Posted on 02/11/2008 2:32:55 PM PST by Las Vegas Dave
Washington, D.C. (February 11, 2008) -- NetFlix today drove another nail in HD DVD's coffin by announcing it will support Blu-ray exclusively in the high-def disc format war.
The by-mail DVD rental service, which has more than six million subscribers, has offered movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray. However, the company today said the industry has "picked a winner" in Blu-ray.
NetFlix noted that the majority of the major Hollywood studios have decided to support Blu-ray exclusively, with Warner Bros. last month the most recent one to do so.
"As of now (NetFlix) will purchase only Blu-ray discs and will phase out by roughly year's end the alternative high-def format, HD DVD, developed by Toshiba," the company said in a release.
NetFlix officials said the format war has slowed consumer acceptance of the new high-def disc. "The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition," said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix. "We're now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def. Going forward, we expect that all of the studios will publish in the Blu-ray format and that the price points of high-def DVD players will come down significantly. These factors could well lead to another decade of disc-based movie watching as the consumer's preferred means."
NetFlix said the majority of its high-def disc users have opted to rent Blu-ray over HD DVD. The company says it now stocks more than 400 Blu-ray titles.
The pinged subjects will be those of HDTV technology, satellite/cable HD, OTA (over the air with various roof top and indoor antennas) HD reception. Broadcast specials, Blu-ray/HD-DVD, and any and all subjects relating to HD.
Las Vegas Dave
This ticks me off. I use Netflix to rent HD DVD disks.
The wait times for HD DVD movies had been getting longer and many times the disks weren’t available from the local center, so I assumed they were purchasing fewer copies on HD DVD. Dropping the format is a kick in the teeth.
We're Going Blu-ray
Dear Kevin,
You're receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.
While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.
Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens.
You can click here to change your format preferences.
We're sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call us at 1 (888) 638-3549.
-The Netflix Team-
What do these Blu-ray things look like? I guess what i am asking is: will they work in my DVD player??
I have a almost brand new Toshiba player I can sell ya.
(just kidding)
...now I have a good excuse to buy that new Playstation III.
I don’t even know what the difference is between the two formats!
Wife just walked into the room, she said we'll buy a blu-ray player eventually!
(The Toshiba does a great job of upconverting standard DVD's.)
Blu ray disks look like DVDs, but they use different technology to pack 25-50 gigabytes of data on the disk. You need to buy a new player at $300 - $500+ in order to view the disks on your HDTV.
It takes at least twice as long to get a Blu-ray from net-flix than a regular dvd.
They also come from and go back to all parts of the country as opposed to the regular DVD’s that mostly come from a town 10 miles away.
Glad I didn’t buy that cheap HD-DVD player at Walmart that day a few moths back!
Blu-Ray has more capacity per disc than HD-DVD (about 30% more storage), but costs more to make and each disc is more fragile (i.e. small scratches are more likely to make the disc unreadable).
If you want more technical details on how they differ, let me know. :)
Interesting. About 3 months ago I thought Wal-mart went to exclusive sales of HD-DVD only (no Blu-Ray). I wonder what their plans are now?
I got the thing as much for it being a Blu Ray player than for games. Normally thats the kiss-of-death but this time I get to use it for a while longer.
Actually I keep all my dig photos and MP3s on it - its almost a media center. Nice.
At least I don’t have a lot of money tied up in HD DVD — just the Xbox360 player. I did buy the Blade Runner set and the Matrix trilogy in HD DVD, alogn with a few other movies that were on sale.
I was really hoping that Netflix would hang on until Blu-ray got cheap enough.
I would sure appreciate a short tutorial....or some insight to this technology battle.
Thanks
Heres a good thread for this question.
Has anybody recieved their 5 FREE BLU-RAY DISCS with purchase of a blu-ray player in the mail yet?
I mailed the form almost 2 months ago and still nothing.
Thanks. You already told me more than I knew! Does Blu-ray deliver a better picture or sound (I’m assuming so)?
Sounds like the wrong choice was made.
In a huge blow to Toshiba, Universal, and the rest of the HD DVD devotees, rental giant Blockbuster has decided to stock only Blu-ray discs in the vast majority of its nationwide locations, although HD DVD titles will continue to be offered online and in the 250 (out of 1,450) stores that have been testing both formats since last year (June 17, 2007)
Download and install TVersity.
You can stream all media from your computer.
if the playstation won’t play it then TVersity will decode it on the fly for you.
It’s pretty cool.
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