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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."
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. -
Let's see, Blockbuster does basically the same thing as Netflics (ordering over the net with postal delivery) but you can drop the movies off at the store, if you want, so, yeah, I guess they are still relevant.
Easy...shelf space. Stocking both would essentially require them to stock two of everything, which isn't optimal if you're trying to provide a wide selection to your customers.
Digital distribution is the way of the future, not Blu-Ray or HD DVD discs. Isn't netflix already selling movie downloads?
For whom? Geeks with fancy computers hooked up to their TVs? The only digital distribution for movies I use is empornium.us for my fix because the local video store with a "back room" has a shit selection of what I want to watch and I don't like being taxed $8/video because there are no other porn peddling stores in town.
For the rest, I go to the Hollywood Video kiosk at the grocery store instead of the Hollywood Video brick and mortar store across the street or even to Blockbuster across the other street. It takes me exactly 15 seconds to pick something I want and pay for it. It takes me another 4 minutes to drive to and from the store. I'm out of my house and back in less than 10 minutes every time. Wake me up when the digital distribution is that fast (hint: it won't be until someone kicks McLeod in the fucking ass and they drag that last 75 feet of fiber that runs next to my house through my kitchen and into my NAT box upstairs).
1)Maybe it simplifies their procurement by having to only buy one format. 2)Also, stores don't have unlimited shelf space. If you stock two formats for every movie, doesn't that double the space needed for storage? 3)Probably a much less important consideration, but it would also eliminate the possibility of someone grabbing a movie from the incorrect format and having to bring it back.
Isn't netflix already selling movie downloads?
Yes, and it sucks. It's basically YouTube on 'roids; you have to watch it on a computer, and it's streamed (not really downloaded), and it's Windows-only. I've played around with it and found it interesting from a technical standpoint but otherwise totally uncompelling. And this is from someone who *does* have computers driving most of the TV monitors in their house.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And remember that DVD had the fastest penetration of any consumer format in history, mainly because it did offer something much better than VHS.
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?
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Paramount also backs HDDVDs.
Warner and Paramount are supporting both formats. Universal is exclusively HD-DVD, and the rest of the majors are exclusively Blu-Ray.
Between Warner and Paramount it looks like around 70-80 titles are currently available on both formats according to High-Def Digest's historical release lists.
Warner's been a little quicker about getting their HD-DVD titles out, so they have about 20 more titles that are still waiting for Blu-Ray releases.
Define clear winner. Toshiba has been heavily subsidizing its players to make them sell, yet it's still had to slash its 2007 sales estimates almost in half. Sales of Blu Ray discs outstrip HD DVD almost two to one and the format has the support and backing of the majority of electronics companies and every major studio except one.
It's not a question of if HD DVD will fail but when. Now perhaps some cheap HD DVD players will charge over the hill and save the day, but I think it may be too late for that.
That doesn't mean Blu Ray has set the world alight - it's still transitioning from early adopter to mainstream. But it looks inevitable that in a few years the only things selling in your local store will be DVDs and BDs.
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'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?
You've got it backwards. HD-DVD players are fully backward compatible with DVD. HD-DVD is an extension of the DVD format. Blu-Ray is the new format that's not compatible with standard DVDs.
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... ... And folks who prefer the lesser of two weevils (HDDVD = no region coding, slightly milder DRM, lower cost media, ability to play back HD home burns on non-HD media), and folks who enjoy the NBC/Universal exclusive catalog (such as _Heroes_, _Battlestar Galactica_, _Shaun of the Dead_, _The Big Lebowski_, etc.. And presumably other Uni features such as _Scarface_).
I still think Sony is stupid enough to keep licensing costs high enough for BD players up over $300 for quite awhile yet, while HDDVD will probably be first to go to China and come out in the states for less than $200. I'm thinking Toshiba branded players for $200 for XMas, Chinese knockoffs for $150 or so.
Folks don't have enough bandwidth for digital delivery of HD, and nobody's doing 1080p digital delivery yet AFAIK (everything I've seen on XBL is 720p)
The PS3 is a really good DVD/Blu-ray player. It had a in movie HUD similar to the PS2 except it's responsive and doesn't suck. It scales up significantly better then my HD-TV.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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
Right, because you can fit the same amount and quality of 50GB ~30mbit MPEG2 video onto a 9GB DVD disc. Even if MPEG4 looked just as good at 10mbit it would still be quite the feat.
Second, MPEG2 was mainly used for the initial Blu-ray releases. Casino Royale used AVC at around the same bitrate (~30mbit) and it looks fantastic. I don't even have a 1080p set. I highly doubt it would be possible to get even close to the same quality on DVD (in one disc mind you).
Finally, since it's not in the DVD spec, people would have to go out and buy new players even if DVD w/ MPEG4 was chosen as the new next gen format (and would also have to clear out their shelves to support the 5 disc movie releases in HD resolutions)
Apple is on Blu-Ray side
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http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=apple+blu-ra
Firmware 1.8 came with support for DLNA which is an industry standard protocol for allowing different media appliances to communicate with each other. To stream music, video and photos to my PS3, I simply install the free TwonkyMedia server on my Mac and the PS3 detects it on my wireless network. I can then browse my media on the PS3 while the Mac sits in the study.
Andy.
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.
Physical media isn't going anywhere soon. Have you even bothered to talk to anyone on the street? A large majority of people don't even know you can download/stream video using their computers. Most people know about getting music online.
At this point the majority is still technically minded people that know about getting movies online. Your average mom and pop have no idea. This could change in 10 years, but I wouldn't say that's "fast."
Let's look at the lesser of 2 evils here:
The Microsoft hater says: They write insecure code.
The Sony hater says: They unleashed a horrible trojan on the world inorder to monitor me
The Microsoft Hater has a choice of using different software, finding a new job, etc.
The Sony hater has no choice for music, if they want to purchase a legal physical copy.
Evil of Sony > Evil of Microsoft
You won't win if/when Sony wins. You will want to get some astro glide for your bum though.