Netflix Kills HD DVD

This is it, the final stake nailed in the HD DVD coffin.  HD DVD has been on a sinking ship, particularly since Warner Bros. turned their back on HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray.  I've been following this (VHS vs Betamax like) challenge in high definition digital video disc as a casual technology enthusiast, but this mail I just received from Netflix was the final tell-tale sign that's done it, it's over now.

It's sad really, that a superior technology with more features, open standards, costs less to produce, better future & backward compatibility, looses out to what I can only tell is market positioning by Sony.  Microsoft was backing HD DVD, but Sony certainly had the studio and market power to push their standard through.

Now that Warner Bros. has gone Blu-ray only, most of the big studios are Blu-ray.  Good bye HD.

Update: Blake Handler just pointed out that Best Buy is promoting Blu-ray.  Wow, two in one day.  The ship is sinking fast now.  BTW, Sony was behind Betamax tapes; they won this time around.  Oh, and Blake points out that the least expensive HD DVD Player is $150, while the least expensive Blu-ray player is $400, looks like it's a profit win for resellers, and a loss for consumers.

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2008
  Noah, Blockbuster is moving the same way. They deal exclusively in Blu-ray at their retail stored and I'm sure it won't be long before HD-DVDs are no longer available through their online rental service.

• Anonymous
  February 16, 2008
  Hey Noah, Firefox (and other non-IE browsers I think) can't open the .mht figuring the Netflix letter, so when we open your website, as long as that article is still on the main page, we get a popup window that asks for downloading or opening the .mht with IE. Pretty annoying, and even looks like an exploit the first time :) Could you replace it with either a picture of the letter, or a link to it? Thanks!