Aaaand the format wars are coming even closer to being over. Blockbuster only rents BluRay in store, and now Netflix is dropping HD-DVD from it’s online lineup. Current library titles will remain until the stock is depleted, but that will be it.
HD-DVD is really hanging on by a thread. The longer is stays around, the longer consumer confusion will remain. It’s better for the industry as a whole to have one format, and hopefully the move by Netflix will push the bar further to ending this drawn out battle.
[via Reuters]
Many predicted the death of the HD-DVD to be a slow and painful one, but it seems that the consumer is making up its mind. In the few short weeks since the announcement of Time Warner to go Blu-ray exclusive, the Sony format has grabbed 93% of sales for the lucrative players market. It had previously shared a 60% lead in player sales in December.
I understand that this is only a few weeks and may be a statistically insignificant sample size, but maybe the format war may be coming to an end much earlier than much of us anticipated.
[Images via engadget]
According to the Financial Times, Paramount will be opting out of it’s exclusive contract with HD-DVD and making the switch to BluRay. This comes after the big news of Warner Brothers going exclusive with the BluRay camp.
Apparently, Paramount has a clause in the contact that will allow them to opt out and make the jump to BluRay should Warner do the same. Why they put this in the contact, I don’t know. But either way, this would essentially shut the door for HD-DVD in the movie realm. Currently, BluRay commands 70% of the movie studios, and that number would only go up should Paramount jump sides as well.
I think we can all say it’s a good thing that the format war is coming to an end. Consumers need to know what to buy, and one format is the way to go. I personally prefer BluRay for the disc size, since everything else is roughly the same. I think Toshiba will keep HD-DVD around for PC use, which will be a good fit.
[via Financial Times]
The HD format wars could be reaching an end. That’s right, the end is in site. The winner? It looks like BluRay has come out on top. Yesterday, Warner Home Video announced it’s exclusive move to BluRay. The studio was formerly on the fence and had released titles for both formats. It’s now being reported that New Line, a subsidiary of Warner, has gone Blu as well. Both are huge hits to the HD-DVD camp, and they didn’t take the news well.
The HD-DVD press event for CES has been cancelled. That’s right, they’re entire press conference, cocktail party, and after parties have been canceled. I know they need to come at this from a big PR standpoint and need time to prepare, but canceling your only press event at the world’s biggest consumer electronics event? Yeah, doesn’t look good for the format.
Rumor has it that Paramount is looking for a way out of their exclusive contract with HD-DVD to move over to BluRay as well. And with recent stats showing the sales of players and movies for BluRay are trouncing the sales of HD-DVD, how can you argue the move?
Only time will tell, but ending the format war can only benefit the customer. I highly doubt Microsoft is going to release that Xbox 360 Ultimate given this news (if they were going to announce it anyway).
A recent study by The Diffusion Group shows that of the large number of consumers (who now tend to be younger, single, more diverse ethnically AND have a lower yearly income) that want to by an HDTV by years end, intend to purchase an HD-DVD player above the Blu-Ray format. Hit the jump for more »
Much to my surprise, I picked up today’s paper and the weekly Best Buy circular dropped out. There was a huge HD-DVD deal for the Xbox 360. Here is the offer from Best Buy that includes a mail in rebate for 5 movies, there is also a HUGE surprise.
You get Season 1 of Heroes, in HD-DVD….for FREE. This is a $99.99 value and the show absolutely kicks ass. The ad says it is good from Oct 21-27.
I have been putting off buying this for sometime with the apparent death of the HD-DVD format, but with new exclusive studio contracts and the rumors of a future Xbox 360 with a built in HD-DVD drive, this deal seems too good to pass on. Granted the movies you can choose from are less than spectacular, its still a deal considering the price of a stand alone HD-DVD player.
If you grabbed a copy of Knocked Up on HD-DVD and are having troubles with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and getting this disc to even load, you’re not the only one. I spent a good hour tonight trying to get this disc to play, including a return trip to Best Buy because I thought I got a crap disc. I finally found a solution over at AVS Forum. The people over there are amazing.
- Go to the System blade
- Go down and select Memory
- Go down and Select HD Player (NOT Hard Drive)
- Go down to the bottom entry. More than likely, it will be the largest entry in the list. When the cookie is fully downloaded, it will be 11 MB in size. When I checked for the cookie, it was 1MB in size (at the time i stopped the download). [for me, it was the first in the list, but I deleted all entries in the HD-DVD drive]
- When you have found the entry, DELETE IT.
- Retry starting the movie and wait for the loading screen. When you see it, you will know you have succeeded.
Once you do that, the disc should load up fine and come to a loading screen where it will sit for about 10 minutes. Do NOT hit Cancel, because that will just mess up the cookie download, which will bring you back to the same point of the disc not playing.
Seriously, if either of the HD disc formats wants to win the format war, they need to stop making things so damn complicated for the average user.
Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360’s HD-DVD will be updated sometime in 2008. The news was revealed at Microsoft’s 25th hardware anniversary party in London.
No word on exactly what we can expect from this update, but I’m assuming it will just be a faster drive. If it’s anything else, I think Microsoft will have a lot of angry customers on their hands. Not only have they redesigned the Xbox 360 during it’s life cycle to add new hardware features (HDMI ports), but now peripherals might be outdated within 2 years on the same console life cycle?
Here’s to hoping that’s not the case, but this editor is skeptical.
There’s a new update available for the HD-DVD addon drive for the Xbox 360 today. Most notably, it improves compatibility with newer titles that are using advanced copy protection schemes, such as Digital Video Essentials, which didn’t play in the 360 drive until today.
You can now also select 2 channel linear PCM as an audio output option if you’re using the Elite. Great, but why give up surround sound for a movie so you can hear crystal clear sound from only 2 speakers?
Hit the jump for more »
Even though I said I wasn’t going to, I picked up a Xbox 360 Elite today. The black beast is better than I anticipated.
The first thing I noticed was the Elite is very quiet. Much more so than my older Premium console. This is when idle, playing movies (both standard DVD and HD-DVD), as well as playing games. It’s a treat to not have to hear the fans spinning like crazy. The new Hitachi drive helps too.
The HDMI video connection looks fantastic. There is a noticeable difference in colors and black level on my 50″ Samsung 1080p over component video. Don’t take this to mean the HDMI connection produces a much better picture… it’s a known thing with my model of HDTV that HDMI looks way better than component.
I’m waiting on my transfer cable, so I can’t comment on using the 120GB hard drive yet.
Overall, it’s the best 360 console I’ve had. Is it worth the upgrade for most users? I don’t think so. But if you’re looking to replace a broken console and you don’t have warranty, or you just want to pick up a 360 for the first time, definitely take a look at the Elite.
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