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Blockbuster to offer ONLY Blue-ray DVDs
Blockbuster will announce today, Monday, June 18 2007 that it will only carry Blue-ray discs when it expands the operation beyond the initial 250 stores used for a few months in a test program.
Washington, D.C. (June 17, 2007) -- Video rental giant Blockbuster will only rent HDTV DVDs in the Blu-ray format in 1,450 stores next month when it expands its high-def service. That's according to an exclusive report today from the Associated Press. The retailer has tested both formats in approximately 250 stores for the last several months. But Blockbuster officials say 70 percent of the high-def rentals are Blu-ray. (http://www.tvpredictions.com/blockbuster061707.htm also cited on http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=257). What do you guys think? Is this an important decision that could possibly end "THE WAR"? |
It certainly helps Blu-Ray's cause, but having spent the last semester studying it, I get the impression that the format the porn industry goes with will be the eventual winner.
From what I've been told, porn was the reason VHS won out over Betamax way back when, and it may well be the same for HD movies. |
Yeah but I've heard good argument against that. The case being that porn is available on the internet these days whereas back then the only real easy way to watch it privately was on VHS. Plus there thousands of titles on VHS and DVD still around.
So that may not be the deciding factor as much as one might think based on the past. Things have definitely changed. Personally I don't care who "wins" I would just like there to be one format. But I get this feeling that by the time "the war" is over, there will be a better format/method around. |
Yeah, they'll be issuing movies on small "cards" that you'll plug into your HDTV. No more "players"
Maybe I'm onto something. I'd better hurry and patent the idea. |
If this is true, I don't understand why they would do this. How does it benefit Blockbuster to limit their rentals to blu-ray only? Don't they want the 30% who rent HD DVD?
Perhaps this is an encryption issue, or Sony's paying Blockbuster? That said, I don't think it will have a huge impact -- how many people actually go to Blockbuster to rent? Compared to Netflix and the people who rent online from Blockbuster, I'd guess that the number who rent from an actual Blockbuster store is small. |
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All the Blockbusters near me have closed down and moved out over the last 3 years.
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Personally, I'm waiting for someone to bring out an affordable HD player with a universal laser that will handle both formats - whoever does that stands to make a great deal of money. And if dual-format players become the norm, the format war may well end in a draw. |
http://mediabiz.blogs.cnnmoney.com/2...d-format-wars/
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers...271499-1568012 I'm rooting for Blu-ray myself, but I mainly just want to see one format take over so I can recommend it to customers. |
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But there has been much speculation about whether the customers knew what they were buying when they purchased the HD-DVD version of Planet Earth. It has been said on Amazon's message boards that many believed they were purchasing a "high-definition" version that would play on their current DVD player and not necessarily an HD-DVD. With all the confusion in the marketplace with hi-def in general, this seems entirely plausible.
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Because of this announcement, I bet NetFlix had an unexpected boost today.
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.ph...317#post698317 Now that would be huge if Amazon were to ever do the same thing. |
Netflix (NFLX) is up 1.57% today, Blockbuster (BBI) is up 0.44% so not too earth-shattering. But according to the story in my link above, Blockbuster will continue offering HD DVD rentals through its online service so that doesn't seem like much of a win for Netflix...
http://mediabiz.blogs.cnnmoney.com/2...d-format-wars/ Quote:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BBI&...z=m&q=l&c=nflx |
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As I understood the announcement and BB's prez on CNBC, the decision applies to its 1450 retail stores, not its web site/mail in service......just fewer discs to stock. It's still a nice boost to Blu-Ray. I have been Netflix since its inception, and now about half of what we order thats recent is Blu-Ray and we move it right to the top of the list!
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I for one hope this war keeps going. The format war is really forcing the prices to drop quickly. If Blu-Ray didn't have HD-DVD to fight with then chances are the prices wouldn't be dropping to try to match the price of HD-DVD. SONY has even recently said that they are trying very hard to bring the cost of Blu-Ray players down to better match the price of HD-DVD players. Without this competition there wouldn't be a benchmark for how low the price should get.
HD-DVD keeps lowering their prices as well in order to keep the edge over Blu-Ray. I paid over $250.00 for my first DVD player and that was an open boxed item off the shelf store model at a reduced price. I also paid $350.00 for my first DVD burner. If this war can keep up eventually everybody will be forced to drop the price of HD players and recorders to the point where it will not really matter if there are two formats because it would be so cheap to have both. I like Blu-Ray and I like HD-DVD. They can both offer the same quality with one costing a lot more to have. Once the price of the burners is forced low enough due to competition I will offer both formats to my clients and not really care. |
I’m not sure how reliable the secret source is but if its true than the impact of the BlockBuster announcement is a bit bigger than I thought.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hd-dvd-on...les-270313.php |
Blu-ray "DVDs"?
I guess that's a new way to tell new customers that it is the next thing after DVD? |
http://www.trustedreviews.com/multim...lu-ray-Move/p1
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Let's stay on-topic without speculation and finger pointing please!
Or I'll have to edit / delete stuff... Thanks, |
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