Trying to appease customers who ended up on the losing side of the recent high-definition movie format war, Best Buy on Wednesday said it would hand out $50 gift cards to buyers of HD DVD players. By surrendering to Sony-backed Blu-ray last month, Toshiba-led proponents of HD DVD left player owners holding devices reduced to playing standard DVDs. To make amends, Best Buy plans to distribute more than $10 million in gift cards to people who bought players from the retailer before Feb. 23. The cards should start arriving by mail by May 1. “At Best Buy, we understood and shared our customers’ frustrations as they were being asked to choose one format or the other,” Dunn said in a statement.

“Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the right technology for their needs.” Best Buy plans to mail gift cards to customers the company can identify as HD DVD buyers. To do that, Best Buy will depend on information gathered through its membership program, purchases on the retailer’s Web site, and the purchase of service plans. Other customers with proof of purchase through a credit card or Best Buy receipt can request a gift card by calling 888-Best-Buy. “We’re telling our customers they can keep their players to play these movies as well as their older DVDs and use the $50 to treat themselves to anything else in our stores,” said Barry Judge, chief marketing officer for Best Buy.

Source: Information Week

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What kinda bull is that. If they were really that concerned about there customers, they would take the customers HD DVD player as a trade-in on a blu-ray player...at 100% original value, unless the machine is obviously banged up. This is a publicity stunt pure and simple. My $0.02

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Agreed. Best Buy shouldn't be doing this at all, though. If consumers are dumb enough to buy a product when there's no way to tell which will become the standard, it is THEIR responsibility when they end up with a useless box. Speaking of such, anybody have any links to how to rip old DivX movies? I speak of the original DivX, those phoneline connected DVD players that you bought a movie for $3.95, had unlimited viewing in the first 48 hours after playing it, and then paid $5.95 after that for each play (and additional 48 hours of unlimited viewing). I've got a stack of 20 discs here that I've been unable to rip for years

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