Even though Blu-ray discs can be rotten (literally!), they are now the only high-definition format that Blockbuster is going to back.
Blockbuster drives in what is probably the final nail in the coffin for the HD-DVD format disc. The company announced that they will only offer Blu-ray format in 1,450 of its stores, dropping HD-DVD forever. They say that customers are choosing Blu-ray more than 70 percent of the time.
"The consumers are sending us a message. I can't ignore what I'm seeing," Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising at Blockbuster.
The North American HD DVD Promotional Group says that Blockbuster is jumping the gun and making a decision too early. They claim that their decision is skewed by the success of titles released in the first three months this year, but isn't that what really decides what we buy?
Blockbuster offered both formats in 250 of its stores and let the customers decide - and the customers have chosen the silly named format. Who knows if the PlayStation 3 launch had anything to do with the rental success - it's doubtful, but we can be certain that there some smug-faced Sony execs are blasting off 'told you so' emails this morning.
You may now commence your pointless HD-DVD defense posts now (kidding!).
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
11:27 AM on 06.18.2007
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HOWEVER
Blockbuster is a diying business, their profits keep going down.
The only question here is, who's going to die first? Blockbusters or Playstation 3
will the bashing from this man ever end?
Plus there are some features that are built into HD DVD that Blu Ray apparently can't do. I can't remember exactly what but look at the difference between the "300" discs coming out and you'll see.
(doesn't actually care for format wars)
I think B&M will continue for these reasons. However, once we get digital distribution renting (we are going to need faster connections than the current ones for HD rentals to be viable)...then B&M might go away. Why drive to your local blockbuster when you can have the movie magically beamed to your hard drive with a 7 day timer until it deletes itself.
In Canada movies in the mail are not as big as in the US I rent movies/games all the time (Rogers video mind you) as it is a 2 min drive to get there and costs like $5 a game/movie.
HD-DVD lets you (legally) rip a copy of the movie to your Vista computer so you can stream, while Blu-Ray does not. It's really a shame, actually, that Blu-Ray is winning. While the discs hold more, it really is the lesser format. The in-movie experience on HD-DVD can't be beat.
The in-movie experience has nothing to do with format. That has to do with the people who make the disc and what they decide to put on the disc. If they put lack luster stuf or sucky stuff on it, it will suck.
Unless you have compared a movie on HD-DVD to Blu-Ray DVD, that isn't really a reason why one is better.
May have been a bit long for my first post. O well. Ive been arguing this topic all morning with people.
I remember reading somewhere that Blu-Ray has 6 of the 7 major movie studios backing them while HD-DVD has 3 of the 7 and only one of those 3 are exclusive to HD-DVD.
If I remember that right then, there's a big reason why Blu-Ray will win.
I was really hoping your link led to some spec chart or technical breakdown why BluRay's better than HDDVD, but no, it's sales figures. Because sales figures ALWAYS mean better information for all.
::rolls eyes::
Look, both are using the same spec of MPEG-4 on paper. How the data gets from the disc to your TV requires a slightly differently written decompression based on the laser.
Despite my idiotic mumblings on this board, my username actually represents something, I work in video. I've looked at both the specs for both, and neither one "wins" on everything.
In fact, for all the ballyhoo of each platform, it's strikingly similar in the way it works and I promise you, no one's missing out on going with either format if you're an early adopter, other than content.
I won't bore by posting specs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Blu-ray_Disc_.2F_HD_DVD_comparison
I will post that I think that from a developer's standpoint, HD DVD is a better format. I can code menus in freakin' Dreamweaver if I want to.
Image quality is neglibile. If anyone can find a difference between cross-released movie, I'll point you in the direction of an encoder who didn't know how to do their job properly. The playback stream for almost all HDDVD's and BluRays far exceed the minimum data transfer requirements of playback. A good half the market of available BluRay discs don't even use the full available 25GB on single layer discs, while a good number of HD DVD's use their full 30 GB.
From a market standpoint, HD DVD is a better format.
There's porn available. That alone should win. Why? Because despite the failings of porn profits in the internet based 2007, many people do buy porn on disc still. BluRay has no intent on supporting it.
They're also cheaper to produce since anyone that can manufacture DVDs can make HD DVD's.
But, inevitably I think BluRay will win. Why?
Because of Sony's marketing efforts. If they hadn't shoveled the player into every PS3, it'd be a totally different ballgame, despite the failing of the PS3. Putting that in the box put boxes in homes.
People will choose a $600 game console WITH video playback over a $500 video player. Duh.
Claiming disc rot or losing distribution through a B&M store are non-issues. What is an issue is market penetration. And neither format is succeeding in the same way that DVD did in 1997. And it's not due to market fragmentation either. It's simple lack of HD adoption. There isn't any. At all.
Less than 30% market penetration, marginal sales of HDTVs with built in tuners, and the ever shifting transition date from analog to digital have all impeded a high penetration for HDTV. And until market penetration crosses a good 50-60%, video player sales won't matter. We barely have decent content to begin with on HDTV.
I refuse to buy into either format until there's a sub $200 stand alone player on the market. And not as an attachment for a game console. That's busy playing games on mine, ya see.
Or not, as in Brainderailment's case.
Or do what I do...
Don't rent at all. Just buy the damn thing. If you're nervous about the movie, read a review. Find a critic you like and stick to their gut instinct.
I've rented DVD's 9 times in 10 years since I got my first DVD player. I own over 450 of the best damn movies you've ever seen, and I don't regret purchasing any of them. Including Joysticks.
I get flak all the time from people, but I promise you, you're not missing anything by skipping out on Final Destination 3, Outbreak, The Hills Have Eyes 2, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, etc. They all suck. If the sequel doesn't end in Wars, Trek, Of the Rings, -erminator, or -ambo, chances are highly against you that it'll suck. Bad.
This methodology has spared me from all Steven Segal movies and most Van Damme movies.
Don't support rental stores period. Also, don't support shitty movies. Asked to be challenged every once in awhile. You deserve better than Shrek 3 or House of Wax.
And there aren't any Paris Hilton tits in House of Wax so double shame on you if you paid to see it.
Horror movie tips:
Stage 1 test: If the film doesn't take place on a college campus or there are no co-eds in the film, skip it outright. SKIP IT!
Stage 2 test: If the film doesn't take place over a holiday or with some sort of slumber party taking place, you're wasting your time. No one wants to watch stoners die. They won't feel it anyway. We want to watch the horny couple trying to screw get killed because premarital sex is "teh bad!"
Stage 3 test: If there are no boobs in the movie, you wasted cash and are due a refund for both your money and your time.
Interesting that while the PS3 is "failing"(based on personal opinion), Blu-Ray isn't.
Well, that's the unique feature of HD DVD. And if you're into special features, that's your pot of gold.
I could care less about special features. I want high quality video. Most people never realized it but a good number of original DVD's on the market were done at sub-par DVD standard encoding rates. They skimped a lot on video quality because people were asking for special features that many people only ever looked at one or two times total. Those behind the scenes docs and commentary tracks from the production assistant's gopher ate up a lot of space that I would've preferred to see higher quality video or audio.
It's still way to early to decide on either format. If Blu-ray does pull ahead, that would be a nice break for Sony, since it would be the first proprietary format they created that actually worked out for them.
Ive yet to see a blu ray movie that looks better than any movie in my hd dvd collection. And all releases Ive seen that were released on both fofrmats always look better on hd dvd. I see it as hd dvd for quality and blu ray for quantity.
to your earlier post im not the wealithiest of people so renting is definetely the way to go for me. more power to you to buy the movies you want but that just isnt an option for me. I own a lot of dvds but i only buy movies that i know i can watch over and over and never get tired of. and I apply that philosophy to my hd dvd purchases as well. and for the record I despise damn near every movie you mentioned and half spelled.
You also lack intelligence when you believe people are inferior because they use another movie distributor.
In terms of quality right now Bluray is better as it is using AVC. While HD DVD supports avc, they are not even using it.
Pick what you want.
However, I believe that Blu-Ray's lack of support from the porn industry as well as from Wal-Mart will have a huge (albeit ironic, as well) impact on the final resting place for both formats in the annals of history.
My real question, one I've been pondering for quite some time, is why can't the movie industry support two formats? I mean, the gaming market we are all a part of currently supports 9 separate formats if you count Nintendo's 4 consoles (GC, GBA, DS, Wii), Sony's 3 (PS2, PS3, PSP), and Microsoft's 2 (if their lack of support for Xbox1 even counts and clearly the 360). Now granted that may be a bit of a stretch, but honestly. Essentially we're supporting at least 6 solid totally separate formats (Wii, DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, 360). Why can't the movie industry handle 2?
and yes, blu-ray will win because for every bit of bad news against blu-ray, hd-dvd receives almost no boost from said bad news. the news becomes negligible. sony's hardware department actually made profit recently when not factoring in the ps3. their hardware sales are ridiculously strong -- especially in the hdtv sector.
the us mandated switchover to hd broadcast will influence the purchasing of hdtv units soon. blu-ray is already ahead and they came out of the market way later than hd-dvd. they're not going to lose ground to hd-dvd on sheer power of momentum. the rest of the world has pretty much chosen blu-ray anyway. the format war is a north america thing.
it's retarded.
I'm doubtful anybody would suggest it's a good thing that gamers are dealing with 6 formats right now. In fact, I'm doubtful that game corporations can afford to develop and sell so much competing hardware for much longer. At some point the pie will be divided so much with each piece becoming so expensive that at least some players won't be making money any more.
There's no way in hell the movie industry is going to support multiple formats long-term. The average movie renter doesn't know what the hell is going on when they rent and watch a movie. They know that they're putting a shiny thing into a magic box and they get to see Shitty Marvel Comics Adaptation 2007. DVD has major benefits over VHS, and they're easily explained. DVDs and VHS cassettes are easily differentiated from each other. This is why DVD has been so successful; it was time for a change, and that change was relatively easy for consumers to understand. For the average consumer, HD-DVD and BluRay do not offer a major benefit over DVD, and they certainly aren't easily differentiated from each other.
In my estimation, studios and related electronics manufacturers do not want multiple formats. More formats means more expenses for less profit. It means more confused consumers who may become adverse to all of the products involved. It just doesn't make sense. Quite honestly, I think the fact that both sides allowed this HD-DVD/BluRay war to occur on store shelves just reflects how little respect and consideration these corporations have for their customers. A whole bunch of people are going to end up with very expensive paperweights and coasters; a whole lot of stores are investing all sorts of resources into products with no chance of long-term success.
In short, multiple physical formats, at least on the movie side of things, is a bad situation for everyone involved.
Plus most movies are on Cable TV about three weeks after it hits dvds.. Counting if you have the movie channel...