Blockbuster to offer ONLY Blue-ray DVDs

[Jon McGuffin]

Originally Posted by Paul Cascio

I believe it would be a clear antitrust violation to try to prevent competitive products from the market. This would not be the case if BB acted alone in its decision.

Does this mean that any exclusive agreement in the country is not anti-trust? Nobody is holding products back, they are making aliances with marketing channels by their choice. Customers also have a choice.

[Don Blish]

As I understood the announcement and BB's prez on CNBC, the decision applies to its 1450 retail stores, not its web site/mail in service......just fewer discs to stock. It's still a nice boost to Blu-Ray. I have been Netflix since its inception, and now about half of what we order thats recent is Blu-Ray and we move it right to the top of the list!

[Dave Lammey]

Originally Posted by Tim Brown

But there has been much speculation about whether the customers knew what they were buying when they purchased the HD-DVD version of Planet Earth. It has been said on Amazon's message boards that many believed they were purchasing a "high-definition" version that would play on their current DVD player and not necessarily an HD-DVD. With all the confusion in the marketplace with hi-def in general, this seems entirely plausible.

That's interesting. Another indication, I think, that this "war" will go the way of the cheapest players. If the average consumer doesn't know the difference between high def and standard def DVDs, then they probably won't know or care to know about the difference between blu-ray and HD-DVD -- high def is high def, and the least expensive player will win out.

[Thomas Smet]

I for one hope this war keeps going. The format war is really forcing the prices to drop quickly. If Blu-Ray didn't have HD-DVD to fight with then chances are the prices wouldn't be dropping to try to match the price of HD-DVD. SONY has even recently said that they are trying very hard to bring the cost of Blu-Ray players down to better match the price of HD-DVD players. Without this competition there wouldn't be a benchmark for how low the price should get.

HD-DVD keeps lowering their prices as well in order to keep the edge over Blu-Ray. I paid over $250.00 for my first DVD player and that was an open boxed item off the shelf store model at a reduced price. I also paid $350.00 for my first DVD burner.

If this war can keep up eventually everybody will be forced to drop the price of HD players and recorders to the point where it will not really matter if there are two formats because it would be so cheap to have both.

I like Blu-Ray and I like HD-DVD. They can both offer the same quality with one costing a lot more to have. Once the price of the burners is forced low enough due to competition I will offer both formats to my clients and not really care.

[Paulo Teixeira]

I’m not sure how reliable the secret source is but if its true than the impact of the BlockBuster announcement is a bit bigger than I thought.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hd-dvd-on...les-270313.php

[Rob Lohman]

Blu-ray "DVDs"?

I guess that's a new way to tell new customers that it is the next thing after DVD?

[Harrison Murchison]

http://www.trustedreviews.com/multim...lu-ray-Move/p1

The key question was naturally enough what its response was to Blockbuster’s move to drop HD DVD rentals from 250 of its US stores. Ken Graffeo, Executive Vice President of High Definition Strategic Marketing for Universal and co-president HD DVD Promotional Group, shrugged off the Blockbuster move, stating that rental counted for less the one per cent of its revenue. He also pointed out that Blockbuster still offered HD DVD on its online stores.

Why this is being proclaimed as some "big deal" is ludicrous to me. %1 revenue loss (maybe) and the HD DVD discs will still be available online. Huh? Why the pandemonium?

What Ken really said would win the format war was price, with HD DVD’s lower production costs giving it an advantage here over Blu-ray. When asked about when we would see a £100 HD DVD player, Toshiba’s Olivier Van Wynendaele, said it was unlikely to be this year, but that we could soon expect for see decks from Chinese manufactures that would undercut its own entry-level HD-E1 deck, which can currently be picked up for around £260.

Something wicked this way comes.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

Why this is being proclaimed as some "big deal" is ludicrous to me.

Because it's one of the most visible decisions (so far) for someone to back one format over the other in a context consumers will understand. By itself it may not be all that significant, but if it's a sign of things to come then HD-DVD could be in trouble.

[Rob Lohman]

Let's stay on-topic without speculation and finger pointing please!

Or I'll have to edit / delete stuff...

Thanks,