HD DVD camp responds to Blu-ray progress

by Chris Powell { Feb 12th 2008 at 11:00AM }

HD DVD is officially against the ropes and is getting battered by wicked left and right hooks to the noggin by Blu-ray. But unlike a punch drunk boxer giving it one last shot at the win, it appears that the HD DVD camp is slowly coming to grips with its grim future.

The camp responded to earlier reports that Netflix would only carry Blu-ray titles as well as Best Buy recommending Blu-ray as the HD standard. "We have long held the belief that HD DVD is the best format for consumers based on quality and value, and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Netflix make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward," the statement read. "While the Best Buy announcement says they will recommend Blu-ray, at least they will continue to carry HD DVD and offer consumers a choice at retail."

Sure, they're not exactly admitting defeat yet, but it's almost sad to see the HD DVD camp attempting to find a silver lining in the fact that Best Buy is still carrying its discs despite promoting its competitor as the superior product. With overwhelming industry support leaning in Blu-ray's favor, it appears the only thing Sony needs to declare full victory is the support of Universal and Paramount. However, we believe it's only a matter of time before they're "seeing Blu."

Tags: best-buy, blu-ray, hd-dvd, netflix, paramount, universal

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Trev @ Feb 12th 2008 11:12AM

Come on HD-DVD, just die so this whole thing can be over. Then everyone can just watch their movies... unless you're some psycho with a grudge against anything Sony touches, in which case enjoy your reality television!

Sauvage @ Feb 12th 2008 3:58PM

It's hard to admit defeat when you've shelled out over 1billion dollars on a format and asked other companies to buy into that dream. It's now turning into a nightmare. The first format out of the games does not always win. The same will hold true with Xbox 360.

Byron517 @ Feb 12th 2008 11:15AM

Talk about fighting till the bitter end!! JESUS H. CHRIST die already!!! I bet you in a few weeks Microcrap will dish out another 50 million to keep some studio on their side!! oh well... I'll continue watching them fry in the pan slowly!

ViagraFiend @ Feb 12th 2008 12:34PM

umm....i doubt microsoft will pay money for a format that they really dont have much to do with. Toshiba is the big loser here.

Microdot @ Feb 12th 2008 11:18AM

for a company that prides itself on caring about the consumer... they sure are screwing them over by extending this format war when there is absolutely NO chance of survival. Think about the ill informed who are out there buying cheap hd-dvd players right now. a month or two from now when hd-dvd finally closes up shop... is that going to still be "the best option for the consumer"?

JaseH @ Feb 12th 2008 11:28AM

They're all idiots, that what I have to say.

Trev and Micro are both right. End it so you don't trick the misguided even more, so we can all continue on a straight line instead of two.

Die already!

But its only a matter of what time this year...

_______________________________
JaseH.

xFenixKnightx @ Feb 12th 2008 11:30AM

Throw in the damn towel already!!!!!

PETEJOZ @ Feb 12th 2008 11:31AM

I love you amazing photo editing, it looks SO real!

joey2joey @ Feb 12th 2008 11:32AM

The guy sounds like a dictator. Seriously, the way HD-DVD talks sounds like a dictator. I'm not being fan-boyish, but just look at what some of them have been saying.

chris.westermann @ Feb 12th 2008 11:36AM

Wow, only 1 million HD-DVD players installed, there are at LEAST 10 million Blu-ray players on the market if you only count PS3 consoles. Yeah, Best Buy and Netflix are making the right decisions. I have said before that the only company responsible for the defeat of HD-DVD is Microsoft for not opting to include HD-DVD built into the Xbox360.

JaseH @ Feb 12th 2008 11:58AM

What's with people saying MS would have saved HD DVD if it packed in the HD DVD player?...

WOuldn't have the cost of the 360 be larger than it was at launch?... wouldn't it have been the most unreliable HD DVD player as well?..

MS would have had more problems if it included HD DVD as standard. To be frank, most people I know have taken up the 360 because of it's low cost...

Do you think the 360 would have sold so much if it were extremely close to the PS3 price?

Do you think many developers would have had such confidence in the console a year later as well?

Don't be silly.

MS would have faced more complications if a drive (Albiet cannot even be used for game development) was implemented in each and every one of it's consoles. Tech & Price wise. It's no wonder why the add-on was $200.00 at first.

The 360 just wouldn't have had the success it had now, it just would have been a larger risk business wise. And who knows, do you really think the 360's launch wouldn't have been delayed if it chose to build in the HD DVD player?

All in all, HD DVD was doomed from the start, even with a year to itself. Sony has been on top of the film game since the 90's. Blu ray would have stolen the hearts of many one way or another.

Let's be real here.

_______________________________________
JaseH.

Microdot @ Feb 12th 2008 12:52PM

"What's with people saying MS would have saved HD DVD if it packed in the HD DVD player?..."

maybe not saved... but it definitely would have been a closer race.

"WOuldn't have the cost of the 360 be larger than it was at launch?... wouldn't it have been the most unreliable HD DVD player as well?.."

you mean more unreliable than the pile of crap they already have in there? impossible. i cant count the number of scratched discs i had when i went through my 6 xbox 360's.

"MS would have had more problems if it included HD DVD as standard. To be frank, most people I know have taken up the 360 because of it's low cost..."

and most people you know will soon be getting a ps3, or just pissed off to high hell with the 360 when game devs start passing them over as they cannot fit their designed game on a dvd9. we are already seeing the start of this... gta4 is the perfect example. a lot of the planned game was cut to make it squeeze onto the small disc.

"Do you think the 360 would have sold so much if it were extremely close to the PS3 price?"

the 360 has sold what it has to date simply due to the massive head start.

"Don't be silly."

heed your own words.

Phileoca @ Feb 12th 2008 4:15PM

at the time of the 360's launch, the HD-DVD drive wasn't ready. So it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Not that the 360 launch titles was anything to write home about anyway.

Chris Rah Osiris @ Feb 12th 2008 12:06PM

HD DVD, you lost, now bow out gracefully. Please

xbob @ Feb 12th 2008 12:16PM

I have both and can't tell the difference when watching a movie. But I hate the competing formats and would rather see one win and one go away. Sony fought the betamax fight pretty long (and did win on the high end as a broadcast standard for a while) but lost out to VHS for consumers. Looks like Blu gets the public approval this time. Universal and Paramount, get on board and let's all move forward! So will we see an Xbox360 add-on blu-ray in 2008? I'm glad my PS3 already plays them!

BZM @ Feb 12th 2008 12:47PM

haha lol, history history

Super VCD

BZM @ Feb 12th 2008 12:50PM

History History :P
How DVD destroyed Super VCD and now how Blue-Ray destroying HD DVD :P.

Seminole @ Feb 12th 2008 12:58PM

It's Blu-ray, not Blue-Ray

eugene @ Feb 12th 2008 2:09PM

Whew, thanks for clearing that up. I read his post and was so confused as to what Blue-ray could *possibly* mean. Ye gads, if it weren't for you, I would never have figured it out!

James @ Feb 12th 2008 12:59PM

You know... these companies aren't saying one is better than the other. The production companies, the retailers, the rental stores... they all finally realized that they needed to just make a friggin' decision, stick with it, and move forward. They chose Blu-ray, but not necessarily because it's a better format, but because they're sick of trying to maintain a market in both.

Now, as someone who owns both a PS3 and a 360 HD DVD player, I can tell you that there isn't a noticeable difference. And even the slightest difference varies from player to player - one movie might be better on HD DVD, another on Blu-ray. So in terms of visual quality, they are fairly on par. Other than that, HD DVD's are usually easier to navigate, and Blu-ray players upgrade standard DVD's better. So they both have their strengths.

And at the end of the day, the companies finally decided to pick one and go with it. I suggest we all learn to adapt to a Blu-ray world and find something else worthy of argument.

Moving on...

TheEnd187 @ Feb 13th 2008 3:21PM

you must not be a movie buff then, considering the 360 HDDuD addon is the worst HDDuD player on the market. Jus get it over with you say you are neutral, but cailm Blu-ray is the lesser format? look at badic minimal specs
Blu-ray total bandwith(for movies) 54mbps
HDDuD total bandwith(for movie) 36mbps

now tell me who is going to be producing better quality movies?

theclub83 @ Feb 12th 2008 1:23PM

as someone with both 360 and ps3 im glad it turned out the way it did. loosing hd-dvd means loosing an expensive add-on (which i never bought), while loosing blu-ray would mean failure for a crucial part of the ps3.

Edge @ Feb 12th 2008 2:13PM

Agreed that HD DVD is dead, but, Sauvage, it doesn't have any berring on where 360 is going, so don't kid yourself.

AzaMcWazza @ Feb 12th 2008 2:44PM

Looks like Ken Kutaragi might have been right, maybe he'll get his job back?

Either way, it's a shame to see HD-DVD dying like this. I have a PS3 and love it, but I'm not a fan on Sony and their proprietary formats and control of said formats. Both formats look identical, so technically there's no real difference of any value to consumers, I just think HD-DVD underestimated the power of the PS3.

If the PS3 had of had more games maybe it'd be a different story but seeing as it had (Has) almost nothing in it's line up people went out and bought BluRay movies. This had to have helped.

TinyTim121 @ Feb 12th 2008 3:09PM

Nice isn't it when something predicted to lose at first ends up beating the competition?

There is nothing sweeter than watching the experts who predicted HD-DVD to win eat their own words =D

mas @ Feb 12th 2008 4:03PM

Im not normally one to get into these fanboy type arguments but I would say that it is Sony that we have to blame for this...because sony decided to pack blu-ray into the PS3 there are more blu-ray players out there. So companies of course are going to back the majority shareholder. But that doesnt always make it the best more people use windows than any other operating system and its certainly not the best. Same thing with HDDVD and BLURAY..... HDDVD is clearly the better choice for High Definition movies for numerous reasons in which we all know but because sony decided to give away an inferior technology it has blanketed the market with it and unfortunately it is here to stay.. If there was no PLayers in any game systems and people just had to buy a stand alone player blu ray would have lost along time ago...look around HDDVD has sold more stand alone players than BLU

dave @ Feb 12th 2008 8:53PM

I'm not normally one to respond to flamebait, but it irks me no end when someone claims that one solution is 'clearly' better than the other, when it is anything but clear.

There are advantages to both Blu-ray and HDDVD. Claiming one is 'clearly' better than the other, just shows unfair bias to that format.

HDDVD's advantage is that it has a better software spec, mostly thanks to Microsoft and their HDi software. This allowed them to have features like Picture in Picture and Internet enabled additional content, with barely any effort, since Microsoft had already done most of the work. Standalone players are fully featured from day one.

Blu-ray's advantage is that it has a better hardware spec. Larger capacity layers, the ability to have more layers than HDDVD, and a faster bit rate. The interactive software is still a little under par compared to HDDVD, but they'll be equal after Profile 2.0 is released. Older standalone players will not support the new features though, so that is a problem for early adopters.

As far as video quality is concerned, there's no real difference, other than Blu-ray being able to support a higher bit rate. They both support the same video codecs. Blu-ray can theoretically push a higher video quality, that people would not notice anyway, unless they were watching the video on a 2 meter screen. Even then, it'd only be the purists that pick up the differences.

So, which format is 'clearly' superior? None of them really, at the moment. It has to go to Blu-ray though, once Profile 2.0 is out.

TheEnd187 @ Feb 13th 2008 3:21PM

You forgot to Mention that HDDVD lacks the required disc space/bandwith to support a LPCM track, like oh lets see... Transformers

mas @ Feb 13th 2008 2:54AM

Blu ray is written closer to the bottom of the disc therefore making it easier to scratch your disc and make it unusable

Blu ray machines are more expensive

On average the Movies are more expensive than HDDVD

harder to upgrade firmware with blu ray

Blu ray doesnt have transformers

and this is just a bad thing in my opinion and that is that blu ray is a sony product and besides my Playstation One Ive never owned a decent sony product but of course that could just be me

dave @ Feb 14th 2008 11:43PM

My favourite flamebaiter is back again ... now let's see if I can somehow curb his rampant HDDVD fanboyism.

Name one person who has complained about scratching their Bluray discs and making it unusable. The standard specifies a harder coating than DVDs/CDs/HDDVDs. They're harder to scratch than any other common media.

Bluray machines are indeed more expensive. Only because Toshiba is taking a hit with each machine they sell, from what I've heard. You could certainly expect HDDVD players to increase in price, if they had won the format war.

Bluray movies are certainly more expensive on average. Same reason as the above paragraph; HDDVD is cheaper only because they're trying to compete with Bluray. Again, they would certainly increase prices had they won the format war. Media prices will come down once any format starts to pick up significant volume.

Firmware is easy to upgrade on any player. Although I grant you, it will be impossible to upgrade most Bluray players to higher profiles. It will also be impossible to upgrade HDDVD players to cope with new HDDVD standards, like say, the proposed increase of layers to try to get closer to the Bluray limit.

Bluray does not have Transformers, that is true. Will that be true in the future? No, it will not. This is a non-issue for me anyway, since I'm not a Transformers fan. I'm sure there's plenty of other people that don't buy into a standard, based on one exclusive title.

There's still no clear winner, my friend. You had some decent arguments, but nothing that will remain true in the future.

OLDMIKE @ Feb 12th 2008 4:24PM

how the hell can you say HD-DVD is better name 1 way??
and dont use PIP as they added that last year
did you know that MANY HD-DVDs dont have lossless sound do to no room on the disk?
did you know that the main draw to buying a PS3 over a blu-ray player is it was a LOT cheeper?
Blu-ray is better in ever way

PS sony dose not control Blu-Ray they are just a member
they helped make it but were not alone