The problem was Toeshiba's marketing, or lack there of. They never really made an attmept to sell the format to the consumer. The only place I ever saw ads for HD-DVD were in movie theaters. It's almost as if Toeshiba thought consumers would buy the format just because it existed.

sharki3232

firesign

personally, i didn't care which side won as long as the stupid "war" was over. the toshiba cartel (which includes microsoft) is no better than the sony cartel.

firesign

Well, maybe it hadn't been lost completely, but I certainly wouldn't have made such a purchase. Netflix was just the next inevitable step.

Shadowman615

I just don't understand the persons that tout the HD-DVD as the more "consumer-friendly" folks. Both formats are DRM'd to death. The move by Toshiba and Co. to continue this format war seems particularly unfriendly to consumers.

vliam

And for everyone cheering a Sony victory... seriously? SERIOUSLY?

methane

Sony may be to blame, but the HD-DVD cartel (Toshiba, Microsoft, etc) shares that blame equally.

Franklin Comes Alive!

I don't remember DVDs being $30. I remember them being $15 and VHS was around $10. It was the players that were high. The DVD manufacturers had a minimum price of $300 for a long time.

Dibbler

You're buying the disc, but you don't own the content.
Much like a 2 liter soda. How many of them have you bought in your life? You still have the contents of how many? :)

doctor_cos

@cindel:
it means that the computer companies can now clearly go where they want to go, to blu-ray. Sony's are already there, Lenovo is ready to go there and the rest will be quick to follow. Blu-ray's capacity is huge for the computer industry. And DVD's where never meant to be used for data storage, which is why writable DVDs are kind of bogus and had so many problems to start with and still are flaky.

mikelotus

mechanismatic

Why aren't people upset about this more than e-peen debates about which format is better? I don't have a preference but having Netflix shut down HD rentals from two major studios is beyond weird. I think I'm going to actually cut my plan down over this for a while, as a kind of partial boycott.

The only way this would make sense is if they have insider knowledge that those other two studio holdouts are going to switch soon also.

goodkitty

My advice to everyone with an HD-DVD player is to sit back, enjoy the rentals while you still can - and then really enjoy the Netflix HD-DVD sale that is sure to happen before the end of the year. I'm confident you'll be able to find a lot of HD-DVD sales before the year is over at many rental and retail companies.

As far as being stuck with a Betamax player - you're still sitting on a player that is fairly decent at upconverting your regular grade DVDs to make them look better than normal. The sales and upconversion abilities are the main reasons I'm not dumping my player in the first eBay auction I can find.

chutch

Thank goodness for the WallyWorld discount bin. I love older movies and I am cheap. Perfect combination.

StevieD

You are incorrect. Both BD and HD-DVD used the same drm.

By choosing to use drm, ripping disks is an offense punishable under the DMCA. This is NOT consumer friendly.

This is like saying Best Buy is more consumer friendly than Circuit City because they have crappy locks on their stockroom.

Techguy1138

Buran

Buran

mechanismatic

dheddings

Dancing Milkcarton

azntg

h0mi

rb1971

so my free advice would be to save cash on older dvd titles & prepare to spend $30 on blu-ray for new ones for awhile (we all know how well sony does with price drops).

mac-phisto

Honestly, I don't know enough about either format to go one way or the other, but I think the cheering isn't so much for one side as it is for the end of the war, which in my mind is more anti-consumerist than either format.

I'm perfectly happy with DVDs and the eventual winner was always going to have to be backwards compatible.

spinachdip

I don't own either, to be clear.

Erwos

Most people here fret about buying a $25 hd-dvd. Imagine buying $10,000,000 worth of HD content. You want it to make you money over the next 2-5 years at least.

For them having to stock up on two formats knowing that only one will survive was a poor business decision.

Hopefully the service improves on BD-rentals.

Techguy1138

cindel

spinachdip

Logan26

And what the hell does that mean? So I can rent them? Or are they referring to those which have yet to be released? The ones they won't restock/don't have/loose? Unclear much?

@Erwos: I concur.

kelptocratic

You're right. Netflix is picking the winner, but in this case they are cutting their losses because Blu-Ray had won before Netflix made this decision.

Franklin Comes Alive!

I don't get why the Consumerist isn't outraged. This is just another example of a company picking a winner in the format war to the consumer's detriment.

Erwos

wereroki

I don't have a player for either, but I do think they should offer both formats.

HRHKingFriday

magic8ball

Smackdown

meneye

They just aren't going to replenish their stock anymore. Disks get lost/damaged/etc, which means Netflix needs to replace them. They're saying they won't be buying anymore, so you'll still be able to rent them until their stock is depleted.

Franklin Comes Alive!

boandmichele

Of course, this format war would be all for moot if download rentals become the norm, though I doubt that would happen unless the price drops and the industry drops the crazy 24-hour viewing window.

spinachdip

Bladefist

snoop-blog

snoop-blog

Yeah, I'm sure I'll end up with a PS3 sometime this year, but for chrissake man!

kelptocratic

surewriting

best buy is also droppign hd-dvd recommendation.

Coder4Life

DeltaPurser

snazz

Well, not dropping, but getting there...
[arstechnica.com]

Franklin Comes Alive!

privatejoker75

Still, I wanted Blu-ray to win this war anyway... it's probably curtains for the technologically inferior HD DVD format (Blu-ray can go up to 200 GB, HD DVD is only capable up to 51 GB). So much for Universal's Ken Graffeo and his "the war has just begun" BS...

MFfan310

Bladefist

mthrndr