The rent-by-mail DVD company has announced it will only offer high-definition DVDs in Blu-ray format, phasing out HD DVD by the end of 2008.
Citing the “clear signal” from the movie industry—namely, that four of six major movie studios are backing Blu-ray exclusively—movie rental firm Netflix has announced it will only offer high-definition DVDs in Blu-ray format, phasing out HD DVD rentals by the end of 2008.
“The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition,” said Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos,in a statement. “We’re now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def.”
Netflix says it won’t be acquiring any new HD DVD discs to supplement the HD DVD offerings already in its lineup, although it will leave those discs in rental circulation until they reach the end of their “natural life cycle” in the coming months. Netflix currently offers over 400 Blu-ray titles, and says that even though only a small portion of its subscribers rent high-definition movies, the majority of those subscribers chose Blu-ray over HD DVD.
The announcement comes as another blow to the HD DVD camp, which is still reeling from Warner Bros. January announcement that it would begin offering movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format, phasing out HD DVD by mid-year. Previously, the studio had been a fence-sitter, offering movies in both high-definition formats. The only major studios currently backing HD DVD are Paramount and Universal, although the format is still supported by Microsoft on its Xbox 360 game platform.
Showing 3 comments
RSSindustry, I think I'm going to go out on a
limb here and make a personal forecast.
As for any "high-def" (not necessarily HD
in and of itself) content, I foresee HD will
be provided as a [more-or-less] streaming
content. On the other hand, when it comes to
actual DVDs, I think Blue-Ray will take the
market. What's the difference between the
two? Mainly, politics and money.
It makes me wonder if Sony really knew more
than we've given them credit for when they
released the PS3. There's been many discussions
about if the corporate heads of Sony were
doing drugs when they packed the PS3 with
so many advanced features that no one could
afford to buy the console. However......
Where the rubber meets the road will be seen
in your local video rental stores and places
like NetFlix. Right now there's just one little
wall with high def content. Within that little
wall you have HD and Blue-Ray. In time you will
see that little wall start taking up more and
more space in the store replacing basic regular
DVDs. When that does start happening (and we all know it will, eventually), you will see Blue-Ray offering more movie selections than will HD.
The HD format will belong to satellite and cable providers, while the DVD sales/rental industry will go to the Blue-Ray format. I have this crazy feeling deep inside that Sony has known this all along, and the 'PS3-failure' will become our Blue-Ray DVD player of choice ... not to mention we'll get an excellent gaming console thrown in for no extra charge. -- Mark
So glad I bought a PS3, I knew Blu-ray was going to win this war.