Netflix Chooses Blu-ray
Drive another nail in the coffin of the HD-DVD format, because Netflix is going Blu-ray exclusive. For their high definition selection, they will only be stocking Blu-ray from now on and will be phasing out their HD-DVD selection by the end of the year. The decision comes in the wake of many major studios going Blu-ray exclusive from Disney to Time Warner. Now that Blockbuster and Netflix will only be carrying Blu-ray, it's going to be really difficult to find a place that has HD-DVD to rent.
The HD wars have been watched closely by the gaming community for the HD capabilities of Xbox 360 and PS3. My question to our faithful readers is, 'Has anyone been burned by the wars?' If so, what are you going to do now?
Netflix picks Blu-ray, good luck renting an HD DVD soon [Engadget]
Toots
Posted to Movies-DVDs on 11 February 2008
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: blu-ray, hd, hd dvd, netflix
I'm going to sit back and mock all of my friends who swore that HD-DVD would win the war. They all bought their 260 add-ons and started compiling HD-DVD collections.
I was content to sit it out and wait for a real winner to emerge and it's doing just that. Altho, I think I'm still going to wait to upgrade because I have a sinking feeling that Blu-Ray isn't long for this world either as direct download is fast approaching a more widespread and mainstream audience.
I still don't see the problem with regular DVDs. We keep seeing sales numbers of HD-DVD compared to Blu-Ray, but what I want to see is how the HD formats compare to regular old DVDs, becuase I have a sneaking suspicion that the average consumer doesn't care enough to move on.
DVD outsells both HD formats by at least 10 to 1..
A recently released film which escapes me sold 2,000 HD DVD and 9500 Blu Ray [considered a big success] while it sold about 100,000 regular DVD's..
Massively burned, yeah. I from the get go favored HDDVD primarily due to the lack of region coding and the ridiculous ammounts of DRM that blu ray touts. Being a movie fan, I often will import films I can't find anywhere else and region coding to me is the biggest devil around.
The disks were expensive, but I only bought high def releases for movies I really enjoyed and wanted to own in the best possible quality. With this news, I think I'll be bowing out of buying any new disks period.
Sure, I have a PS3 in addition to a 360 and Wii, but I bought that not for blu ray but for games and the ability to install the linux OS, but the games are just not comming fast enough and I have no interest in Final Fantasy, let alone Metal Gear Solid 4. The Linux functionality is crippled thanks to the lack of hardware acceleration so my ps3's been collecting dust since December.
The only blu ray disk I bought was Ratatouille, since it was hands down my favorite flick of 07 and I coudln't get it in HDDVD. For now, I think I'll honestly will stick to standard def dvds and rentals from Live Marketplace for my high def fix.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: HD-DVD is effectively dead.
Direct download won't replace physical media anytime soon, trust me. For one, HD content takes up a staggering amount of space on a hard drive, especially for a full movie. Plus, there's that hideously long download time. And most of all, people have a "collector's mentality" where movies are concerned. I know I prefer having a nice physical copy to only having a digital copy.
Until terebyte hard drives are a dime a dozen, direct download isn't going to replace physical media. Blu-Ray is going to be the HD standard for at least the next 10 years, you can bank on it.
And the DVD vs HD format thing is a non-sequiter, it's like comparing DVD vs. VHS sales. Of COURSE regular DVD sells more right now, everyone and their grandmother (literally) owns DVD players, sometimes more than one.