Best Buy finally taking BR/HD-DVD seriously? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

Even beyond sales people at best buy lying and or just not being properly trained on the product. I found other sales people outside of BB at other stores that just did not know what they where talking about. Even with HD-DVD, they did not know about the ability to update the firmware and they claimed the player came with no HDMI cable and that I would need to buy a HDMI cable.

 

[Jeremy Little]

That terminology is supposedly to help prevent the explanation to "What does Blu Ray mean?" which is asked repeatedly. Also, Best Buy isn't favoring one format over the other, we are neutral to the war. The problem is the same one that non-educated customers asked about the format think, SONY CAN DO NO WRONG. It is that simple, everyone who knows the PS3 coming out and hasn't been reading the stories and problems thinks that it is going to be a HUGE success. The lack of training in the stores and their assumption that Sony is going to win is where their enthusiasm comes from. Trust me, I know. I work there and I've already turned the Home Theater Department around, I showed them their own sales numbers. 1 BD player sold, 11 HD DVD players sold. It was enough.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I ment that more as an observation about what I saw. Bluray was alocated twice the shelf space at the BB I go to in the Phoenix area. I own a HD-A1 and am looking to also own a Bluray player. But will not buy one until HDMI 1.3 is available. And while I would love to see Bluray sucssed, I definantly am not a believer that Sony can do no wrong. Sony ether does it right or fracks it up in a major way.

While the home theater department at your location may have made a turn around. There are plenty of other BB locations where the sales people are clueless. I have had sales people at BB tell me things like the player does in fact decode DTS-HD, they did not know anything about upgradeable firmware, they new nothing about the upgrade disc from Toshiba or what version of HDMI the player used just to name a few things off. I had one salesman last year try to tell me that the HDTV's had the newest 3rd generation DLP chips just last year. And I believe that at the time the where in fact on 6th generation chips. I have run into bad sales people in California as well.

This is not to say that there are not plenty of unimformed customers that know nothing of HD-DVD and or Bluray. I have heard of customers that have grabed Bluray discs not noticing that they where not grabing the DVD. I have gone into stores to find out about a certain product and I end up knowing more than the salesperson in the store. And I am by no means someone that knows alot, I think I know alittle at least but there are others that know 50 times more than I do. I buy movies from BB and thats about it. For the most part I dont like alot of the brand BB carries and the lack of knowledgeable salespeople. I however will be checking into a Magnolia's not to far from me built into a BB. I have not been able to find the brand of cables I wanted and after visting Magnolia's web site I see that they have the Audio Quest cable I wanted. I may just end up doing some business with that location after all?

 

[TonyD]

were planning a shelf and do have a shelf now.

 

[RomanSohor]

I work part time in a Magnolia. It is more serious HT gear than the regular Best Buy, but not HTF serious I have to tell you that the average customer is looking more for a plasma mounted over their fireplace and a Bose sound system (it is the best, isnt it? ;-) ) than they are looking for a dedicated theater room. And the setup is obviously where a lot of the money is made, so....

And to be perfectly honest well over half the returns we get on big screen HDTV's are because the customer "didn't like the picture quality", when they connect their $50 DVD player to it with Composite video and don't bother to change the setting on the DVD player from 4:3 to 16:9. If a customer is willing to spend the money to get it hooked up, our installers (at least in my store) do a very good job.

Most of their best gear is reserved for speakers.. Martin Logan, Vienna, etc. Though they recently dumped Boston in favor of Klipsch Reference. Not an improvement in my book... but then again it wasn't because the product was better.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Just came back from a Magnolia's and while they had some nice speakers and some nice HD displays. They had a small selection of everything else, and I was disapointed. I went mostly because there web site said they where a Audio Quest dealer. When I got there there was no Audio Quest product to be seen, only a small selection of Monster brand cables. If I wanted Monster I could pick them up anywhere. It not that Monster makes a bad product it just that in IMHO its an average brand of cable and I would prefer a great brand of cable. Monster makes a great power center and I will be adding one to my HT as soon as I have the money. But for cables my money does not go on Monster.

Back to topic: I will be buying some more HD titles on payday so I can not wait to see if BB has the new releases on the shelf or not? They have enough shelf space for a decent amount of Blurays at this time. They dedicated two rows of shelves for Bluray and one row for HD-DVD. At least they are at my local BB here in Phoenix, AZ.

 

[ppltd]

I shop at PV and Scottsdale BB's (Phoenix area). They seem to have a pretty equal display of HD and BR last time I went there.

Thomas Eisenmann

 

[FrancisP]

They have more HD-DVD discs than blu-ray discs in my BB in Columbia, SC. Each have a section of a shelf. They have not reduced the number of SD. As a result, the spaces between the first couple of rows are much narrower. When I was shopping, I saw someone looking at the HD discs and saying "Why should I buy them again?" That may be a huge obstacle for both formats to fight.

 

[Jay*Man]

Lucky you... Still don't have any in Richmond yet. Although I have seen some Magnolia flyers around in one of the stores...maybe it will be here soon.. I don't understand it, NoVa has 9, even Fredricksburg has 1. Why don't they have them in Central Va & Tidewater.

Tweeters would also be nice.

 

[RomanSohor]

Magnolia no longer carrys audioquest.

 

[Dave Moritz]

The Magnolia near me claimed that Audio Quest could not keep up with demand so the dropped the product. They claimed that Audio Quest was selling well but they could not get enough stock into the store. So there great solution was to carry the same bloody brand that everyone else has. I guess they would not want to offer something different and get something that helps them stand apart from there compition. Just become one of the countless Monster dealers, can you say market over saturation.

 

[Ralph Jenkins]

From what I have seen, it seems like studios and retailers are supporting Blu-Ray, while *consumers* are supporting HD DVD. It's a bit strange. Has anyone witnessed a customer buying a stack of Blu-Ray discs (I have seen this with HD DVD)? I can only assume that the stores are banking on the success of the PS3.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

What was BB or any other B&M too do before?
Make up stuff?
Just a few months ago HD DVD had, what, 30 titles out? Was BB supposed to clear aisles & aisles out to make room for thirty titles?
Right now HD DVD has two players for them to sell and just now BD has two. When there were only two HD disc players for BB to sell a few months ago, should they have cleared out an entire area for HD disc players?
It was a BIG deal when HD DVD had an endcap, one endcap! It was a BIG deal when BD got its first endcap. Think of how many TV's, washing machines, phones, computers, car speakers, etc. BB carries. Just six months ago what did HD DVD offer them to sell, nothing! Just five months ago what did BD offer them to sell, nothing!!!

I guess people don't know about how SD DVD started a BB. ;-)

 

[Cheech]

It's funny you say that.

When I was in Best Buy this week, I got an overwhelming sense of Deja Vu while staring at the HD disc section. It was on the *exact* same aisle, just at the opposite end, where they first put DVD. This was in August of '98 when I bought my first player. Both sections were the same size as well.

The only thing that was a bit sad was that there were two formats staring me in the face instead of DVD's one; it really made the format "war" real in my mind. I couldn't help but feel that at the end of the day, the entire thing will fail because of this reason.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Memories!!!
For me, it was against the wall in the appliance section, one rack, then two then three, before SD DVD's made it to the center of the store. I was actually shocked whenever I went in and there was another person in the DVD section!!! :-0
Agree, this war can't be good for the average consumer.
And it sure isn't doing us much good either!! ;-)

 

[Eric DiPiazza]

I still seem to be the only one in the HD section whenever I go. It's like a ghost town aisle and employees looked shocked to see me there when they walk by. I also remember when SD DVD launced and how empty the aisle was back then. It's just a shame about the war. Unlike with SD DVD, the HD fans have been divded into two smaller groups. Thus making it even harder for one format to win.

 

[Mike_G]

I was referring to their attitude of placing product deep in the store where you couldn't find it, or mixing it with regular DVDs, or not knowing where the damn discs are. No need to be sarcastic.