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Blockbuster Chooses Blu-ray
s31523 writes "The format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray has posted another battle, this time the victor seems to be the Blu-ray side. Blockbuster has announced it has chosen Blu-ray as the HD format to rent out in the majority of its stores. This decision comes after rental data was looked at for the 250 stores that carry both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray with the majority of rentals being Blu-Ray. Blockbuster now plans to stock Blu-ray only in 1450 of it's stores, but says the 250 stores with the HD-DVD movies will be kept on the shelf."
"This decision comes after rental data was looked at for the 250 stores that carry both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray with the majority of rentals being Blu-Ray."
8 rentals versus 6?
Yet another win for Netflix, which allows you to pick your favorite HD format!
Someone's getting paid off. With no clear winner in the format war, it doesn't make sense that they would want to stock both.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. The war is over, Blue Ray won. Sad.
since i just finished reading the 'psychology of fanboys' story below. now we can see some in their native habitat.
my sig is an honor student
Are stores like Blockbuster still relevant in this day and age of digital downloads and Netflix?
More interesting will be to see what the retail giants do.
If Wal-Mart decides not to stock HD-DVD (or, for that matter, Blu-Ray) titles, then that's more interesting.
Myself, I think the idea of two formats which (unlike VHS/Betamax) are, at first glance, practically identical and come in very similar cases yet require different players is absurd. Unless and until either one wins or dual-format players become commonplace, there's going to be some very pissed off people when they get their shiny new film home only to find that it won't play.
Digital distribution is the way of the future, not Blu-Ray or HD DVD discs. Isn't netflix already selling movie downloads?
There's likely a lot more Blu-Ray players out there right now because of the PS3. While maybe some of you might think the PS3 isn't selling or hasn't sold enough units, they've sold several million of them - and that's nothing to sneeze at when you consider the the fact that HD players are still pretty new to market.
Evenrually, it'll be like a DVD-R/DVD+R situation - players will support both and that will be the end of it.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
One "advantage" of living in a depressed post-industrial area of the country - we are ahead of the curve in terms of business that will eventually no longer exist closing before everyone else. We lost our last CD stores years ago, and the one downtown bookstore closed just this year. Yippee.
Why on earth would they not just rent both? Its not like it costs them any money to rent another format. Dollars to donuts there is some behind the scenes payola or pressure going on here. I guess with all of their sales heading towards online rentals it probably doesn't matter, as they are still supporting it online.
As I remember it, it was the rental market that killed off Betamax. Whatever you might think of them (and few have a lower opinion than I do) the rental market, and Blockbusters in particular, has a massive influence. You can just see the average clueless consumer saying 'Why get HD DVD when Blockies only stocks Blu Ray'
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
The unfortunate thing about Blu-Ray is its BD+ DRM feature, which has not yet been turned on. While Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both use AACS, Blu-Ray's BD+ is an additional layer of DRM which has not yet been broken. The reason you aren't hearing about this is that people think Blu-Ray has been freed to the same extent that HD-DVD has, when this really isn't the case. All it will take is for Blu-Ray Disc publishers to start using BD+ on their titles (which we can expect to see in a few months) and at that point our hopes of ever seeing free HD disc player software will be dashed once again.
For now, as a user who wants to play HD content with free software, I'm going to advocate the use of HD-DVD and not Blu-Ray.
BB online will match netflix in that they will still have HDDVD, so how is this a win for netflix?
Is netflix starting a chain of B&M rental outlets to compete with BB?
If Bluray vs. HD-DVD is going to turn into another Betamax vs. VHS battle, it's going to suck for the consumer. VHS ultimately ended up winning over Betamax (obviously) but it took Sony 37 years to concede defeat. Sure most people were using VHS during that time, but the war was still being waged officially until not long ago, starting in 1975.
I hear a lot of people, and I mean a lot say they are waiting for the standards war to declare a winner before they pick a side. But with the way it's shaping up, (Netflix picking HD-DVD, Blockbuster picking Bluray) there doesn't seem that a winner will be declared any time soon. With that in mind, I can kiss off waiting until those technologies become more affordable until at least 2027!
What sort of shelf can fit 250 retail stores, exactly?
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huh, why does the blueray vs. hd-dvd battle remind you of that cool dialog?
"How to close the door after the horse has bolted." By the BlockBuster management
The future ain't DVD, of any format. The future be network distributed content, no matter what the US film industry wants you to think.
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Then whatever format wins will be actually useful by real people, so they can see the movies on any computer or TV they own, using any display they choose, and using any operating system. So they can back up their media (which always gets scratched or otherwise destroyed). And so they can view only the portions THEY want to see, and under "fair use" can create new works based on those products.
Copyright was created as a balance between the needs of initial authors vs. the needs of later authors and users, and DRM is trying to circumvent the law to upset the balance. With a little time, the balance should be restored.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
While this is somewhat interesting, the problem is that it doesn't matter at all. Neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray has managed to get any sort of decent penetration into the home market aside from enthusiasts. There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, there's price. I'm not just talking the price of players here, though that is a factor right now. The big thing is that the vast majority of people do not own televisions that will benefit from a higher-quality format. The cost of having a television that will benefit from this has to be added on to the startup cost, and that price hasn't seemed like it's gone down at all. Sure, you can get high-def 22" sets - but with a set that small, the difference between DVD and HD-format is pretty nullified. Again, only enthusiasts will notice a difference.
Another big reason is customer fatigue. DVDs have only relatively recently obtained high penetration in the home market - in no part thanks to cheap players from Walmart and other discount stores. Now customers are being asked once again to spend money to upgrade their collections... and as I said above, the startup price is not trivial for marginal improvement in quality. No, there are no MPAA-Nazis... oh, there are. My point is, no one is forcing them to upgrade - but on the other hand, the mass amount of customers just don't care.
Another thing I might point out is that the major indicator of trends - the porn industry - hasn't chosen a format yet. In fact, they're pretty much eschewing physical media for the internet. So, were I to be a betting man, I'd say that an online format is going to be the next big thing - and we're already seeing that with sites like YouTube.
So, in the long run, this isn't really news at all, this is just a blip on the radar.
I am a bit puzzled by Disney being a BR only studio. I thought they were in bed with Apple and that HD-DVD was what Apple was backing? Isn't Steve a major Disney shareholder now? I saw where the CEO of Disney came out with a big push that they were fully committed to BR. Can anyone shed some light on that? This seems contrary to Apple's push to have their hand in all things multimedia.
"I think trying to make a format decision using such a short time period is really not measuring what the consumer is saying," said Ken Graffeo, co-president of the group[North American HD DVD Promotional Group].
If blockbuster had decided in favor of HD-DVD I bet he would have said "I think Blockbuster is making a decision based on what people want and it is a good move for them strategically." He is only bitching because they didn't pick the HD-DVD format, deal with it!
Most people won't care.
Good for Blockbuster and other companies for trying to end the format war. They understand that without a clear victor, people will shy away from it and wait to buy a player.
Forget Playstations and XBoxes, the real market, the mass market is when Joe Consumer wants to replace his DVD player or VCR. If he thinks it will become obsolete (Betamax), is too expensive, or just doesn't have any noticeable improvement, he won't do it.
The last point is the most interesting. Most new "HD-Capable" tvs aren't much better resolution then a progressive-scan DVD can produce. What Joe Consumer probably has it connected to his tv with is old composite video or (ghasp!) even cable. He may still have a TV without AV input.
Why waste money? He just wants the content. DVD is fine. It's cheap. He has one or several players already.
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I predict that BlueRay and HD-DVD won't even make a splash as they sink without trace. ok they may sell some in the US where they have 3rd world levels of bandwidth, but the rest of the world is going to be downloading it's HD movies to HD PVRs... legally or not...
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Blockbuster is owned by Viacom. Viacom owns Paramount Pictures. Paramount is one of the proponents of Blu-Ray.
Is it true that most Blue Ray titles are using MPEG2?
That means that the extra space of the disc is wasted. DVD9-MPEG4 could be the same quality and resolution of BD-MPEG2.
That is exactly the reason why the most-popular products generally have inefficient packaging.
You would still see more of this in grocery stores if it hadn't been for the development of "store brands".
When on earth did Netflix pick HD? I must be missing something here... or more likely you are. Namely that Netflix, like BBOnline, supports both.
-Daniel
Nah, it should be "its stores" or is it "it's stores" or is it "it's store's" or even "its store's"
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I know that the Blue-ray vs. HD-DVD war was often cast like VHS vs. BETA-max. Beta was of course a better technology which lost out to better marketing and costs. It seems that in the digital era the same economics are not in play. Blue-ray is (I'm pretty sure) the better technology and it seems to be winning. Good.
I am still holding out for beta to take hold of the market... its time has almost come!
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Don Eklund, senior vice president of advanced technology for Sony Pictures, has gone on record as saying:
"Advanced formats don't necessarily improve picture quality. Our goal is to present the best picture quality for Blu-ray. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that's with MPEG-2."
I guess if they used MPEG4, the same quality movie would fit on a DVD.
Can anyone confirm this? Is Blue ray still using low compression (meaning limited quality) MPEG2?
Its like "Buggy Whips, Inc chooses Naugahide over Vinyl". I can't remember the last time I bought/rented a movie on a disk.
I guess the dying industries need to get into the news somehow.
So sad.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
I choose neither HD or BR. Fuck them both in the butt with a big rubber hose. I'm not going to go out and drop an insane amount of money for content that is marginally better than what I'm getting already.
Wake me up when the next new format is out, and for the love of god make it just one format everyone can agree on next time. Blue-HD-Ray or some damn thing...
I'm not saying which one you should prefer, but lots of people either hate HD-DVD or Blu-ray on irrational basis. For example, "HD-DVD players break too much! (even though I don't own them and the current generation is just fine)" or "I hate Sony/BMG, therefore I will boycott all of Sony (even though the connections between various divisions of such a large company are extremely slim)." Some people are even so foolish as to have decided-retroactively, of course-that the format they purchased is the superior one because, well... they spent a lot of money!
There is no reason to hope both lose. I'd really hate to be suck with DVDs for several years while the next-next-gen media gets its act together, and probably does the exact same thing all over again.
Me, I prefer Blu-ray because Sony takes their recordable-data business seriously and they're getting that stuff to market much faster. You might prefer something else, like HD-DVD because the hardware is a bit cheaper. Either way, there are plenty of rational non-fanboy reasons to prefer formats. The most irrational view I can think of is your position. How would the completely failure of the new media types benefit the market or consumers?
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Anyone who owns a projector or a large screen will tell you that HD is great for a quality picture, especially at 90"+. So what I really hope for is that the studios will release in both formats, not the hodgepodge that we have currently. I got enough gift cards to purchase the 360 HD-DVD player for a reasonable price, but I don't want to purchase the PS3 until the price comes down. So having both formats available for a given movie is beneficial for me; having either BB or Netflix "standardize" on one format is not good for as there is no incentive for studios to release on both formats. On the other hand, one format would also be nice...
DRM is fundamentally flawed, and hence can and always will be broken should the need arise. If BD+ starts getting used, BD+ will start being broken.
It wouldn't matter if something you stick in your PC had God-DRM mark XIV or whatever magical DRM the movie industry has wet dreams about, it's still DRM and it's still just as breakable.
Digital distribution is the way of the future, not Blu-Ray or HD DVD discs. Isn't netflix already selling movie downloads?
Microsoft sure thinks this is the way. That's why they backed HD-DVD, to try and keep the format war going long enough to make sure Microsoft is in control of the majority of digital distribution via Live and to fragment physical formats.
However, what is not being factored in here are two issues:
1) Size and thus quality of downloads.
2) DRM
You can download HD media today, but even the 720p stuff Microsoft offers takes a while. As 1080p sets become more popular, there simply are not a lot of people who will be able to download 1080p versions of movies over the network, for many many years to come as fiber is slowly built out to homes. A physical Blu-Ray disc offers 50 GB of storage - how long will it be before you can download anything near that amount in any kind of reasonable time? Even with torrents a few GB can take a while.
On top of that, the video people buy online is not really very transferable - Apple comes close by being able to also put video on an iPod, but it's still not something you can share. So people will be inclined to buy some video online, but if they really like a show or movie still pick up a physical disc for that just so they can share it or carry it around between devices easier.
P.S. Yes Netflix offers movies, but not all of them and only online streaming. A cool way to check out a bit of this or that but not very practical for watching whole movies, and nowhere near the quality even of DVD, much less Blu-Ray!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's just silly. I have old DVD drives for the computer that I've had for a decade, used heavily, and they still keep on truckin'. My old DVD player is over 8 years old, survived five moves, and played perhaps thousands of DVD's. No problems.
It's a silly concern.
Besides, the discs in these game systems now spin almost constantly. On the PS1, it was to play audio tracks. On the PS2 and beyond, it was to continually load little bits of game content as you navigate around the game. The disc almost never stops spinning.
I'd venture to say that playing games is worse for the drive then playing a movie. When you play a game, if the disc DOES spin down sometimes, it does so a lot. Lots of spinning up and down, and when it spins up, it spins to the maximum speeds to get the data as quickly as possible. When you play a movie, the disc spins much slower, and at a constant velocity. It's like city driving versus highway driving..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
No, no, you want to keep up the format war until all the DRM mechanisms on all of them are thoroughly and completely destroyed... so that the folly of DRM will be obvious to all, quickly, instead of having a long-drawn-out waste of time.
It's best to have one format for this though so hackers don't have to split efforts. And then the other format can't shift to offer new DRM that we have to crack again.
When there's only one format, when it's cracked it stays cracked. Just need to take out BD+ at this point and we're all set, HandbrakeHD here we come!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Blockbuster chose Blu-Ray. Porn chose HDDVD. Blockbuster is becoming incresingly irrelevant and is (IMO) heading straight for bankruptcy. Porn isn't. How has this choice "won" the battle?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
While this is somewhat interesting, the problem is that it doesn't matter at all. Neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray has managed to get any sort of decent penetration into the home market aside from enthusiasts. There are a couple of reasons for this.
While your reasons are good, the bigger reason is simply that there ARE two formats. A lot of people are waiting for one to fail. So when one format fails, adoption of the remaining format will be much brisker.
I do not think studios will allow a dual format contest for a great length of time, I'd say HD-DVD is closed down sometime next year, probably early.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's a shame it's going this way. I was an early supporter of Blu-ray, but now I'd be much happier to see HD DVD win (or at least live on for a while).
Reasons to support BD:
- Sony & Disney catalogs
- More storage
Reasons to support HD DVD:
- Universal catalog
- Less DRM, no region codes (imports!)
- Easier to author your own content
- No censorship by factories
Reasons to hope both stay alive:
- Price wars
I rent DVD's from the Hollywood Video store near my house. They have had HD-DVD for some time now, but this week, all a sudden, they now have an equal number of BlueRay as well. Interesting.
-Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
Well, maybe 'clueless' was a trifle strong but we /.ers would probably make up our minds on technical issues - especially as we tend to download rather than rent - but the technically clueless will use availability as a major deciding factor.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Actually in Beta/VHS the better format won - and by better I mean technical aspects:
1) You could set a timer on VHS recorders before before Beta.
2) VHS had Hi-Fi a year earlier.
3) VHS had remotes earlier.
4) VHS opted for a larger tape size that allowed more recording time.
5) VHS offered extending recording modes earlier
Yes Beta had somewhat better video. But that was it, and there are many more technical aspects to a home video recorder than just quality - through the whole war VHS managed to be more useful on the whole as a recording device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've seen recently that a local Borders was listing a movie in 3 formats, DVD, HD, Blueray. I had hoped that they really were putting HD on DVD so I could play it in MythTV but what they really were selling was the standard DVD format, and 2 HD formats( HD-DVD, Blueray ). IMO, HD-DVD is confusing the market since it does not support the DVD format and is a new format( not DVD ) which also happens to be HD. I know the difference but do you think Joe or Jone Sixpack is going to know what it all means?
To the Walmart mention, I doubt that anybody who's purchasing an HD player is going to be doing much shopping at Walmart anytime soon. It'll be a couple of years before prices of players hit the $100-$200 range and current game consoles including these are in the $500-$600 range. So I would not be looking for Walmart to jump onto the HD movie format bandwagon anytime soon.
LoB
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I don't see the point of all this Haitch Dee Tee Vee. I can barely see 625 lines. There's no way I'll be able to see 1080 lines!
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easy, because BB has committed to keeping higher priced media in its B&M
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
over 4.5 million Blu-Ray players, vs 200,000 HD-DVD players...
Seem the only people that think there is still a format war, are Xbox360 HD-DVD add-on owners, and 80,000 vocal standalone HD-DVD owners...
You're probably completely correct -- it's almost certainly about stockroom and shelf space. But a bigger question is: how serious is this commitment? It's probably not serious at all; Blockbuster already somehow liquidates tens of thousands of surplus DVDs every week. (How many copies of "Failure to Launch" do you think they held on to after that one came off the New Releases shelf?) If they blow this choice, how long do you think it'll take them to completely reverse field and move to HD-DVD only? Two weeks? And what's the amortization on a Blu-Ray movie? I bet, after a discount for buying in bulk, they pay one off in less than 10 rentals. A hollow victory for Blu-Ray, if Blockbuster can really turn around and switch its decision in a month or two.
Anyway, note how the article says HD-DVD titles will still be available online. About what percentage of technology-focused, cutting-edge videophiles do you think go into a Blockbuster to rent the video they consume?
> Everyone I know with an HDTV has some form of "On Demand" for getting HD movies... I don't know a single person who owns either an HD-DVD or BRD player.
Then you need to get out more. I've had an HDTV since late 2001 and I don't subscribe to cable HD service -- I get a superior OTA signal for free from the major networks, and I'm not interested in the price or most of the content offered by cable HD service. I also own a PlayStation 3, so I automatically have Blu-Ray playback capability, and now I rent and buy movies exclusively in Blu-Ray format when available.
I don't want to have to wait for hours to download an HD movie and play it back from my computer through some dongle or device to my HDTV, and I don't want to have to devote an array of hard drives to keeping a reasonably-sized movie collection handy. For me, having the movie on its own disc is still the most convenient option. And with a Netflix or Blockbuster Total Access account I can keep a steady stream of HD movies coming through my home without any tech overhead or lead time.
Also, I personally know at least two other people with PS3s who are building Blu-Ray collections, and my local Blockbuster's Blu-Ray section always seems to have the latest discs checked out when I try to rent them, so I must not be alone.
> The cost of ownership is significantly lower too... pay your cable/satellite company $5 for the movie you want to see using the equipment you already have or buy a $500+ player and go to the store (or wait for delivery of) a rental + however much that costs.
Online rental services drive the cost per movie well below $5 with decent volume, and if you already own a PS3 for gaming, the Blu-Ray player is basically free. Plus, on-demand HD movies are usually 720p and more heavily compressed, while Blu-Ray movies are 1080p and not as bandwidth-constrained. Even if you count the cost of a disc player, the cost of ownership will still be lower over time, and you'll get a better quality image. You can also legally lend your disc-based movies to other people for free, which isn't possible with on-demand.
> the real victor was the MP3 and other digitally distributed forms of music...
The day you can download an entire HD movie in the time it currently takes to download an MP3 is the day your comparison will start to make sense.
As Blockbuster currently operates 5,192 stores, I find it odd that they would use the two formats in only 250 of its stores.
I am on the road crew. This is my stop sign.
I don't want Sony to win a format war cause that's one of the signs of the Apocalypse! Now if Microsoft starts selling Linux and Disney starts supporting DRM-free media distribution, we're all DOOMED!!
[Insert pithy quote here]
that was one of the last to rent DVD's. I had my machine for 2 years before they stared renting them. So their track record isn't very good. They should hedge their bets and support both.
Is there some reason this "unbreakable" DRM scheme can't simply be ported to HD DVD players if it's so wonderful?
I have an XBOX 360 and plan on getting the HD-DVD add-on and a burner for my computer. The PS3 isn't selling well... Who's renting/buying this Blu-ray shit?
Blockbuster already rents PS3 games, so that gave them another way to track BluRay's market penetration. Basically, everyone who rents a PS3 game is also a candidate to rent a BluRay movie. They could put a big sign next the PS3 game shelf that says "Check out our selection of new BluRay movies."
With HD DVD things aren't so simple.
Either way, I still think that the war will be decided by which format Wal-mart chooses for it's sub $200 player, come black Friday. Rumor seems to think it will be HD DVD, so let's not count them out yet.
because the market/consumers have no real need of new media types, and the few of them who actually understand that know that the push for HD media is tied to stricter forms of DRM instead of tangible benefits to consumers? That seems rational enough for me.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
The Pope has chosen the rhythm method over abstinence in the next gen contraceptive war.
---k--
</stupid>
I don't see how this designates any winners.
For all these reason it doesn't matter what blockbuster, netflix, family video, walmart or any other place pick. By the time the format war is over they will have a new format available or will finally make all movies downloaded to a set top box like tivo at a one time price...this of course when they release the first 50TB (been talked about in the 5 year technology plan). Then you will never run out of space and you can buy any movie online for cheap with no late fees (ever)!
Until then I side with BitTorrent as the winner cause they have movies in any format you want!
since most of the friends I have with ps3's use them as movie players more than game consoles.
Music and movies are "consumed" differently. While Audiophiles have been looking for a high end solution, SA-CD and DVD-A promised that, that isn't how most music is consumed. The formats that Audiophiles normally listen to are different, because they normally listen to classical music that benefits from the audio, or jazz and alternative genres where the quality matters. However, the most popular music genres are Pop and Country, which don't benefit from the new formats. Since audio masters are evaluated quickly on what "sounds best," the ear is trained to pick the louder version (especially for Rock) without listening to subtleties. As a result, Pop and Rock masters are generally mixed to sound "loud" which compresses the sound into a small fraction of the range available to the CD. With that mastering reality, and no matter how many sound engineers suggest turning up the volume instead of destroying the audio range, Pop CDs just don't benefit from superior audio. Country is even more vocal heavy than Pop, and the 5.1 separation or expanded audio range doesn't show up there.
The fact is, most music is 1) listened to in the car on the radio or CD player, 2) by teenagers hanging out with their friends, 3) commuting urbanites on mass transit, or 4) someone looking for background music while working on the computer. Very listen music is listened to in a dedicated environment designed to maximize quality.
As a result, unless one is choosing to listen to music in an ideal way, MP3s or mini-discs which compress the music sound "about the same" in the non-ideal environment. The subtleties of music are irrelevant in a noisy car or while at the gym.
Movies are consumed in a variety of ways. Families may play a movie in the car, may watch it in the family room/living room in a relaxed environment, or may use a dedicated home theatre room. While the latter is the minority, it's not the extreme minority that music listening is.
For music, portability is key, and the ability to pop a CD in at a friend's house is important, but the ability to take your digital audio in MP3 and/or AAC/WMA and have a CD in a few minutes is part of why digital audio is popular.
For video, there just isn't a demand for portable viewing... sure the video iPod or iPhone will be popular with urban commuters, but that is are relatively small percentage of the population. The ability to grab a DVD and pop it in the kid's room, in the home theatre, etc., makes a difference.
Within a few years, either of the high definition players will crowd out conventional DVD players, because distribution costs and desire for profitability will prevent the DVD player from dropping under the $30 it is at now, and the high def players are already "cheap," sub-$500 for a cutting edge technology is historically cheap, and within two years we'll probably be under $200, and the under $100/$50 range will come within a few years. At that point, new sales of DVD players will taper-off.
The reasons that portable and digital music is so popular don't really apply to video, as they are watched differently. Most adults simply don't have the desire for handheld video (handheld televisions were NEVER mainstream, while walkmans took off like crazy when they came out).
The market for "high end" video is a larger niche... probably 5%-10% of middle to upper-middle class homes have a home theatre setup, and many more have "nice" televisions that would benefit from HDTV... If the studios were smart (and they aren't), they'd ship the dual-layer DVD/BR discs at the same price, eliminating the DVD option, which would cause rapid adoption. However, they are looking to increase the prices for HD formats, which may be their undoing. However, as Car DVD players become Car BR-DVD (or HD-DVD), and the HiDef DVDs become common, the format will take off.
The problem, IMO, is that if I have 3-4 DVD players in a house (not unreasonable, Family room, Master bedroom, plus one or more kids rooms), even if I replace the family room DVD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
That's asinine, how about just advocating NO DRM? Both formats are DRM encumbered... how is advocating the one with less DRM going to fix things? It'll make things easier on hackers, but it certainly won't make the situation ideal. No DRM is the goal here.
When will one of these new formats support my $300 1536p CRT?
Millions of Playstation3s already have BluRay players in homes around the world, and they're only about a half-year old.
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make install -not war
It's a real shame people will fight this kicking and screaming until the bitter end.
Doesn't the UD format include both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD? What would have to change in "Blu-Ray" and "HD-DVD" players, like Xbox, PS3, and "player only" decks for one kind of UDF disc to play in the other's player? HW, or just firmware/software? Or maybe just a completely virtual license agreement?
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make install -not war
Seven versus...FOUR!
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I'd venture a guess and say that it is too soon to write HD DVD off as well. Blu Ray got off to a good start with the bundle of PS3 owners. And I suspect their curiosity has something to do with the 7 to 4 sales ratios. But PS3 sales have slowed. HD DVD player's sales figures for the stand-alone machines has risen since May's price drop. The Xbox 360's figures aren't factored in to the report that I had read, but that unknown must account for a hundred thousand perhaps. I'd think that Blockbuster would do well to re-evaluate that policy in a few months as the market swings to pick up the new HD DVD owners.
Eventually a clear winner will be had, but I'd guess that we won't know who it is until this holiday season. And it would probably be charted in player sales figures of millions over the next guy. And not just the few hundred thousand that the current spread is.
Any way, I do think the first person was right - someone must be getting a nice kick-back for the exclusive stocking of Blu-Ray discs at Blockbuster. Because it's way to early to tell who is winning. Come on HD DVD guys, you have to be more competitive to catch those dollar bills!
So, how long till someone makes a HDDVD/BRD player and no one give's a crap?
Well not really, but more of an anti Sony fanboy, so my hopes is that HD-DVD wins the battle. It has all the underpinnings to win -- price, distribution, and factories already set to create the media.
That said... If we look at Blockbuster's history, we know that they will choose the wrong format and just further their competitors. A business whose model used to be that late fees would produce the majority of revenue, has such brilliant leadership that obviously, Blu-Ray is going to win.
Oh... I forgot that tag.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Blockbuster chose Blu-Ray. Porn chose HDDVD.
That was the story for a week or two after CES.
Google for 'porn bluray'.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
- dad(or mom) can I rent a hi def movie? - sure kid - whats best hd-dvd or blu-ray? - we got dvd's at home - probably same as hd-dvd; those marketing types'll try pulling... - get blu-ray
A man spends the first half of his life accumulating stuff, the second trying to get rid of it all.
It's called a pilot.
1 "Naa, it's not really logical at all. The PS2 was released in 2000. The PS3 was released six years later, and it shares almost none of the same components (the only shared components are the chips in the PS3 to allow PS1/2 games to play.) It's an entirely new machine."
the reply to you said ps 1 and 2 had the same problem, so i wont go into this argument
2 "Sell enough of anything, and people will have trouble. Just like anything else. "Don't buy that car, the windshield wipers are shitty! I know because mine went bad and so did my buddy Chucks"
so you ARE in the sales business eh? dont say how shit like this is anecdotal. thats what the internet is here for. there are far more people saying ps 1 and 2 had shitty parts, than lets say you, possibly some sort of sock puppet, saying you have never seen one with that problem. this is not anecdotes, its statistics. you vs many, and statistically, i bet there is a lot of stuff y9ou have never seen, bu im willing to bet it exists in spite of not having your gracious acknowledgemnet.
3 "Yea, me too. I have a pretty nice DVD player; it cost me a bunch of money when I got it. It still looks very good but it doesn't look nearly as nice as a standard DVD in the PS3. The PS3's upscaling is top notch; it doesn't just stretch out the picture to fit the high resolution, it really enhances sharp lines, contours, and colors. It's great!"
ok, ok ppl will say that u might be a fanboy, but that last one sounded like a sales pitch to me, so one more quote from the same post...
4 "I really hope Sony keeps up adding these killer features with each update as they've been doing. It's awesome."
gar duh, i really lub da shony, ps3 is teh l33t system ftw, ima gonna tell yus all on der intarweb
The defeat of blu-ray and the acceptance of HDDVD would have been great, for 4 reasons:
1. The PlayStation would finally die.
2. HD-DVD's DRM is almost as easy to kill as DVDs, and there's no region-locking
3. Sure, there's less place on a HD-DVD, but it's currently enough for most 1080i/p (or whathaveyou) HD videos. Lord of The Rings being the only exception.
4. From what I recall, HD-DVDs are less prone to scratches
However...
1. Microsoft support HD-DVD. No good can come out of that, sorry. Maybe if it was the Labs speaking independantly, but as long as it's Monkey-boy at the helm, it's a bad sign.
2. Sony's PS3 runs Linux. So more Linux PCs and another possible attack on Nintendo, or the final death of a bad idea?
Here's hoping *some* good will come out of this.
Translation: Their dicks are being sucked by Disney and Sony. Not that I've felt like renting from them in the past 3 years (something about packing their shelves with garbage... oh wait, it's the film industry that's to thank for that).
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"
It isn't that Warner is being quicker about HD DVD release. It's that the titles with advanced interactivity like the Matrix require features not supported in extant BD players. For example, a secondary video decoder for picture-in-picture.
Those features aren't required in any BD player released before Nov 1st.
My video compression blog
Viacom spun off Blockbuster back in 2004.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
We purchased a Pioneer TV that has a built-in CableCard slot. Unbeknownst to my dad, it's only CC1 compliant (as are all cablecard readers right now because CC2 isn't out yet), but doesn't have any means of communicating back to the cable card company. So, rather than dish out the extra money for a digital tuner (they are cheap and complain enough as it is for paying for standard cable, imaging hearing them complain about the digital starter packages would be too much for me to bear), they just watch the local programs that are in 720p and watch everything else in either 480i (regular cable and TiVo [series 2]) or 480p (dvd's).
For some reason I've always thought that the "you insensitive clod" phrase was from Mad Magazine, but Wikipedia says that it's from Calvin and Hobbes. Am I imagining things again?
And it's not even close. The Oppo 981 does a nice job, but it can't invent detail.
And for the Planet Earth Fans, the bitrate compromised version on Directv's DiscoveryHD is clearly inferior to the blu-ray discs (50% bitrate), and with Sigourney Weaver replacing the narrator to boot.
It's funny hearing people continue to write that resolution doesn't matter, when they don't have the ability to see it in the first place. I certainly wouldn't pay $30 to for a romantic comedy, but for the movies where detail matters, it's a huge step forward.
their copies of "the prestige" and other blu-ray titles don't rot like some are currently doing..
I think this will be a bad move on blockbusters part. Unless they carry both versions I have strong doubts on the effectiveness and popularity of the Blu-Ray disks especially after that stuff sony tried to pull with their CD scandal. DVD is how it's going to be. I forsee a drop in blockbuster market shares from this. Unless you use a sony influenced DVD player Blue RAy disks won't work on it. We shall see, all we can do at this time is speculate and point and laugh if they fall on their faces.
See the truth, and speak only what is true. Rise up and Know yourself and what is around you.
I can see myself looking fondly back on your post 5 years from now and seeing how it has dated. 50GB will be paltry to download by then.
Here's what I had FIVE years ago. Sprint DSL, about 8Mb asynch. Oops, not proftiable, canceled.
Here's what I had FOUR years ago. Fiber to the curb, from WideOpenWest. 10MB (yes MB!!!) down and up. Had to move, limited trial, company absorbed by Comcast or the like and terminated. Dead.
Here's what I had TWO years ago. Comcast Cable modem. Something like 4Mb down, 256k up.
Here's what I have TODAY. Comcast Cable Modem, Gold Service ($10 extra a month). 5Mb down, 756k up (could be wrong about the down, irellevent to me for what I do).
I have gone BACKWARDS in five years. I have seen many fiber to the curb efforts start and falter (used to be partly involved with a PacBell effort along those lines that folded as well). So don't go telling me about how I'mm enjoy 50GB/sec downloads in FIVE YEARS before I zip off in my flying car, because you are living in a freaking fantasy world.
The truth is the US is a huge space, and we are looking at DECADES with a capital D to get fiber to most major metro areas across the US. My original message was in the back of my mind deriding a time period of 10 years for that speed of line, but I think expecting widespread network access that can deliver 50GB even in the time it would take to watch a movie is really being optimistic - and I am a very optimistic guy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Another thing I forgot to mention, is that to me it seems way more likley we'll have practical hologrpahic storage in five years than mass delivery of networking that can deliver 50GB of data in some reasonable timeframe. That means probably a terrabyte on a CD....
It holds true, and will be true for some time to come, that a station wagon (or FedEx truck) is the fastest network of all given a large enough dataset. Even if it's not flying.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.