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."

Comments

A little meaning, perhaps

[jimicus]

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.

Re:Freedom to choose

[monk.e.boy]

Yet another win for BitTorrent, which allows you to pick your favorite HD format!

:-P

monk.e.boy

Re:Does this even matter?

[twistedsymphony]

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.

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.

I see the HD-DVD vs BRD debate along the same lines as the DVD-Audio vs SACD debate... which format one that war? NEITHER the equipment was over priced, crippled by DRM and only a fraction of the market owned the supporting equipment to fully utilize it nevermind become actually interested in it.... who won that war? technically it still rages on but the real victor was the MP3 and other digitally distributed forms of music... far and wide technically inferior to the DVD-A and SACDs but it's pretty apparent that consumers go for convenience over quality... at least in terms of their media.