Woolworths backs Blu-Ray
WOOLLIES has has become the first retailer to throw its hat into the ring solely for Blu-Ray.
The outfit has said that from March it will only stock Blu-Ray high definition DVDs from March, with HD-DVDs being dropped completely.
According to the Retail Bulletin, the reason is that after Woolworth's staff added up sales of high definition titles over the Christmas period Blu-Ray DVDs outsold HD-DVDs by ten-to-one.
Woolies is promising to hav a Blu-Ray DVD chart in all 820 stores and a Blu-Ray DVD back catalogue section in larger stores.
The outfit has been one of the biggest sellers of high definition format disks. It has also seen sales rising by more than 40 per cent a month.
A Woolworth's spokesman said that it is fairly clear that the market is moving to Blu-ray pretty quickly. He said the reason is because of Sony's PS3 which plays Blue Ray disks. Since there are about three quarters of a million PS3s in Blighty that makes for a good market.
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Looks like CircuitCity in the US is also dumping HD DVD. http://www.1080living.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=17 This is more exciting than Eastenders.. 2 more studios dropped HD DVD support yesterday to concentrate on Blu-ray... Smaller studios, granted, but the ball is rolling.. http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=39607 http://formatwarcentral.com/index.php/2008/01/20/rb-films-to-exclude-hd-dvd-for-future-releases/ In addition to Paramount Blu-ray titles mysteriously reapearing, depsite being rumoured to have been destoryed. Looks like Paramount want some Blu action... http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=39210 http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=39533 The industry also want Toshiba/Universal/Paramount to give it up: http://www.dvdfile.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6496 http://www.dvdreview.com/coffee/pages/524.html
In the long run will it matter what format wins, since physical product will probably die out anyway. With download services like itunes video service and Amazon, and ever faster broadband services this has got to be the way forward. I can see a time when physical formats are mainly for collectors and professionals who need a way of sharing large files.
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD: Too little, too late. No-one will really miss them when they are gone anyway. Only the fanbois, untill they find another fake-penis-expert-thing going for them. Media that is accesible everywhere and at all times is the future. Need proof? Look at the SACD/DVD-AUDIO-"formatwar". MP3 won. Most people don't care about the quality, good enough (MP3/DVD) is good enough. And convenient wins. Each time. The same will happen now. Look at piratebay with their 10 million+ users now, in 2-3 years they will have 40-50 mill. And it will not stop. Sorry, RIAA, MPAA, whatever you call yourself. You lost. You tried to lock the consumers down, and lost. Today my entire music (500CDs+) and movie (200DVD+) collection is digitized. Our family got 3 pcs, 1 server, 3 notebooks all in a 1gbps/11G network with 6TB of storage between them. Further we got 2*360, 1Wii and 2*PVR for TV-recording. Several LCD from 19" to 42" hidef. Also a 50" plasma. Add in a couple of rocking good surround/stereo-systems. All of these systems are interconnected. All media at the push of a button, accessible in all rooms, always. No need to find the media. It’s always there. On top of that we got a 100mbit internet-line. Now, do we really need another physical format? With DRM that does not allow them to be shared on our internal network? I like quality, I even own some SACDs and even more DVD-Audios. But I prefer to download my hidef-movies. Why? I just can't stand another formatwar, or getting stuffed with DRM. Too much hazzle, too much of not getting my money’s worth. It's all in the network, stupid. Without the Dreaded, Rotten, Malfunctioning stuff i might add. Are we going back to days of physical formats? Not when there is an alternative. The rest of you can eat whatever Sony, RIAA, MPAA, et al is feeding you. They are taking away all the DRM on music, anyone taking bets when they cave in on movies?
yet again the better format will fade away, at this point in time the best hd dvd spinner is the toshiba ep35, it has all the sound formates and v1.3 hdmi deep color, plus 24frames, if you put this through a denon 4308 (v1.3) reciver and a jvc hd100 (v1.3) projector the sound and image are just stunning, better than any blu-ray spinner on the market today. ps: the ep35 is worth £189 as just a dvd player alone. point made.