,000 submitted product reliability surveys.

 

Their findings indicate that direct view displays are less prone to failure than rear projection televisions. Their study indicates that their is no significant difference in reliability between LCD and plasma models, but repairs on plasma models were about a third more costly than on LCD. Dell and Hitachi LCDs and Philips plasmas enter the Hall of Shame as most likely to need service of the surveyed brands. Most reliable were Panasonic, on the LCD side. For plasma, took top honors for reliability. CR found that the majority of repair costs on rear projection models were incurred by failed lamps, which are a user-replaceable part, and they advise not to bother with an extended warranty if you purchase a rear projection set.

 

The study is slightly flawed, as it should have filtered out lamp replacements in rear projection sets. However, it's nice for buyers to have another tool for helping to choose a display. If you're in the market for a direct view television, Panasonic and Samsung scored well on both LCD and plasma reliability.

 

Sony says that Spider-Man 3 is the fastest selling Blu Ray title to date, yet hasn't released any sales numbers.

 

Launching on the same day, the Transformers DVD outsold the Spider-Man 3 DVD three to one. The Transformers HD DVD was the fastest selling next gen disc for a single HD format, selling 190k copies it's first week of release. Sony's reticence to trumpet the sales figures of Spider-Man 3 pretty much guarantees it's not in the same ballpark as Transformers or 300. We'll know this Friday, when the new Nielsen numbers are posted.

 

 

Warner Bros did some backpedaling today, citing that statements made by Warner VP of High-Definition Media Dan Silverberg last week were taken out of context.

 

High Def Digest spoke to Jim Noonan, SVP of Strategic Promotion and Communication for Warner Home Entertainment Group, who said "I can tell you that Warner's position has not changed, and I know that Dan did not intend to suggest that wasn't the case. We support both formats and we have made no decision to alter that policy, nor are there any such announcements coming, or being planned." Asked about any short-term plans for a move to exclusivity, Noonan dismissed rumors regarding such a decision based on fourth quarter sales with "Like any major company, we are always reviewing our strategies in every aspect of our business, it is what smart companies do. I can't say what may happen five, ten years down the line. But right now, Warner Bros. has made no decision to change course. We are still onboard with both formats, and will continue [with a strong line-up of new releases and catalog titles], just as we have in the past in supporting HD DVD and Blu-ray." 

 

At this time, Warner seems committed to not having a hand in deciding the outcome of this struggle.