Blockbuster Adopts Blu-ray For HD Rental

The movie rental powerhouse selected Blu-ray for its high-def video offerings, citing stronger consumer demand in trials.

The winner of the HD format wars may not be decided by features or even available titles, but by its corporate backers. HD DVD scored big back in April when Wal-Mart announced it would carry a number of low-cost HD-DVD players by Christmas, and now Blu-ray has made its own progress by winning the support of Blockbuster, the major rental chain. The company announced on Monday that it will only offer Blu-ray titles when it brings high-def video to its 1700 stores nationwide.

The decision was based on a trial run Blockbuster held in 250 of its stores. The company offered both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, keeping close track of which consumers preferred. According to Blockbuster, Blu-ray won out by an overwhelming margin. The company told the Associated Press that the trial stores rented 70 percent more Blu-ray movies than HD DVD movies.

“We are excited to be able to make more high-definition titles available to our customers in those stores where our research indicates there will be the most demand,” said Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising for Blockbuster, in a statement. “Obviously, when customers are ready we can expand the Blu-ray offering into more stores and add HD DVD to more locations if that’s what customers tell us they want. We’ll continue to work with the movie studios to ensure we have the right assortment of products.”

The expansion into Blu-ray will come in July, when the company will add more than 170 Blu-ray titles to its stores. The 250 locations that offered Blu-ray and HD DVD for Blockbuster’s trial run will continue offering both formats.