[Rasczak]

I've noticed a few more of my local Supermarkets have started to display high def media - anyone else noticed this recently? I know some stores have been stocking discs for months now but I have seen media appear in several more stores now including my local Tesco. Just wondering if there is a roll out going on nationwide - perhaps ASDA and Tesco are introducing the format outside of their key stores?

That said my local Tesco only had 5 titles from each format on the shelves but prices were alot better than HMV and the like - typically about £20 and included Oceans 13. Perhaps we'll see stores start to stock players soon?

[sander123]

my local tescos has dumped blu ray discs and ps3 games/hardware recently.

now only sells 360,ps2,wii,ds games. strange-biggest tesco in north west of northern ireland to.

[Sonic67]

I couldn't find any HD in the Sutton Coldfield Tesco and it's a big store.

[kbfern]

Wolverhampton Asda have stocks of HD DVD & Blu Ray discs,around 10-12 tiles on each format.

Their prices range from £17-£20 which is pretty good for bricks & mortar outlets

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by kbfern

Wolverhampton Asda have stocks of HD DVD & Blu Ray discs,around 10-12 tiles on each format.

I think ASDA might have rolled them out to all there larger stores - which is great because I should imagine their links with Venturer will mean well see high def players on sale there soon.

I couldn't find any HD in the Sutton Coldfield Tesco and it's a big store.

Pity. Anyone else notice new additions of HD DVD/Blu-ray discs in their local Tesco? My local store (Bursledon) have just started so I'm sure they can't alone.

[Pincho Paxton]

Can't get much near me. Haven't seen a single HD-DVD movie, there are about 10 Blu Ray movies 5 miles from me. Can't even get PS3 games around here yet.

[brian s]

The three Asda's I get to all stock both formats. The Metrocentre and Boldon branch's pretty big but the Washington branch isn't. They all had a small selection. Haven't been in the other two recently but the Washinton branch has expanded on BD in this last week or so. As well as the small general HD section they new HD releases in with the SD DVDs and they've just set up a PS3/BD section. Dispite this there hasn't been a huge increase in the number of titles available.

All the best
Bri

[AgentCool]

The new Tesco Extra in Hull has a fairly decent selection of Blu-ray and HD DVD titles. Some of the prices aren't bad either; for example, £13.97 for Black Hawk Down, Hellboy and a few others.

However, the biggest bricks-and-mortar selection I have seen is in the new Gamestation in Hull (which claims to be the "second largest games store in Europe"). They look to have basically every title yet released in the UK on both formats. Unfortunately, the prices are poor.

[Bald Monkey]

The strangest place I've recently discovered HD-DVD and BR is Selfridges in the Trafford Centre Manchester..






But then they are in the Game store inside Selfridges!


ASDA trafford park has now priced all HD-DVD's and BR's either £20 or below. HMV and Virgin in Traff. Centre have both formats prices range from ludicrous to plain silly. And WHSmiths also has BR priced similarly.

Has any one tried Morrisons ? I keep meaning to after seeing a picture of BR in their leaflet with the freebie paper..

[The Nightfly]

I picked up Spiderman Trilogy (blu-ray) for about £35 from Tesco's last weekend - works fine in my Region A blu-ray player and cost me a lot less than ordering a Region A version on-line.

[BenchyUK]

I hope Supermarkets are stocking more and more films as i think it will lead to prices on the discs falling

[eiren]

Originally Posted by kbfern

Wolverhampton Asda have stocks of HD DVD & Blu Ray discs,around 10-12 tiles on each format.

Their prices range from £17-£20 which is pretty good for bricks & mortar outlets

Same here in Coventry

[HeweyBoy101]

Originally Posted by markwpage

The new Tesco Extra in Hull has a fairly decent selection of Blu-ray and HD DVD titles. Some of the prices aren't bad either; for example, £13.97 for Black Hawk Down, Hellboy and a few others.

Same at Tesco Holmbush West Sussex. Top 20 HD titles priced from £13.97 to about £20. Nearly got Bourne Supremacy for £13.97 on HD DVD.

[Kainz]

Woolworths in my local town of Wealdstone near Harrow have begun stocking Blu-Ray discs. I was doing some shopping there and noticed a box on the floor that had their blue cases in. I couldn't see any HD-DVD's at the time, but will whine if they don't sell them. No price details yet.

[Emjel]

Asda in Hereford, which I think is the smallest city in UK has stocked BD and HD for several months now. Prices originally ranged from £16 to £22, but just recently, prices have increased and start at £18.49. I got Casino Royale with my PS3, but cannot see a mega improvement over an upscaled SD version. I currently have a Denon 1920 and a Samsung 42" Plasma which has 720p or 1080i. Sitting at 10ft from screen, some people say I will not benefit from BD or HD nor 1080p, so cannot see any point in spending exhorbitant prices if I am not going to benefit.. Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

[eiren]

I've got a 42" Samsung plasma, and I can promise you that they're talking out of their behinds on that one. I sit about 8-9ft from my screen, and HD-DVD looks STUNNING

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by eiren

I've got a 42" Samsung plasma, and I can promise you that they're talking out of their behinds on that one. I sit about 8-9ft from my screen, and HD-DVD looks STUNNING

I can't agree with that at all.

I have a 43" Pioneer plasma - I sir around 3 - 3.5m away (10 or 12 feet).

The improvement with high def is good - definitely a step up, but it would be a gross exageration to describe the difference as stunning.

Having said that, theSamsungs are not the best at upscaling SD. If you're comparing the two, it's not necessarily that high def is stunning in itself, but that the difference is large because the Sammy's poor upscaling makes SD poor.

Steve W

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by Emjel

Asda in Hereford, which I think is the smallest city in UK has stocked BD and HD for several months now. Prices originally ranged from £16 to £22, but just recently, prices have increased and start at £18.49. I got Casino Royale with my PS3, but cannot see a mega improvement over an upscaled SD version. I currently have a Denon 1920 and a Samsung 42" Plasma which has 720p or 1080i. Sitting at 10ft from screen, some people say I will not benefit from BD or HD nor 1080p, so cannot see any point in spending exhorbitant prices if I am not going to benefit.. Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

your are wrong on two points emjel,wells in somerset is the smallest city in uk,regarding blue ray playback on my pioneer 43" the blue ray discs i have at present make dvd look like vhs[ps i use ps3 for blue ray]to realy see the difference you need to play a film ie casino royale on blue ray at the same time as dvd as i have from my upscaled pineer player and switch between inputs.personaly upscaled stuff has never done much for me but your denon may upscale better.

[Emjel]

Originally Posted by chrishull3

your are wrong on two points emjel,wells in somerset is the smallest city in uk,

Thanks for pointing out that Wells is the smallest city. I stand corrected.

Originally Posted by chrishull3

regarding blue ray playback on my pioneer 43" the blue ray discs i have at present make dvd look like vhs[ps i use ps3 for blue ray]to realy see the difference you need to play a film ie casino royale on blue ray at the same time as dvd as i have from my upscaled pineer player and switch between inputs.personaly upscaled stuff has never done much for me but your denon may upscale better,

However, on my second point, it is a case of individual subjectivity, so I think you are wrong to say I am wrong on my beliefs. I also play my only two Blu Ray discs on a PS3, and I stick to my guns here that I cannot see a big enough difference between the upscaled picture produced from my Denon to that produced by my PS3. I do not have a problem with the Samsung either, and getting it for £899 plus a 5 year warranty swung the deal for me. As pointed out by Pecker, there is probably a marginal improvement in pic quality between upscaled SD and BD, but certainly nothing compared between VHS and DVD. So for me personally at this moment in time, I cannot see the justification in spending say £22 on Die Hard 4 in Blu Ray (sorry if you don't like that film) as opposed to £9 for the SD version at my local supermarket. The other question I have though is "Is it better to stick with 720p or 1080i. The PS tries to go to 1080i as the highest resolution picked up from my TV, but others say that 720p is better.

[sdb123]

Well 720p would be the closest signal to the native resolution of your tv, so I would stick with that.

[Mr Jolly]

I hope this is an isolated example but apart from the Planet Earth HD-DVD boxset, my local ASDA has removed all of its other HD-DVD discs.

I asked the lady behind the till what had happened to all the discs (in the red cases) and she replied that "We're only selling the blue ones now".

Anyway let's hope it's just a temporary thing what with it coming up to xmas and all that. Has anyone else noticed this in their local store?

[SG-22]

Originally Posted by Mr Jolly

I asked the lady behind the till what had happened to all the discs (in the red cases) and she replied that "We're only selling the blue ones now".

haha like how you had to simplify it for her

[brian s]

Originally Posted by Mr Jolly

I hope this is an isolated example but apart from the Planet Earth HD-DVD boxset, my local ASDA has removed all of its other HD-DVD discs.

I asked the lady behind the till what had happened to all the discs (in the red cases) and she replied that "We're only selling the blue ones now".

Anyway let's hope it's just a temporary thing what with it coming up to xmas and all that. Has anyone else noticed this in their local store?

My local Asda's still selling both but they now have quite a few more BDs.

Cheers
Bri

[Freightliner]

My local Asda in Falkirk is now stocked around 80% to 20% towards Blu Ray. however I have noticed that the blu ray pricing in Asda has changed and they now seem to be on the shelf at a standard £20 per disc for blu ray while the HD ones are all £15.97.

[Pincho Paxton]

Originally Posted by sdb123

Well 720p would be the closest signal to the native resolution of your tv, so I would stick with that.

I have 720p TV. 720p native is not as good as 1080i. Could be many reasons, downscaling? Doesn't matter what reasons 1080i is better. Upscaling SD to 1080i is better too. Edges are sharper, and highlights are whiter, and crisper. Skin texture is visible.

Nothing available in Morrison's to answer a previous question.

[Rasczak]

I notice my local ASDA has now dropped both formats That said another local Tesco store has just started selling both (equal support).

[kbfern]

I was in Asda Wolverhampton yesterday and was looking for the Hi Def movies(they were previously in a special section on their own)and they had all gone.

I then looked around a bit more and found the discs in the section with the playstation games.What was more worrying was that last week the selection was around 50/50 bluray/hddvd and this week 80/20 bluray

The hddvd's were still £17-20 so they have not dropped their prices.

[Bald Monkey]

Well the ASDA near me, seemed to have sold all HD versions of Oceans, Spidey, HP and DH4, that were mixed in with the SD's. The Normal section of shelving was still there with 50% BR and HD-DVD, both back cataloges mainly.

They also had a Pirates 3 POS unit in the centre of the floor with a decent number of BR versions on it along with the SD's..

I recon we'll see a big variation in stock levels, placement, numbers etc etc as they experiment, and different stores are never the same.

Oh and both Formats have been set to a Max of £20 since FF2 release!!

[jonnybegood]

well, at my local asda , sheffield. they used to have a rack with 90% blu-rays, 10% hd-dvd. now apart from the odd title`s knocking around (1 spiderman 3, 2 at worlds end, a hairspray and an oceans 13) thats it.

they can`t have sold the amount they had only acouple of days ago by now. not at £20 and £24, no chance.

what also get me is there website is far cheaper then there instore prices. has anyone asked if they would price check from there own website?

very strange for this time of year when you`d think they`d wanna shift as many as possible by dropping there price.

[blisteringblue]

Originally Posted by Pincho Paxton

I have 720p TV. 720p native is not as good as 1080i. Could be many reasons, downscaling? Doesn't matter what reasons 1080i is better. Upscaling SD to 1080i is better too. Edges are sharper, and highlights are whiter, and crisper. Skin texture is visible.

Same here with mine too. There was a lot of debate back in the day before FULL HD and most seemed to think allowing a 720p machine to downscale as needed produced a better picture. Exactly what happens with all mine. I have all set to 1080i and picture is great.

I watch my HD-DVD from around 5.5 feet and when you get the right disc (Transformers) it's stunning. Can look a little average with others though, but I blame the transfer.