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Blockbuster chooses Blu-ray; is the war over?

Since bought my PS3 I've been getting my BD movies from Netflix - that is until about two weeks ago when I ventured back in to my local Blockbuster. Much to my surprise they had every Blu-Ray title that was still 'Long Wait' on Netflix.

Combine that with Blockbuster's on-line Total Access and it's a great deal. Every time I finish watching a movie I received from the on-line store I can swap it for another BD title at the brick and mortar. Plus I get two coupons per month for free game rentals (they have PS3 titles). Unlimited rentals (one at a time) for $9.99 per month. Needless to say, I dropped Netflix. Oh, and my Blockbuster does Blu-Ray almost exclusively from what I've seen. I've only spotted one HD-DVD title available on the shelf - it was a DVD/HD-DVD combo. Don't remember the title though...
 
edesignuk said:
Not a chance. Not for a good while yet anyway. I don't know how things are in the rest of the world but here in the UK virtually everyone's broadband is capped one way or another. Be it actually stopping you after a certain limit is reached or seriously reducing your speeds. Downloading vast amounts of HD content (namely movies) by the masses is just not viable, the internet as it stands would be brought to a stand still.
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Out where I live, a very large number of my friends live out where broadband is not available without spending several hundred dollars for a satellite dish and $80 a month for minimal speeds.
 
To the original topic: This hurts HD-DVD, badly. I'd rather see HD-DVD win for various reasons (one being that historically Sony has always been like Microsoft when it comes to formats; anyone remember the Sony BMG "copyright protection" in the form of rootkits?). But honestly either disk can hold 5-6 hours of HD content easily, so I really don't care that badly who wins. If I had a choice I'd go for HD-DVD as the winner.

I think a lot of people here are picking Blu-ray just for the fact that Apple announced support for it onstage and are quietly ignoring the fact that Apple has always silently been supporting HD-DVD as well (they are part of the DVD Forum) and all their software supports both.

I chose not to purchase anything because I don't want to be stuck with the loser. HD-DVD was winning by a vast margin initially, but Blu-ray sales started surpassing HD-DVD after the PS3 launch. It's kind of funny really; the amount of people who have bought a PS3 is VERY small compared to other consoles, only around 3 million or so, but even that is larger than the amount of people who bought HD-DVD.

Neither format is selling well at all, when a game console outsells one of the formats.

I'd attribute the pitiful sales of both formats to customer confusion and high price. And a lot of people don't have HD yet.
 
GFLPraxis said:
Out where I live, a very large number of my friends live out where broadband is not available without spending several hundred dollars for a satellite dish and $80 a month for minimal speeds.
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Not to worry. Soon they will be getting their HD content via their iPhones.
 
Glad to hear it...now we can get past all of this HD-DVD Vs. Blu-Ray crap. It made sense for BB to pick up BR since they state over 70% of their HD rentals are blu-ray.

I rather blu-ray myself with the storage/interactive menus etc. although I see no difference in picture quality..I have both player so I know whats going on.

PS3 pushed those sales right up which is what Sony was hoping for.




Bless
 
I see the war ending differently and it ending like the DVD -R+ amd DVD-R- war. End up the burners became duel formate and the DVD drives all where dual formate. I have a feeling the same thing will happen here.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
I see the war ending differently and it ending like the DVD -R+ amd DVD-R- war. End up the burners became duel formate and the DVD drives all where dual formate. I have a feeling the same thing will happen here.
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Or things could go the VHS/Betamax way...
 
Wow, a lot of the early posts are way off base.

I have players for both. The two formats are 90% identical, the differences are the physical disk format, the interactivity layer, Blu-Ray can hold more and has a 2nd level of content encryption beyond AACS. What really matters are the codecs and they both support the same ones -- the best being Microsoft's VC1 for video and Dolby True HD for audio.

Personally I hoped HD-DVD would win because Sony and Philips tried to hijack the format and started this format war. But it's pretty clear Blu-Ray has the momentum now and HD-DVD would need a miracle. New releases have slowed to a trickle, and Toshiba is the only company making players. Microsoft makes a drive for the 360, but they'd rather see you download over XBox Live than get a disc.

At first HD-DVD had the lead as the Blu-Ray launch went horribly wrong (Samsung had the only player, a buggy one at that, at $1000). Then all the PS3 delays. HD-DVD had the momentum.

Then it swung completely the other way. In the end, as I predicted it comes down to the movies, and thus the studios that support which formats.

Warner, Toshiba's biggest ally, does both formats. The only studio exclusive to HD-DVD is Universal. There are several other studios exclusive to Blu-Ray, notably Fox, Sony, and Disney. Given that, Blu-Rays success was all but inevitable. The rest of the studios do both formats.

This format war was completely unneccessary. I'm not happy to see Sony win given their hijacking of the format, but somebody's got to win so let's get it over with. It's over as soon as Universal says it will do both. Blockbuster's decision will help nudge them in this direction.
 
Belly-laughs said:
Soon we´ll have full HD movie downloads at good speed from iTMS and others. I know I´d rather have a disk with all my movies than a shelf full of plastic covers.

So yes, the format war is over. Didn´t you know? The disc is dead.
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Never! I'll always want to rip, but downloading HD movies just isn't there yet. (I have XBox live and have done it; have you?). It's fine for rentals (assuming you can wait hours/days for a download). But I want to own some movies. And take them from room to room (or home to home). Not so easy to do that with a download, especially when oppressive DRM is factored in.

Then let's gaze into the future, when a movie is ONLY available for limited viewings and no other way. When they go download-only, they can start putting draconian rules on how and when you can watch a movie you "own". Anybody remember the original "Divx", the pay-per-view DVD?

So I think wonks like me will always want a physical format. But the masses may settle for downloads.
 
edesignuk said:
Not a chance. Not for a good while yet anyway. I don't know how things are in the rest of the world but here in the UK virtually everyone's broadband is capped one way or another. Be it actually stopping you after a certain limit is reached or seriously reducing your speeds. Downloading vast amounts of HD content (namely movies) by the masses is just not viable, the internet as it stands would be brought to a stand still.
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I concur. However I do see neither format performing very well, maybe it's me and my upscaling DVD player but I'm not too keen on paying double for a film on a HD format than regular DVD. What's the extra detail giving me? A better film?

Anyroad. I do believe downloads are the future. The first company to bring out a set top box that downloads HD films is going to win. I say this with a 512kbps internet connection.

DVD is here till the next big thing. And that's neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.
 
janstett said:
But it's pretty clear Blu-Ray has the momentum now and HD-DVD would need a miracle. New releases have slowed to a trickle, and Toshiba is the only company making players.
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Now now...I wouldn't put it quite that way.

Blu-ray is kicking HD-DVD all over the place right now, but BOTH have pitiful sales. The majority of Blu-ray players is the poorest-selling console. More people watch movies than play games, so the fact that the game systems are selling better means adoption rates are still extremely low.

I think the first player to hit sub-$200 or sub-$100 is going to take off rapidly. The vast majority of people have simply not invested in either format. I don't know anybody with a HD-DVD or Blu-ray player.
 
raggedjimmi said:
I concur. However I do see neither format performing very well, maybe it's me and my upscaling DVD player but I'm not too keen on paying double for a film on a HD format than regular DVD. What's the extra detail giving me? A better film?
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If that's the case, watch VHS. Having better resolution makes the same movie better than on an inferior format. I've done the upscaling DVD players, the HD formats are simply better. You can't create detail that isn't there. Movies being constant, why wouldn't you want the highest quality presentation?



raggedjimmi said:
Anyroad. I do believe downloads are the future. The first company to bring out a set top box that downloads HD films is going to win. I say this with a 512kbps internet connection.

DVD is here till the next big thing. And that's neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.
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Right now you can download HD movies on XBox 360. Today. One problem is the abymsally small 20 gig hard disk. You can't store many HD movies with that.

I'm sure iTunes will follow suit with HD movie downloads... But iTunes is also geared towards BUYING movies, not renting them. Then there's Amazon's Unbox service w/ Tivo. Then there's the PC companies Starz and MovieLink.

But I don't think downloads will meet my needs as a Home Theater enthusiast, due mostly to the download time and DRM involved. For ordinary people, it might work. But I don't think they will like waiting hours/days for downloads to finish. Then there are the net neutrality issues (ISPs wanting us to pay more for certain traffic).

Saying neither format is the future isn't the wisest thing, either. It may turn out to be true, but I'll give you an example -- HD-DVD and Blu Ray combined have outpaced DVD's first year on the market in 1997. See www.thedigitalbits.com for the story. I think both formats are hurt by the format war, and the step up from DVD to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray isn't as radical as the step up from VHS to DVD.

I will say again, the format with studio backing will win, and that's Blu-Ray. HD-DVD only has Universal as an exclusive studio, Blu-Ray has Sony/Columbia, Fox, and Disney. Look at this summer's blockbusters and which studios are involved, and it's clear HD-DVD's surrender is a matter of when, not if.
 
janstett said:
If that's the case, watch VHS. Having better resolution makes the same movie better than on an inferior format. I've done the upscaling DVD players, the HD formats are simply better. You can't create detail that isn't there. Movies being constant, why wouldn't you want the highest quality presentation?
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A good quote someone posted on another board:

The thing about the HD formats is that their backers want to believe it will be like DVD dethroning VHS all over again. However, when DVD took down VHS, you could see the difference in picture quality on any TV set, not just special high-priced bleeding-edge TV sets. You also got a ****load of new features, like menus and onscreen games and multiple soundtracks and 5.1 channel surround sound, all of which were impossible with VHS. Not to mention no longer having to rewind the damned tape: something that us old-timers will remember without fondness.

There's nothing like that to drive people to adopt either HD format. The leap from "no features" to menus and other fancy features was done already with DVD. The addition of digital surround sound was done already with DVD. The extra picture quality is totally academic unless you have a special TV. Hell, even if you do have an HDTV, will you really want to buy a special HD version of a movie unless you're a hardcore movie purist? Suppose your wife says she wants to take it upstairs and watch it on the little bedroom TV? Oops, that's a regular TV with a regular DVD player! Can't watch it there!
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GFLPraxis said:
Now now...I wouldn't put it quite that way.

Blu-ray is kicking HD-DVD all over the place right now, but BOTH have pitiful sales. The majority of Blu-ray players is the poorest-selling console. More people watch movies than play games, so the fact that the game systems are selling better means adoption rates are still extremely low.
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Both formats are new. Sure they are hampered by the format war, but The Digital Bits pointed out that they have outsold DVD's first year on the market in 1997.

I bought my first DVD player in March 1998, an RCA for $350. Back then nobody I knew had a DVD player either, and stores didn't rent them either. I'm an early adopter -- just like I am now with Blu Ray and HD-DVD.

GFLPraxis said:
I think the first player to hit sub-$200 or sub-$100 is going to take off rapidly. The vast majority of people have simply not invested in either format. I don't know anybody with a HD-DVD or Blu-ray player.
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HD-DVD will hit the low price point first, Toshiba is slashing prices to prop up the format, and cheap knock-off Chinese players are on the way. But the fact remains that Toshiba's the only name brand behind HD-DVD, and Universal the only studio supporting it exclusively.

It will be good in that it will drive the demand for cheap Blu-Ray players, but with poor hardware and studio support, HD-DVD is on the losing end.

Regarding the previous post ^, there is merit to the argument. The leap isn't as gigantic, I said so myself. Convincing the masses will be difficult. However, as someone who presumably understands the difference, do you want 480p or 1080p?
 
Having seen both BR and HD-DVD and owning an HDMI upload DVD player myself- there really isn't enough of a difference in quality for me to care. The picture isn't that much better when you're sitting on the couch.
 
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