So it begins: Toshiba's HD-A3 falls to $99 at Circuit City, comes with 7 free HD DVDs

It's not like there has been any shortage of deals on HD DVD hardware over the past few months or anything, but now that Toshiba (and almost everyone else on the planet) has officially yanked support for the format, prices are beginning to plummet en masse. First on the docket is the HD-A3 at Circuit City, which now sits at just $99.99 and comes with seven free titles, two of which are 300 and Bourne Identity. So yeah, if you've been waiting for this moment to snap up the failed format for cheap, hop on in -- but if we were betting souls, we'd say holding out just a wee bit longer would actually be in your wallet's best interest.

[Thanks, Dustin]

[gotrixzeth @ Feb 20th 2008 9:32AM]

And it begins!

[MatthewJ @ Feb 20th 2008 10:54AM]

Could *this* be the final nail in HD-DVDs coffin?....

[Frankenstein Black @ Feb 20th 2008 10:28AM]

Neither of you have it right if your going for dramatic effect.
The correct phrase is: “And so it Begins!”

[Dan S. @ Feb 20th 2008 10:44AM]

The nail in the coffin!

[EatingPie @ Feb 20th 2008 11:11AM]

Isn't it more like...

"And so it Ends!"

Are the free HD-DVDs an immediate thing, or are do you send in for them? It always takes forever to get those "by mail" discs, and given the demise of the format, I'm somewhat skeptical about receiving the discs.

-Pie

[gotrixzeth @ Feb 20th 2008 12:13PM]

Ans SO it Begins!!! lol

[ScareyJ @ Feb 20th 2008 12:13PM]

More like the "End of the $100 player" era ... maybe that price range will be seen again in about 4 or 5 years.

[Dr. Evil @ Feb 20th 2008 12:16PM]

Yes, I'll take one of these.

I'll also need cassette deck, an analog cell phone, a typewriter, and a beeper

[E71 @ Feb 20th 2008 12:45PM]

Heh. My HDMI cable costs more than this.

[dkrift @ Feb 20th 2008 12:50PM]

You paid more than $100 for an HDMI cable?

I wonder who the idiot is.

[mike @ Feb 20th 2008 2:43PM]

The nails are all in. This is the first shovel of dirt on the grave.

[teej @ Feb 20th 2008 3:49PM]

Boom-shaka-laka

[Nate @ Feb 20th 2008 9:34AM]

That player looks like it was designed in the mid-80's.

[Jeff @ Feb 20th 2008 9:42AM]

Maybe if they marketed that early they might have won...


maybe...

[andrew @ Feb 20th 2008 9:36AM]

why would people still want to buy hd-dvd now that its defunct?

[striggity @ Feb 20th 2008 9:41AM]

look @ the price. Even tho the format is no longer being supported...it doesn't change the fact that you're getting full HD movies for the cheap. Hold folks over until Blu Ray becomes more affordable.:-)

[Chebwa @ Feb 20th 2008 9:40AM]

The same reason people are still buying the 3DO on eBay. The world is a strange and magical place...

[anon @ Feb 20th 2008 9:47AM]

Beta players are still being sold on ebay too. The A30 is $130 on CC's site.

[Lawrence Rodriguez @ Feb 20th 2008 9:48AM]

See comment above yours.

[Snowdog @ Feb 20th 2008 10:43AM]

100/7 = $15 per movie. Not for a rental until your player dies. At which point I doubt you will want to buy another player for a dead format to keep playing theses movies.

Of course that is assuming these offers still arrive and that you are actually interested in the movies (limited selection).

I really can't see people rushing to pick these up. Maybe a bit lower in price if you need a DVD player. I am not the type of person that would buy another player when my current one works just because it comes with free movies.

[Robert in Texas @ Feb 20th 2008 6:12PM]

You can buy a HD-DVD burner for your PC, grab HD torrents, and burn your own media. But stock up on blank HD-DVD discs just in case they start to disappear (is there an HD-DVD RW?). You could even buy blu-ray discs and rip and burn those to HD-DVD. For $99 there are a lot of ways to keep this thing going.

[Jakob @ Feb 20th 2008 9:36AM]

But remember, it's also a nice DVD upscaler.

[System48 @ Feb 20th 2008 10:57AM]

That's my thinking but I'll wait for the HD-A35 to hit $100 or less.

[Andrew @ Feb 20th 2008 1:30PM]

I wouldn't be so sure. The XA2 is a superb upscaler. But the '3' series does not have Reon chip. Reports I read on avsforum are conflicting but it looks like the lowly A3 doesn't have anything worthwhile in it and is no better than your average DVD upsampling player. The A30 does have a reportedly good upscaling chip but the deinterlacing is average (in other words, bad) like with any other DVD player. Likewise for A35. So I'd grab A30 as a minimum, but I'd prefer XA2 if I could get it for $200, which probably won't happen. So I'll just wait for PS3 to drop price and become quieter (I already own one), because PS3 upsampling and deinterlacing is just as good as XA2 and it's not obsolete to boot - but it's too loud for movie playback for my taste.

[John @ Feb 20th 2008 9:41AM]

And you can add a Monster HDMI cable for $69.99. What a freakin deal!!

[Joe @ Apr 17th 2009 8:05PM]

I'd hit that if Netflix still supported HD-DVDs.

[zunq @ Feb 20th 2008 9:54AM]

It still has every HD DVD except the ones just released . Even if I rented 3 movies every weekend it would still take me 2.5 years to watch every HD DVD, so I think it's worth it.

[insertAlias @ Feb 20th 2008 10:28AM]

@zunq
Assuming that you would actually want to watch _every_ movie that has been released. And assuming you don't care about watching new movies.

But I guess it wouldn't be a bad deal if you want an upscaler, and your favorite movies are only out on HD DVD, and you're too impatient to wait for them to be ported to blu-ray, and too impatient to wait for blu-ray to drop in price. Other than that, I just can't see the justification for buying this.

[shawnmos @ Feb 20th 2008 1:44PM]

It does. They just shipped out the Bourne Ultimatum today for me.

[Brodie @ Feb 20th 2008 9:42AM]

Shouldn't Toshiba be storing these things somewhere for the inevitable future museum display?

[Rob @ Feb 20th 2008 10:42AM]

or for parts to keep supporting current owners.

[Adam Hanson @ Feb 20th 2008 9:51AM]

Wait another month for prices to drop more.. Buy as many as you want, tear them apart and cannibalize their innards. Have fun with cheap blue lasers

[Joe @ Feb 20th 2008 10:01AM]

Or, buy one now and take advantage of Circuit City's 30 day price guarantee if it goes down in the next 30 days..
Or, if it is at Walmart, they offer a 90 day return/exchange policy and price matching

[Michael @ Feb 20th 2008 10:08AM]

If it is on clearance though, usually they don't won't adjust prices.

[Karl Hackswell @ Feb 20th 2008 10:12AM]

Yeah, why WOULD you buy a defunct player? Does it go well with your laserdisc player?

[Frank Furter @ Feb 20th 2008 10:17AM]

The bigger question is, who shops at Circuit City? Best Buy haters?

[Karl Hackswell @ Feb 20th 2008 10:29AM]

Yes, that would be myself. Ive never had a good experience with bestbuy. To be honest, I dont think ive ever purchased anything from bestbuy, ever! If I cant find it at wal-mart I go to Newegg.

[J @ Feb 20th 2008 10:34AM]

If I was in the US I would definately do so.

This fire sale looks to have on the units and when it does so on the HD-DVD's too, it'll be so dirt cheap to get a massive library of 1080p content that won't degrade over time.

Fair enough, I'll have to buy BR movies for anything new coming out, but I am more than tempted and spending at least half or more on what I would have to do for a similar high-end Blue-ray set up and the large library of movies/documentaries.

Be stubborn if you wish, but I would go ahead and spend less than half of my money on the the same amount of content and hardware that will last a lifetime and will look as amazing in 1080p as the same Blue-ray movie will.

It's a totally different scenario compared to laser disk. How many movies could you even buy on lazerdisk when they were trying to promote it? There are hundreds of movies just waiting to go for next to nothing!

[Jeff P. @ Feb 20th 2008 12:48PM]

"Yes, that would be myself. Ive never had a good experience with bestbuy. To be honest, I dont think ive ever purchased anything from bestbuy, ever!"

Ahh...then how could you have had a bad experience there? Did you get attacked by a horde of rabid blue shirts? Or maybe you tripped walking in the door?

[OneLove @ Feb 20th 2008 10:21AM]

someone needs to open a HD-DVD to Blu-ray conversion shop.

[anon @ Feb 20th 2008 11:22AM]

Or you can do it in the comfort of your own home. For a price...
http://gizmodo.com/358467/turn-your-hd-dvds-into-blu+ray

[OneLove @ Feb 20th 2008 5:16PM]

actually, I meant swicthing the laser in the HD-DVD player to blu-ray.

[Hax Or @ Feb 20th 2008 10:52AM]

So many dopes here.... They ask "why would they buy it"?

Why not ask why people still buy regular DVD players.

Why not ask why people still buy regular DVDs.

You're elitist. And it's not 'the norm'. Most people just don't care. If they want to waste plastic buying a ROM, it really doesn't matter; they're doing it wrong.

[pfromg @ Feb 20th 2008 10:45AM]

does it play divx?
its a solid looking dvd player , and the films are worth that alone.
ill buy one as a dvd player as im not bothered about buying overpriced HD films yet.

[OctaneZ @ Feb 20th 2008 10:54AM]

No DivX or XviD support.

[Mr. B @ Feb 20th 2008 10:54AM]

No DivX

[eng177 @ Feb 20th 2008 1:42PM]

I think he meant "divx" not "DivX" - at least, that would be more ironic.

[Nikoooo @ Feb 20th 2008 11:15AM]

I was wondering whether this is not some kind of a advertisement campaign. Indeed Time Warner, who owns Engadget, is one of the board directors of the blu-ray disk association. In other words, they have been injecting a whole lot of $$$ (like Toshiba) to win the market. Now that they have won, there's not a single day without a post about the "format war".

So dear Warner people, we heard it very well. You won, bravo. Now, please, give us some good small cheap and well-designed blu-ray devices and let's just no more discuss about this.

PS: I do not own a HD-DVD nor a Blu-ray... I stick with DVDs for the time being.

[Galley @ Feb 20th 2008 11:30AM]

Perhaps if they changed the offer to "all the free HD DVDs you can carry", they might clear them out quicker.

[Rich @ Feb 20th 2008 6:09PM]

I really don't understand why there are so many HD DVD haters here at Engadget. When you look at HD DVD and BR players side by side, they were equal on pretty much every count except one, storage. A BR disc can hold 50GB to HD DVD's 30. For me it's not a big deal. Most of the extra's the studio's use that space for simply aren't worth the time or effort to try and watch it. I'd rather give up the extra's to get a high quality transfer of the film itself.