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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."
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.
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.
Yet others of us are happy. I bought my PS3 as a bluray player first and potentially a console second. Now with the most recent firmware update it is also my upscaling DVD player and a wireless media extender for my mac.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
What's the file size of a HD movie, and how long will it take to download at 1.5 mbs?
The only service I've used that distributes a large number of HD movies online is the Xbox Live Marketplace on the 360. A 720p movie on there usually ranges from 6-7 GB which has takes 8-12 hours over my DSL line. Someone can correct me, but that size seems a bit small to be a true HD film. Most Blu-Ray/HD-DVD movies are 1080p, AFAIK. Besides the 360 & PS3, BR/HDDVD are the only ways to get a true 1080p image (no one broadcasts above 1080i). As the owner of a 1080p HDTV, that makes this format war all the more annoying.
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!
I watched a few DVD movies on it when 1.8 came out and I really couldn't believe they were the same DVD's I'd watched before.
Of course, the benefit of the upscaling on the PS3 would be mitigated if you already had a top notch scaler as a separate component, or have a TV with an excellent scaler. Unfortunately, external scalers are very expensive and most TV's have sub-par scalers.
I really hope Sony keeps up adding these killer features with each update as they've been doing. It's awesome.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
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.
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.
This is a good point. The really interesting thing about this decision will be that it will establish the current viability of Blockbuster's current business model. Is Blockbuster the force that moves this particular industry, or are they just a reactionary business at this point, trying to catch up. Also I don't see why Blockbuster would really have an opinion in this matter. They rent movies, who cares what the technology is, from their point of view, just as long as it moves out the door. To that point, it does seem that HD-DVD is being rented.
e _Disc
Personally, I like Hollywood Video, don't ask me why. The *very* small shelf that current contains the HD formats there is overwhelmingly dominated by Blu-Ray. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of HD-DVD titles versus Blu-Ray titles being offered for rent are the in the same ratio that is cited by Blockbuster. The stats seem flawed on this one.
For the record, I declared Blu-Ray the winner when I saw the Disney Blu-Ray promo on the "Cars" DVD. Not that it matters, the players are too damned expensive. I'm thinking another technology is going to force the adoption of HD players, but not for another 5 years or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatil
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
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!
You mean turds like Halo 3 that look like shit with last gen graphics and crappy online play(no dedicated servers and only 16 players per game)?
Or turds like Forza 2 that look worse than GT 4 on the PS2 and have hideous white specles all over the cars and can only run at 720p?
Or garbage like Shadowrun, that well just plain garbage.
Yeah, the rest of the console world is filled with envy that they are missing out on the usual library of crap on the Xbox. Again!
Worst hardware defects in console history
50 dollar charges every year to play online
Crappy graphics
Loudest console ever
No BluRay drive
The world is laughing at you pathetic Xbox fanboys.
Wow.. don't know what neighbourhood you live in. My Blockbuster (2 minute walk away) has three of the hottest "late teen/early 20s" college co-ed type girls working in it. Glad my wife doesn't know why I always go pick up the movies for her. (Can you blame me for posting A/C?!?!?)
Blu-ray: Scratch resistant coating, huge plus when the little dots are easily wiped out by scratches. Plays on PS3. Studio backing. HD-DVD: Plays on XBox 360 (with attachment). Already hacked! Honestly, I just want the HD quality. I don't care about the format. My preference is who is lighter on the DRM. Sony has a history of avid DRM usage - which really turns me off. If by passing on the better format, we send a message that we don't like DRM big companies start backing off the DRM bandwagon; we all win.
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush