Audio Video News

According to a Circuit City employee tip-off to Gizmodo, the retailer plans to take back HD DVD players from consumers who've become casualties of the high-def format war.

Instead of its typical 30-day return policy, Circuit City will extend exchanges through the 90 days before Toshiba's announcement to kill off  HD DVD, according to Gizmodo. Customers can choose between a new Blu-ray player (and pay the price difference between the two machines), or a gift card.

Circuit City isn't widely promoting this policy, so your mileage may vary. Please let us know in the comments below if this worked for you.

But many HD DVD-player owners aren't bitter about being stuck with an obsolete machine. After all, the prevalence of cheap HD DVDs means many people can accumulate a solid collection of films to watch on their players without a big investment. And customer reviews of many HD DVD players note the high-quality upscaling capabilities these machines have to turn standard-def DVDs into semi-stunning images.

HD DVD players sold in the last few months were fairly cheap to begin with, meaning the price difference between them and new Blu-ray players sold at Circuit City is bound to be high. Why not keep the HD DVD player and bargain-basement movies for now? Odds are Blu-ray player manufacturers and sellers will think up other ways to motivate people to buy another machine. -Rachel Rosmarin

Gizmodo