Netflix to Carry HD DVD Titles in March

January 24, 2006 By Geoff Duncan

Rent-by-mail firm Netflix has announced it plans to carry HD DVD titles as soon as they launch this March.

Video-rental firm Netflix announced today that it plans to begin carrying titles in the HD DVD next-generation DVD format as soon as they become available in March, 2006. “For those subscribers who have an immediate interest in renting movies in high-def, we’re committed to making the full range of titles available at Netflix the moment they’re introduced,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

Toshiba is expected to have consumers HD DVD players to market beginning in March, and Warner Home Video, Universal, and Paramount have all committed to introducing titles in HD DVD format in the March timeframe.

Netflix also announced it plans to offer titles in the competing Blu-Ray DVD format when they become available later in 2006.

Netflix noted that initial adoption of the new format may be slow

Showing 3 comments

Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 11:38am 26th January 2006 I think you are confusing the HD-DVD players with the Blu-Ray players. Toshiba announced at this years CES that they will be introducing a sub $500 HD-DVD player in the Spring of this year. The Blu-Ray players however will cost $1000 and up once they are introduce. Check out the articles discussing it here: http://news.digitaltrends.com/featured_article38_...

My question is though, will there be enough HD-DVD titles available to justify spending even $500 for a new player?
Court Sullivan at 9:02am 26th January 2006 At $1000 bucks a pop though, for the Toshiba HD DVD player, I don't think these 24 titles carried by Netflix (89 total HD titles committed by major production studios) are going to be flying off the shelves though.

Fortunately, a lot of coming DVD's will have regular DVD versions on one side of the disc, and HD versions on the other side, so you can buy and be ready to watch your movies in HD once the price of the players come down.
Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 10:39am 24th January 2006 I love seeing Netflix adopt the new high-definition formats. Hopefully there will be a lot of Blu-Ray titles to choose from after its initially introduced. I plan on going the Blu-Ray route, I hope I am not dissapointed by my choice!