Blockbuster Chooses Blu-ray 351
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."
"We have no Blockbluster, you insensitive clod" (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Another Layer of DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Does this even matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:They should stock both but... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:BB online still has HDDVD (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
Obligatory Conspiracy (Score:5, Interesting)
This is so sad ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess the dying industries need to get into the news somehow.
So sad.
Re:Freedom to choose (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:"We have no Blockbluster, you insensitive clod" (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The owners may be inclined to stay in the area and tend the shop, so it doesn't matter that the capital could be better used elsewhere.
2. The owners can't just ship the DVDs to their 500 other stores with minimal loss. If they close shop they must liquidate probably for pennies on the dollar.
3. The owners may be able to use dodgy practices to reduce their costs, without the liabilities a major concern faces.
4. The small business probably has less overhead.
Now, in a hot market the small business will get killed by the corporation, but the small guy may stick around long after the corporation leaves - if for no other reason than they don't have much choice...
That's the Microsoft meme (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Not just blockbuster - Hollywood Video also (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh? (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Re:Betting on a loser. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:You can prefer one on a rational basis (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory Conspiracy (Score:2, Interesting)