Netflix says no to HD DVD
HD DVD's coffin gets another nail.
Word was out this morning that Netflix was giving up on HD DVD, but now Netflix is getting personal about it. I just received the following e-mail:
Dear David,You're receiving this e-mail because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.
While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.
Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens.
You can click here to change your format preferences.
We're sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call us at 1 (888) 638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
While I'm often accused of being a Blu-ray supporter (I think this e-mail proves I'm not as one-sided as some people might think), the note actually makes me kind of sad. The fact is I'm much more of a renter than a buyer. I always thought (naively) that if I got a hankering to watch an HD DVD on my XBox 360 HD DVD player, I would be able to rent it from Netflix--even if HD DVD went down. Not so much anymore.
Is this the final nail in the coffin? Well, couple this Netflix announcement with Best Buy's announcement that it "will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format" and the end looks very near. Of course, HD DVD fans can remain in denial.
Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line "The electronics you lust for." He's also the author of "Knife Music," a novel. E-mail David. Follow David on Twitter.
Anyway, even though I'm a PS3 owner, HD-DVD had some nice features going
for it: a more finalized spec and standard/HD movies on one disc, among
others. The competition from HD-DVD would have kept the Blu-ray camp on
its toes. Heck, up until CES, I would tell people that my PS3 had the potential
of becoming a nicely designed Beta player.
IMHO, however, at the end of the day most consumers still have a standard
def TV and therefore don't need a hi-def player. It may not be tomorrow, but
I would imagine the rental model will move to the Intertubes, obseleting any
physical disc player.
--
Brian W.
If only HD-DVD player owners rented from Netflix, that is ONE MILLION, Yes, 1 million customers. They should be so lucky! to have them all as customers.
But they expect to keep them all by making them what pay another $400 for a BD machine? LOL Or give up HD?
I think more likely you will see a NEW online rental company emerge from this action soon that caters to the existing 1 million plus HD-DVD owners who wish to rent movies before making purchases.
That seems more likely to me.
This way i can continue buying HD-DVD's for my collection and instead of renting, i can preview the movies ONDemand before purchasing.
Costco has Toshiba HD-DVD players for sale today for $129 with free HDMI cable and 2 free movies inside box (plus 5 rebate) and right next to them is a BluRay player for $379 on sale with nothing extra, Sony knows HD-DVD would have become the new standard if left to free market economics, so it is doing everything and anything to scare people that movies won't be available for them.
I hope this scare tactic backfires on them, and people continue to buy HD-DVD players and force the studios to sell movies on the format or regular DVD stays the standard with upconverting players selling like hotcakes under $100.
Either way, So long Netflix, it was good while it lasted.
AnthonyNYC
This is how the studios and Sony create a new market by making our exisitng DVD collections unplayable on the new hardware. I'm canceling my Netflix account before the next billing and hope a few million other consumers do the same.
So much hype and misinformation out there...
All Blu-ray players, as well as HD DVD players; play back your SD DVD's. If you do not feel like replacing your entire collection, you can still play them on a Blu-ray player and they will also upscale them to 1080p (still not as good as a Blu-ray movie, but will look somewhat sharper). This person is doing nothing but spreading lies now.
Here is one fact, you are not going to get anything better than 1080p. All Blu-ray players play 1080p resolution movies. But not all HD-DVD players will play 1080p movies. Some will only go up to 1080i. The Toshiba HD-D3 only goes up to 1080i and the same goes with the HD-A3. That is why they are at least $50 cheaper than the other HD-DVD players.
I am glad one format is finally coming out on top. I sided with Blu-ray since the beginning, so no money lost on my side. But if the tables were turned the other way and I was forced to end up getting an HD DVD player; then so be it. I love HD quality movies and both formats provided that.
HD DVD is over, se acabo, finito. Don't you get it? As much as you might love and be loyal to HD DVD, they've lost. Move on, life must continue. Just stop crying and get a BD player.
And not, Netflix is not going out of business because a few sad and angry HD DVD supporters are canceling their memberships. By the way, there are MANY more Netflix members that have BD as the format for HD movies.
So, if you are so upset with Sony for being the winner, you can always watch standard DVDs and VCR tapes. But watch out, because some of those might be Sony movies...
If only HD-DVD player owners rented from Netflix, that is ONE MILLION, Yes, 1 million customers. They should be so lucky! to have them all as customers.
But they expect to keep them all by making them what pay another $400 for a BD machine? LOL Or give up HD?
I think more likely you will see a NEW online rental company emerge from this action soon that caters to the existing 1 million plus HD-DVD owners who wish to rent movies before making purchases.
That seems more likely to me.
:)
The war is nearly over, only a few skirmishes remain. Toshiba had better hardware, but as in all wars it comes down to the people behind the equipment, and Sony was better at manipulating retail and consumers alike.
Jeremy lesser HD DVD players mean lesser free copies of King Kong lol~~~~
slightly over dramatic. I still have family and friends that haven't yet
purchased a DVD player. I purchased an HD DVD player from Walmart before
Christmas when they were on sale for $99 and I'm very happy with it. I think it
makes an excellent upconverting DVD player at the least. I also think that
with Netflix set top boxes, Vudu boxes, Xbox Live, and the Apple TV also
offering HD downloads there may be good reason to just skip Blue Ray
altogether. I own an Xbox 360 and I think that the downloaded movies look
great and are a reasonable price. Also it only takes about 5 or 10 minutes
after starting to download the movie for it to be able to play. So please Sony
fanboys, stop acting like you own the world just because your format is
coming out ahead.
If you are such a fan of the stuff you listed (Netflix set top boxes, Vudu boxes, Xbox Live, Xbox 360, and the Apple TV), then why on earth did YOU buy a hard-media HD format (your HD DVD player)? Just had 99 bucks to throw away?
Secondly the bitrates from HD downloads are paltry compared to either blu-ray or HD-DVD. blu-ray has a 49 Mbps bitrate, HD-DVD has a 28 Mbps bitrate. XBL HD download 6 Mbps bitrate. Itunes HD download 4 Mbps bitrate. Even regular DVD has a bitrate of 8 Mbps.
I'm glad you don't mind waiting 10 minutes to watch your movie some of us would like not to wait so long.
Thirdly they are RENTALS. If you want to OWN HD movies you can't do that on XBL or Itunes.
Lastly as long as 50% of the county has no internet or dial-up physical media is going to be needed.
Sony owns a Movie studio. A pretty major one at that. That is at least one studio that would never go to HD-DVD until well after HD-DVD won the war. The other movie studios were fair game. BD always had more studio support even when they lost Paramount. Paramount's deal is only exclusive for a certain period of time. With BD still outselling HD-DVD, how likely do you think it is that Paramount would have re-upped with HD-DVD at the end of the year? Not very.
Movie professionals have pledged their support to Blu-ray from the beginning. Whether you think BD's storage capacity is not really an advantage or not is debatable, but the people who make the movies seemed enamored with it.
Lastly you have the PS3. When you have HD-DVD and BD fighting it out to sell stand alone players, any intelligent person should have seen that the PS3 would be a huge advantage to the BD camp. You have a game console that is coming form THE game console company. That sold close to 200 million PS2's. PS2 was a huge factor in early adoption of standard DVDs. I know that it was my first DVD player and it was many others as well. Even if the PS3 doesn't have the success of the PS2, how could you not think that it would not be a huge advantage of getting BD players out there to a large group of people who may not have even bought a BD player now or ever? They say to themselves, hey I can play BDs. Maybe I'll pick some up and see what it's all about.
And yes the XBox 360 has an HD-DVD add on, but spending another $200 on it makes it more expensive than the PS3 when it was at its most expensive. It also involves finding room for a rather large component, whereas the PS3 and it's BD player are integrated into one tower.
Anyone who didn't realistically think that we would eventually get to this point is either in denial, or wasn't thinking clearly.
- I agree that downloads would be in the future
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by krustykanuck
February 12, 2008 12:56 PM PST
- I agree with "kevkeisha" that the future will really be downloads and possibly even large capacity flash drives once they become cheap enough.
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