badazzTL

and why the hell are most of the HD-DVD old movies that people already have on SD? In retail stores the blu-ray selection is like 90% greater than HD-DVD.

soopa

That's the death-nail for HD-DVD for me.

Sad. There's alot of movies in my queue that are HD-DVD only. What will happen with them I wonder.....

LKLD

This is huge for Blu-ray! Here's the offical announcement fromNetflix

Yumcha

HD-DVD...



I guess I can now get TF with Megan Fox on Blu-Ray in the foreseeable future...

mastertl

I think that the disc format in general is going down the drain. Even with more storage, the size of the disc itself is just asking for an industry shift. I imagine something hardier than a flimsy disc and much smaller.

I predict that Blu-ray will dominate, at most, for a decade or so. The disc format is going to be phased out several years after that, if not sooner. Nonetheless, this is a win for the Blu-ray camp and HD-DVD should just stop wasting money.

srika

^^ I would have to agree with that.. look at CD's.. back in their heyday 700MB was like .. now, its like peanuts. You can download 700MB with not much effort. Once the huge pipelines arrive, you'll be able to download all HD content within minutes. And probably faster down the road. You'll be burning what you download to whatever for storage and future playback. Difference is, the huge pipelines are not too far away - not nearly as far as similar technology was during CD's heyday.

CLpower

Starting in March BB will promote Blu Ray hardware and software as the defacto HD disc format.
Woolworth's in th UK had said they would do the same last week.

Netflix has decided to drop HD-DVD altogether.

These guys better make their money fast because when downloads become viable physical media sales will drop off quickly.

Best Buy to Promote Blu-ray; Who’s Next?
Big-box retailer decides to highlight and recommend Blu-ray beginning in March.
Feb
11
By Jason Unger
Filed in: News, Big-Box Retailers, Blu-ray/HD DVD

Comments (4), Ratings (0/5)

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02.11.2008 — Best Buy has announced that they will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred high-definition format for their customers the same day that Netflix decided to drop HD DVD from its stocks.

Although Best Buy will continue to stock HD DVD hardware and software, the big-box retailer says that, beginning in March, they will “prominently showcase Blu-ray hardware and software products” both online and in-store (press release).

“Consumers have told us that they want us to help lead the way. We’ve listened to our customers, and we are responding. Best Buy will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format,” says Brian Dunn, Best Buy’s president and COO.

“Our decision to shine a spotlight on Blu-ray Disc players and other Blu-ray products is a strong signal to our customers that we believe Blu-ray is the right format choice for them.

“Best Buy has always believed that the customer will benefit from a widely-accepted single format that would offer advantages such as product compatibility and expanded content choices. Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products.”

“Best Buy is excited by the next generation of digital products and we know our customers are too,” says Mike Vitelli, Best Buy senior vice president, Home Solutions.

“We are excited about helping customers find the right mix of products and services to make the next generation of high definition entertainment technology come alive for them. We believe that Blu-ray is the right solution for consumers.”

This is the nail in the coffin for HD DVD. Now that two of the biggest distribution outlets for movies have decided that HD DVD is not right for their customers, the game is over.

How long will it take for Universal and Paramount, the two major studios left supporting HD DVD, to switch sides? If distributors are not supporting the format, why bother making it?

CLpower

I doubt they'll get rid of them. I know my Blockbuster Store still has a good collection of HD-DVD's and so does BB online.

Moog-Type-S

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will have a short life.
Physical media is on it's way out.

Doom878

Hopefully in 10 years download speeds will vastly increase. Have you seen the size of these HD discs?

Billiam

I guess I'm the only one here that thinks physical media has a several years of life left in it. I can see downloads becoming a viable technical option somewhat quickly but I don't see them becoming the ubiquitous choice and killing off physical media for quite a while.

srika

oh I agree they have several years of life left. that ain't a long time.

CLpower

Nope, i'm with you 100%. I don't thin Physical media will ever die. I know to many people that still buy CD's, etc. We are a tangible society.


Downloads will pick up, but they will never be for EVERYONE....because for most the technology isn't there...and it's still confusing for many people.

srika

^^ yea I agree it won't go away. Physical media is much more reliable in terms of storage and longevity. Which are the two main things I think it will be used for down the road.

Doom878

I'm thinking when today's teens are the seniors since they grew up with the internet, cell phones, etc. I'm almost 30 but didn't own a PC until I bought myself one at 21.

Yumcha

I sure hope you don't have any magnets near your place, Waldorf.



I do not agree with that...I think physical media is here for awhile. I give Blu-Ray at least 10 years until they come up with the next form.

SiGGy

No; it's not going anywhere.

Anyone who thinks it's going away anytime soon is confused.

Who in their right mind would not want a local copy of their movies? So if you download a movie to your DVR it still has to be stored on media... be it hard-disk; optical... it's still media.

We're quite a few years away from large movie servers with real-time streaming ability across the internet.

And on top of that downloaded movies today are not even equal to DVD quality... Just what you need on your new HDTV


... back to reality now...

Holographic storage is here now for industry with storage capacities from 300GB-1.7TB per disc. It's prices are insane; but that will change. Once it hits mainstream consumer level prices you'll be able to fit 300 DVDs on one holographic disc. And this will just be to start...

And don't forget magnetic media like hard-drives are on their way out too... soon to be replaced by SSD (solid state discs)... No more moving parts; no more sudden drives crashing... SSD's are available today but insanely expensive. Current forecasts have the cross-over point at 2010 when SSD's equal the price of magnetic hard drives.

EDITED

srika

sure - you burn the downloaded content to physical media.

main limitation is bandwidth. but, i know you know a thing or two about bandwidth

Yumcha

Pffft...I'm sure people who refuse to adopt Blu-Ray will be able to tap into OC3 lines and get access to lots of l33t high-def videos for teh fr33.

Blu-Ray sucks. Down with media!

Doom878

Flash memory is getting cheap. I saw the 32GB Creative for like $200.

NetEditor

FYI -- Amazon is having a pretty big 3-for-2 sale on Blu-ray and HD DVD.

badazzTL

I wonder if I should even keep buying HD-DVDs or just get a Blu-Ray player

Ashburner

I completely agree...

Holographic or molecular flash media is the future of physical storage.

Currently, i have two 16GB usb drives, two 16GB SD cards, and 2 8GB micro SD cards. I love them!

It's crazy how fast technology moves. Just to share a story... 11 years ago, I was 18 years old and working at Intel as a CE straight out of high school in Folsom, CA. I knew many hardware engineers at Intel and one of them gave me a 4MB Type II Compact flash card. It was a sample card and they wern't available retail yet. It was one of the coolest things I ever owned. Then again, I was also working there when MMX and Pentium II were released. Good times!!!

Ashburner

uhh, re-read the thread

When Netflix and BestBuy stated their intentions- HD-DVD is pretty much on its way to obsolecense.

Yumcha

Um, considering HD-DVD is -ing...gee, I dunno.

badazzTL

I guess I'm just in denial

ChodTheWacko

No, it's quite legit.

If you already own a HD-DVD player, and you can grab HD-DVDs for cheap
(assuming they're going to be fire saled) - why not? Unless you're someone
like me, who likes to loan out movies to friends.

srika

the holographic sounds nice but at this point I don't trust flash drives enough to use them for long-term storage and/or archiving. I've had a couple fail on me in the past and also their performance with PC's is sometimes spotty. Access times also seem to vary from time to time. I find DVD's to be much more pleasant to work with at this point. Notice I am saying "at this point"; I would expect the technology and reliability to improve in the future.

badazzTL

That's very true, I'm wondering if it will be worth it to purchase HD-DVDs still because they are a lot cheaper than Blu-Ray (now). The thing is, if I purchase HD-DVDs what will happen if my player breaks? I will have no way to play an entire library of HD-DVDs.

Moog-Type-S

Well, my computer HD's are in good shape for years...my DVR's are in good shape.
Backup on multiple HD's FTW.

Do you live on the LOST island or something...or next to a magnet factory?

SiGGy

SSD (solid state disk) and Flash are two different animals.... while similar technology. The implementations are totally different.

Ya I agree with you on the flash...


SSDs are just 2-3 years away from equalizing in price to today spinning magnetic drives.

I look forward to the day a can buy a SSD at the same price as todays hard drives.

SiGGy

HDs fail... and a lot of time without any warning... and frequently in groups depending on the manufacture date.

Shelf life on most optical (good quality) media 25-50 years. No way in hell your hard drive will ever see those MTBF numbers.

Backing up to another disk is OK (sorta), but only if you unplug the drive completely from the computer after doing the backup. If you leave the drive powered up it's days are numbered as well... then some people don't know but hard drives are not sealed. So air can get in and out; so can humidity. So where you store the disk will make a difference when it's not in use.

Also some people seem to think their RAID setup is a backup. ( drive mirrors, or striping with parity) RAID is NOT a backup solution. It's a high availability solution... huge difference.

Want proof... jump on your raid setup and delete all of your files.... Then go ahead and restore from your backup.

I backup to hard disk in a USB2.0 enclosure myself; it's the only affordable solution to the consumer at the moment... For long term storage I have a SDLT drive I put stuff on. But that's not a cheap solution.

Moog-Type-S

Of course everything is prone to failure at some point.

I've gone through alot of drives over the years.
I'ts never been the intent to keep data on a drive for decades.
It will eventually end up on a newer drive as time goes on.

srika

was only talking about flash. SSD needs to be considerably faster than a 4200rpm drive before I will even think about it.

SiGGy

Well you may know this; but I'm sure a lot of other people don't. Do you have some sorta problem with me spelling out how to avoid losing your data? I wasn't directing my response towards you specifically.

It's not so when you drive fails in a few months or from a brown out or lightning strike, or your 12 volt rail in your PSU goes south and toasts everything.... there's a ton reasons not to keep your backups on a HD; especially one that is plugged in all the time. Most reasons come completely unexpected...

As I was saying; you stick your data on a "new drive" and it fails in a couple of weeks from a board failure... then what. It's not so man...

If it was I wouldn't know people that try these methods and end up with no backups... especially the people who think drive mirroring is a backup.

SiGGy

Ya, I didn't think you did. SSDs use the same technology flash does; just seriously updated and implemented differently is all I was getting at.

Moog-Type-S

Didn't think the old would get you so upset.
You responded to my post...it appeared you were directing your comments at me

No harm no foul.

SiGGy

Ya it kinda irked me; I was just trying to help others...


Sorry for the miscommunication; guess I had it coming...

JetJock

Get a BluRay dude....HD DVD days are numbered

srika

if you didn't think I did then why did you say it huh huh hu hhuh hUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUH

lol