More woes for HD DVD
In case you haven’t been following the latest developments in this high-definition format war – where Blu-ray looks to be edging out HD DVD as the successor to the DVD – things just went from bad to worse for Toshiba.
In case you haven’t been following the latest developments in this high-definition format war – where Blu-ray looks to be edging out HD DVD as the successor to the DVD – things just went from bad to worse for Toshiba.
First, Best Buy announced it’s recommending Blu-ray over HD DVD to its customers, though they plan on stocking both products for the time being.
"Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products," said Brian Dunn, Best Buy president and CEO, in a statement. "Our decision to shine a spotlight on Blu-ray Disc players and other Blu-ray products is a strong signal to our customers that we believe Blu-ray is the right format choice for them."
A few hours later, Netflix said it would soon phase out HD DVD discs altogether.
"The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition," said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, in a statement. "Going forward, we expect that all of the studios will publish in the Blu-ray format and that the price points of high-def DVD players will come down significantly.
Similar to Zip.ca in Canada, Netflix is a leading U.S.-based movie rental company that sends discs to your door.
Filed Under: Home Entertainment
Why should the big businesses get to decide who wins? We the consumers should have the choice. In a comparison of the 2 formats, the only big difference between the two; is the storage capacity. If all they are putting on these discs is movies, do we need so much room for a movie? not really. The costs for hd-dvd are quite cheaper, and that doesnt mean anything is sacraficed. The big reason hd-dvd is losing, is because sony put the blue-ray player in their PS3. And that makes it the cheapest Blue-ray player, Warner was stupid to ditch hd this early in the game. Once again, It's corporations that will decide this for us, not the consumer who actually buys them.
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good! been a blu-ray supporter from the beginning.
and it's not the businesses deciding who wins…it IS the consumers. businesses supply whatever consumers demand…and apparently, blu-ray discs r out-selling hddvds…
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Remember, it was the manufacturers who invented hd dvd to re-sell DVD players, as saturation had been reached with conventional players. My advice is to save your money and buy neither, and by a standard dvd player that up-converts. Anyone who buys High-def dvd is asking for obsolescence.
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Smiley: Capacity is the same but HD-DVD don't use it for the moment. But more capacity is good for TV series. That's what most forget.
The cost of HD-DVD disk is lesser to make, yet you pay the same price as Blu-Ray?
We have 2 formats because "corporations" could not agree on 1 format thus this mess.
Sony took a gamble with the PS3 and won but did pay with a console that has less games because it had a one year delay against Microsoft. Yes, the xbox360 has more games but it was rushed to market(ring of death) with only DVD(internal).
canuckhead: It's also the store that decided to give space or not to a product. And with many HD-DVD players apparently being return, that takes more unwanted space for open box. Anyone in the retail industry that want to comment on that if it's the same in Canada?
blazin' a trail: I agree in part with you that the saturation and lesser margin was why they wanted HD. OF course, the market is more open to the ideal since more and more people watch and buy HDTVs. But an upconvert DVD is not real HD but a simulation of HD. My advice, the PS3 is the best option to get into HD(Blu-Ray).
Plus, you know HD-DVD died when cosmetics pick Blu-Ray.
http://www.mcgrath.ca/2008/02/12/netflix-drop-hd-dvd-microsoft-drop-price-on-hd-dvd-for-the-xbox-360/
We just need Paramount to switch back and Universal to, at least, start producing Blu-Ray.
One note about upconvert DVDs.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa150.html#whvpart2
"The previous 1080i film transfers they've done were fine for DVD release, but it turns out that they just aren't quite good enough to release on Blu-ray. So they're having to go back and do all-new 1080p transfers for Blu-ray release"
Imagine the final quality with a real HD.
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I think this was quite inevitable. Blu-Ray sounds more sci-fi like. the aging baby booming population and mini baby boomers (the generations which loved star trek)think that blu-ray sounds more like a gadget from their favorite show. HDDVD sounds to them like a fancy DVD.
Not many people look at and research the disc formats, but what they do, is look at the name, look at the selection available, and choose. Blu-ray definetly outshines in name and recently it has started to outshine in selection.
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Well.. As a sales person…. I would sell something that I know will not come back as a return. Best Buy knows that! The have to resell the item it 10% below retail if it comes back (I guess the had such a huge return ratio). At least if they don't sell their stock of HD-dvd players… I believe they have a clause that it can be returened to the manufacturer and sold for liquidations, or outlets. Don't you see electronic outlets sell RCA and Philips items?
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Smiley
"Why should the big businesses get to decide who wins? We the consumers should have the choice."
Well… if you look at he stats, The consumers actually did decide who should have the choice. Companies will not push something they cannot SELL. If consumers really wanted HD-DVD, then this war should have been over when Warner, Universal and Paramount went HD-DVD exclusive.. The player was really cheap but still did not capture the market. Why is that? Titles back then were 50-50 and I know because most of the movies I want was on HD-Dvd. So, even if Sony put Blu-Ray on PS3, the machine still costs $400 and that didn't happen until Nov. 07 the cheapest model before that was $500. We all know that not all PS3 owners use it to watch Blu-ray movies (Some of them don't even know that's why the free Spiderman movie on the 40GB). While the chepest HD-DVD at that time was $299 so they should have flown off the shelf (if it was consumers choice). Lastly, they came out way ahead of Blu-ray and blu-ray had it's share of problems so they had a head start. Did most consumers buy them?
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I'm an avid PC enthusiast and had an advanced spec sheet roughly 6 months before both of these products hit the market. I kept these figures to myself and ran a small poll of 300 people at my workplace to ask them what they preferred as a new format " Bluray or HD-DVD as a replacement format" astoundingly only 10% actually wanted to know what the difference was between the 2 formats and over 80% chose Bluray just for the catchy name. So specs don't mean everything.
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This is really sad when you consider that HD DVD has always provided the features that the Sony robots haven't yet delivered (ethernet connectivity….).
Secondly, there have been all sorts of reliability issues with Blu-Ray players (check out the lawsuit over Samsung's 5000 player).
It amazes me that people fell for Sony's crap after their previous "successes" with DAT, Beta, Elcaset, MD, etc., etc.
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first of capacity isn;t the same HD-DVD are 25 gigs, while Blu-Ray is 50 gigs, so with Blu-Ray bigg 25 gigs more, how is capacity is the same?
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Roberta: Yes, HD-DVD had more features from the start but it also means that not future options can be added without the use of "profiles" either. I agree that Blu-Ray should had settle on that first or made them upgradeable at least. The ethernet could had been added but deactivate.
HD-DVD had it's own problem when they launched their own players. DVD's player had troubles too at first. So, I'm not surprise that any new players has bugs. People tend to forget that.
cleebie: HD-DVD is 30GB(all movies) but 51GB was approved late last year. The new capacity is not used by any studio to my knowledge.
Now, Star Trek (TOS) Season 2 was delayed to this summer by Paramount. 2 things:
and may start to postponed other larger project like this one. They may want to launch it in both formats too. That's was my first guest.
1. Not ready or may want to use the 51GB to lower the number of disk thus cost
2. Paramount is planning to support Blu-Ray in view of this week's good news
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Waltmart is Blu-Ray starting in June!
And I just created a petition to give a break to HD-DVD supporters
Make Blu-Ray Standard But Keep HD-DVD
http://www.mcgrath.ca/make-blu-ray-standard-but-keep-hd-dvd/
Now, that Walmart done that, maybe Paramount and Universal will announce great news next week.
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Sorry McGrath dot ca but Wal-Mart (at least my local one) has already pulled ALL of their HD DVD players off the shelves as of the Friday announcement. It may be too late for any petition to have any effect.
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Love Perusing your blog… always interesting. Thankyou!!!
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