Rounding Up HD News: CompUSA to Close Doors After Holidays

By Danny King, Special to TelevisionWeek

CompUSA Will Shut Stores After Holidays
CompUSA Inc. will close its doors after the holidays. The Dallas-based retailer, which was acquired by a unit of restructuring firm Gordon Brothers Group LLC, had already closed about half of its 200-odd stores in February as part of a reorganization plan. Gordon Brothers will sell some of its stores as well as the company’s technical-services unit, CompUSA said in a statement. Revenue at CompUSA, founded in 1984, has been hurt by larger competitors Best Buy Co. and Circuit City Stores Inc. as well as by online retailer Amazon.com Inc., which has boosted its electronics sales.

Vudu Debuts Standard, High-Definition ‘Bourne’ Versions on Same Day
Vudu Inc., which sells set-top boxes that allow customers to download films over the Internet, began selling both the standard- and high-definition versions of “The Bourne Ultimatum” simultaneously earlier this week, marking the first time an HD download of a movie was released the same day as its DVD, the Associated Press reported. In addition to Universal Pictures, which produced the trilogy, Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate Entertainment have agreements with Vudu to distribute their films in HD, AP said.

Samsung Blu-ray Player Price Cut by Retailers
The price of Samsung’s BD-P1400 Blu-ray player was cut twice in two weeks by retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp., DVD review Web site HighDefDigest.com reported. After reducing the player’s price to $299 from the suggested retail price of $399 last week, Costco, the largest U.S. warehouse club, cut the price further to $280 while Amazon, the world’s largest Internet retailer, slashed the price further to $270, HighDefDigest.com said. That brings Blu-ray player prices closer to its HD-DVD competition. Amazon’s cheapest HD-DVD player, the Toshiba 1080i HD-A3, is listed at $200.