it's really over! HD-DVD sayonara!
 

With Wal-mart taking side, I think HD-DVD is officially dead.

http://www.walmartfacts.com/articles/5673.aspx

Perhaps but there is a very large portion of the world outside of North America that is - most thankfully - free of the Sam Walton empire.

There's also this.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...op_HD_DVD/1468

Yeah, but the US is AFAIK the only market in which HD-DVD had a foothold. In Europe Blu-Ray has been dominant all the time. In The Netherlands I can't even find a HD-DVD player at "Media Markt" (Best Buy equivalent) We don't have something like wall-mart, but all the big chains don't have HD, or Blu-Ray.

That's huge, since they are the manufacturers of most of the affordable HD-DVD players on the market.

Could this be the opposite of Betamax and VHS?

I believe that Wal-Mart is the largest seller of DVDs on the planet. They typically sell on low price. That they chose BD despite the higher price of the players speaks strongly.

I've often scratched my head about this hd-dvd and blu-ray saga.
Being in the UK, I've walked into many big chain retail stores and looked through many printed shop catalogues. What do I see? A bombardment of 'HD Ready' televisions in 720p and more recently 1080p flavours. One shop literally had a quarter of its entire floorspace covered in them. Which is great, plenty of choice and competition and prices are becoming somewhat reasonable.
Sorted. Now, I want to watch some high-def 'Lost'! My eyes scan the broad horizon of DVD players. One of these has got to play blu-ray...hd-dvd?...not on your nelly. It's like they're taboo!
Perhaps I'm short-sighted, perhaps there was one hiding in the corner or maybe I should have asked the sales guy. But you would think they would be pushing these things with all their might. I should be seeing dancing girls dressed in neon bikinis letting off fireworks around blu-ray and hdtv setups all playing beautifully crisp images from '300' or 'Harry Potter', instead of a limp line of fantastic piano black machines dribbling daytime blurry sd television!
More recently I did see a hd-dvd player being sold together with a cheap and nasty hdtv in a supermarket at the end of the ailse. Personally, it smacked of 'bargain bin' or 'let's lose this unshifting stock quickly'.
Aha, we have the PS3, but this is really in it's own field and due to it's technological nature, the price cannot begin to approach what a mass-market standalone machine needs to be. It got blu-ray off the blocks but it can't carry it.
Crazy. The industry (this always works when your not sure exactly who your talking about) has made a rather large cockerel head skywards and we're just sitting pretty waiting until it comes down again.

That's very interesting. I did not know that. And somehow it doesn't surprise me - you know, the US market being at odds with the rest of the world!

The bottom line is that Hollywood will cater to the US market, and that drives everything else. The Indian movie market is huge, but they will follow, not lead, Hollywood into the HD domain.

BD has now won
* The studio war
* The player war (more manufactures)
* The console war (BD standard is PS3; optional HD DVD in Xbox360)
* The retail war
* The rental war

We should start a pool for the date when HD DVD's end is announced.

Why start a Pool- it's dead in the water now!

I'd say it's pretty much ready to call now too - that Wal-Mart notice turns all heads. Well, now almost ready to start purchasing High-Def content!

Wal-Mart to officially discontinue HD DVD sales by June
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/15/w...sales-by-june/

Best Buy's pushing Blu-ray to the front
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/b...-to-the-front/

Netflix picks Blu-ray, good luck renting an HD DVD soon
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/n...n-hd-dvd-soon/

Gartner: Blu-ray to win in 2008, HD DVD price cuts are "useless resistance"
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/28/g...s-are-useless/

Blu-ray players grab 93 percent of market after Warner went Blu
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/22/b...rner-went-blu/

Study shows that Blu-ray sales are killin' in Japan
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/21/s...llin-in-japan/

Universal HD DVD exclusivity contract has expired, sits non-renewed
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/10/u...sits-non-rene/

Universal and Paramount are both going Blu
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/09/s...oth-going-blu/

Paramount: "Current plan is to support the HD DVD format."
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/p...-format-curre/

The fat lady is singing.

Its a pity if any of this is true. Because Blu-ray sucks (for the consumer). HD-DVD had everything (accept a few extra gigs and burners lol) that we wanted.


PS. I have always had a preference for Blu-ray but only because of its slightly larger capacities so that when afordable media comes 30 vs 50 makes a difference a few years down teh track at the rate storage requirements increase.

pity we cant have what we want. Blu-ray region free. :P