Monday, February 11th 2008
Netflix Drops HD DVD
Netflix believes the winner in the HD format war has been determined and said that it has begun stocking Blu-ray discs exclusively. The company said that its move is prompted by the decision of four out of the six major movie studios to publish high-def DVD titles only in the Sony-developed Blu-ray format. The online movie rental company intends to phase out HD DVDs by the end of this year and, as of now, is purchasing HD titles in Blu-ray only. The firm's current HD DVD inventory will remain available to customers until the discs' "natural life cycle" takes them out of circulation in the coming months. "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, in a prepared statement.
"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," Sarandos believes.
Netflix said that the majority of its customers looking or HD movies have chosen Blu-ray, and "only a portion" went with the HD DVD format. The company claims that it has more than 400 Blu-ray movies available for rent at this time.
Source:
TG Daily
"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," Sarandos believes.
Netflix said that the majority of its customers looking or HD movies have chosen Blu-ray, and "only a portion" went with the HD DVD format. The company claims that it has more than 400 Blu-ray movies available for rent at this time.
42 Comments on Netflix Drops HD DVD
Competition usually brings prices down, and that's the only reason why I picked HD-DVD a few months ago - the price was right. If Blu-ray players were down to $160 (the price when I bought my HD-DVD player), then I would've bought a Blu-ray player.
Blu-ray players were slowly coming down in price, but since the big WB announcement, I've seen the prices of Blu-ray actually increase slightly. And that sucks for consumers.
nothing, if there's a "winner" in this case it's the DVD why?
cheaper media, more titles (like 90% more), cheaper players, upconvertable players which are basically prolonging the life of DVD's into the all HD era, and the fact that everyone already owns a DVD player and plenty of DVD movies.
the average consumer (where the money is) isn't too keen on having to upgrade all their movies for a few more pretties, especially when they can get an upconverting player that will increase the pretties (ok a halfway fix) on the current DVd they already own.
so contrary to popular belief, Sony's Blu-ray was never competing with the HD-DVD, BOTH formats are actually competing with the good ol' DVD which currently owns the market. I mean seriously VHS's are out selling Blu-Rays atm. So i seriously doubt the format war is over, at this point a whole new tech could come into the business and beat both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. But as for now, there can be no winner (whether or not HD-DVD survives) when niether platform has reached the average consumer.
In 2009 when the telelvision waves go digital exclusively, these people STILL wont upgrade their tv's, they'll just get the converter box and a govenment voucher to cover it.
beyond the average joe, your middleclassman is already on an upconverting dvd player and has no reason to switch, as was posted earlier, both blu-ray and hd-dvd have yet to finalize their products, thus until they decide on the amount of layers they want on it and stick to it. They're not goign to sway the middleclassman either. well damn between the poor, the average joe, and the middleclassman there's 90+% of the market.
getting it yet?
and as i said before VHS's are out selling blu-rays meaning there is a larger chunk of the market who has yet to convert to DVD's that there are peopel who've played into the new "format war". Either side has yet to show any real numbers, so until they do, I think I'll stick with my original argument that both could fade at this point and something else could come in and win.
I don't really see how you're coming up with the categories and these suggestions, but maybe this is just me...
@yogurt - One small error, most people DO have a digital TV. Any "Cable Ready" TV is digital. In 2009 they aren't necessarily eliminating SD content, they're just eliminating analog transmissions. That's not to say that some networks won't go HD exclusive, but it's not mandated.
Out of everyone I know , I can only think of one person (well, two actually) with a Plasma HDTV, it was dirt cheap and he went in on it with his roommate, so between the two of them they only coughed up (IIRC) $1200 each.
But, they both told me if it wasn't for that deal, they never woulda gone for it.