p2pnet - rss feed: Wal-Mart dumps HD DVD
p2pnet news | Products:- “With news of a dastardly (and, we’re sure, completely coincidental) hack on the Blu-ray Disc site, sending people to arch-rival HD DVD’s page, in the background, Warner Bros’ move to back Blu-ray exclusively clearly caught both Toshiba and the North American HD DVD Promotion Group totally off-balance,” p2pnet posted at the beginning of the year, going on:
” ‘Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.’ decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD,’ says Toshiba in a masterly understatement.”
Then, “Woolies - Woolworths - is famous. It was Wal-Mart before there was Wal-Mart, and it’s now made a move which’ll have a significant impact on the vexed DVD format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray,” we wrote soon after.
Now, “The HD DVD format is reeling from another body blow,” says the Los Angeles Times, going on:
“The nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said Friday that it would sell movies and players only in the rival Blu-ray format at its 4,000 discount stores and Sam’s Clubs.
“Wal-Mart said it would continue to sell its HD DVD inventory over several months, then devote more shelf space to Sony Corp.’s Blu-ray. The announcement from the country’s biggest seller of DVDs comes amid a growing number of defections from the Toshiba Corp.-backed HD DVD camp.
“Earlier this week, online movie rental service Netflix Inc. said it would exclusively stock Blu-ray discs, and electronics retailer Best Buy Co. said it would “prominently showcase” Blu-ray hardware and movies as a way of steering consumers to the format.”
That knocking sound you hear is nails being driven into HD DVD’s coffin.
Also See:
p2pnet - IS HD DVD dead?, January 5th, 2008 a
vexed DVD format war - Woolies dumps HD DVD, January 29, 2008 a
Los Angeles Times - Wal-Mart moves to the Blu-ray camp, February 16, 2007
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
XD
February 16th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Out of curiosity, did dual VHS-Beta players exist at one time or another?
February 16th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I dont think retail stores should choose between one or the other. They should offer their customers a choice. How hard would it be for the people behind BluRay to kick back millions of dollars to walmart for the ability to only sell their products?
I dont like the idea of a retail outlet picking one or the other. What if Walmart or others stores as big as them decided to sell on Plasma tvs? LCD and others would go out. Now the big problem is what about the movies that are only released on the HDDVD format. Does that mean Walmart wont sell those?
February 16th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
It’’s obvious why the studios went Blu-ray: DRM, pure & simple.
It has the stronger BD+ protection and the aweful region coding*. HD DVD had neither of those and had better features, such picture in picture and better content, despite the smaller capacity.
As usual, shit floats.
*The fact that region free players and workarounds exist isn’t the point. Something like this should be illegal.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
“Out of curiosity, did dual VHS-Beta players exist at one time or another?”
The heads were so physically different you couldn’t build a machine that would accept them both in one slot. Also, the reels were spaced differently. The signal processing is also very different. They both scan the tape in different patterns. If you mean a dual deck VCR with Beta in one side and VHS in another, I’ve never seen one in the store. Once VHS won no one cared about Beta except a few video enthusiasts.
I did once take tape from a beta cassette and spool into a VHS shell. I didn’t expect it to work, I just wanted to see what the mess would look like. They’re the same width. What I saw was diagonal grey and black lines. The VHS speed kept going up and down trying to run the Beta tape at VHS speed, but Beta was different. The monaural audio sped up and slowed down as well.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
That´s too bad. I find the HD-DVD´s looking extreamly nice on my Sharp LC-46XD1E. I have a cheap Toshiba HD-E1 and the combination is very nice. better than the PS3. I hope the stores will keep the HD-DVD as long as they are available.