Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Netflix Chooses Blu-Ray Over HD DVD
Posted by Suhit Gupta in "Digital Home News" @ 07:30 PM
"Online video rental company Netflix Inc said on Monday it would exclusively stock Blu-ray high-definition DVDs after a decision by some the world's biggest movie studios in favor of the Sony Corp developed format. Netflix has stocked DVDs using both Blu-ray and the competing HD DVD format developed by Toshiba Corp since they first came on the market in early 2006. Four out of six major Hollywood studios have recently decided to publish high-definition DVDs only using Blu-ray. Netflix said that with such a clear signal from the industry, it will only buy Blu-ray discs going forward and will phase out stock of HD DVD by about the end of the year."
Hmm, I wonder whether this happened because there weren't enough takers for the HD DVD format. Given Netflix is the leader in movie rentals, I wonder if this really signals the demise of HD DVD. I know Microsoft has backed this format very strongly and the XBox 360 (which has support for HD DVD) has been doing very well. So I wonder whether this also signals that not enough people are using the XBox 360 has a high definition media extender?
