It appears Blu-Ray won a major step today toward the format war.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19289649/

The article explains that Blockbuster has chosen to carry Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, but I feel this is biased. BB says that 70% of HD rentals were going to Blu-Ray. When you compare the owners of PS3 (A lot of whom rent their games at BB since they spen such a penny on the unit), and the titles available on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (Sony has some awesome action pictures geared towards a gaming aged audience on the PS3), Sony is edging out ahead so far reguardless.

i always expected Blu-Ray to win mainly because of the PS3, even with its extremely high price it gave the format the chance to win.

Good news too as i was wanting Blu-Ray to win :D!

Aggreed, Blu-ray is definitly the supperiour standard. Definitly hoping this will not be a repeat of the Beta vs VHS days

Oh btw, I got a free Blu-ray with my PS3, and I must say, the HD quality is awesome!

I was actually rooting for HD-DVD because the HD consortium contains most of the computer industry and was reported to have extra features. Blu-ray consists mostly of the entertainment industry, the same one that feels free to burden any innovation with ineffective DRM and sues it's own customers. Also it's reported that the players, media and movies for Blu-ray are more expensive, though I'm sure they say that prices will come down over time. They said that about CDs too, when they replaced records and tapes, and we see how fast that happened.

But I also thought that Beta should have won, and picked Iomega over Zip for external storage, so it figures that Blu-ray would win. Matter of fact, the only time I can think of recently where a superior technology won over a stupid one is the current supremacy of MP3 over the various other braindead DRM formats, and they are still trying to kill it. HDTV seemed to avoid another format war, though at the expense of multiple resolutions, compression ratios and the DVI/HDMI debacle.

Tex

If I sound bitter, it's because the two warring parties had every opportunity to come up with a consensus standard that would have avoided another format war, and failed to come to an agreement at the cost of the consumer. I refuse to buy either standard until a winner is declared, until then, a pox on both their houses!

Another thing to consider. There are some who say that porn was the deciding factor in the Beta/VHS war when most pornos were released in VHS. If the majority of porn companies choose one standard over another, it might be the tipping point. Blu-ray is reported to be difficult for porn companies to deal with when releasing porn in that standard.

Tex

So thanks to porn HD DVD could still win out as the standard? heh

Yay for porn!

Don't get me wrong, I like BluRay, but I take the same stance as Tex.

I am betting on HD DVD however, even with the Blockbuster news. Fact is, MOST people are not upgrading yet to either new technology due to the pricing points. Sony only gets a leg up because the player is included with the PS3, and they have a BluRay consumer the moment someone plops down that $600+

While on the 360 it's an add-on, even on the newer elite package. I am disappointed in MS for NOT integrating the HD-DVD into the 360, but I am guessing they are betting on the next console (Which they are already working on) for integrating that technology.

`Smaug wrote:

So thanks to porn HD DVD could still win out as the standard? heh Yay for porn!

Maybe. Porn is also having it's own problems. DVD sales for the last two years are down 30% while online sales are up 14%. I speculate that the sheer volume of free online amateur porn is biting into both the DVD and online pay markets. The porn industry is a early adopter of technology, I suspect that they're going to do a combination of moving their cheaper production content online, and sell the major productions in an HD standard. They're already doing that, but I suspect we're going to see an acceleration of that process as sales continue to slump.

Tex

The old addage that "sex sells" will never die, and if you have the stomach for it, the porn idustry literally makes money "hand over fist"

Thought I'd throw some fuel on the fire for all those hd-dvd haters:

gizmodo.com/gadgets/ho...291361.php

Paramount and Dreamworks annouced they are dropping blue-ray in favor of hd-dvd. According the article, blue ray has 8 studios and hd-dvd has 12 now.

Maybe, on the other hand we have news like this.

Quote::

Blu-ray continues to outpace HD DVD The stylistic Spartan battle film 300 has charged to the fastest sales start of any high-def video disc release yet, according to Warner Home Video. Consumers have purchased more than 250,000 copies of the film in the competing Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats since its release July 31. That far surpasses the previous hot seller, also from Warner, The Departed, which took three months to sell 100,000 copies. So far, the Blu-ray Disc version of 300 is outselling the HD DVD version, 65% to 35%. According to Home Media Research, that mirrors the overall sales pattern this year (Jan-June), with Blu-ray accounting for 67% and 33% for HD DVD,. Warner releases movies on both of the competing formats. Sony, Disney and Fox only support Blu-ray, while Universal exclusively supports HD DVD. The Spider-Man films (Oct. 30) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End (Dec. 4) are coming to Blu-ray later this year. Overall, released titles on Blu-ray outnumber HD DVD roughly 2-to-1. "Blu-ray tips the scales in its favor this holiday season," says Peter Bracke, editor-in-chief, High Def Digest. "It's going to be tough for HD DVD to keep pace."

Quote::

Disc Sales: Hard Numbers in for First Half of 2007 Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 01:45 PM ET Tags: Disc Sales, Industry Trends (all tags) New data released Tuesday by Home Media Research provides a first look at actual disc sales numbers for the first half of 2007, and it's more good news for Blu-ray. The research arm of Home Media Magazine says total sales of Blu-ray discs for the first six month of 2007 totalled 1.6 million units, compared with 795,000 HD-DVD discs sold in the same time frame. While Blu-ray's 2-to-1 disc sales lead over HD DVD in 2007 has been known for months now, these figures are the first hard look at exactly how many discs have been sold by each format so far this year. Of course, these numbers remain tiny compared to standard-def DVD sales. Both high-def disc formats combined have reportedly accounted for only 2.5% of overall disc sales so far this year. Still, with overall DVD sales in a continued slump, high-def remains the one clear growth area for the home entertainment industry. As such, retailers are said to be making more room for both next-gen formats as we head into the crucial fourth quarter holiday shopping season. What effect the increased shelf space, a packed release slate, and lower player prices will have on disc sales for the second half of the year remains to be seen, but needless to say, we'll be tracking developments as they happen. Stay tuned!

Good point in the second story. Hi def formats are only accounting for 2.5% of new movie sales. The war is far from over.

Tex