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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!
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
What sort of shelf can fit 250 retail stores, exactly?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
"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.
Deleted
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.
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.
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. -
Blockbuster is owned by Viacom. Viacom owns Paramount Pictures. Paramount is one of the proponents of Blu-Ray.
Parser error: you used "wide selection" and "Blockbuster" in the same thought.
Blockbuster only stocks "hits". And not for very long, at that.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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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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.
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
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