HD DVD is dead!

[mdost03]

Beta was a superior technology compared to VHS, but consumers wanted the cheaper costing VHS tapes instead.

[asshanson]

Beta mostly failed because JVC licenced their technology to other manufacturers and Sony decided to keep it proprietary if I remember correctly. Beta was way higher quality than VHS, just didn't get the market share and apparently people didn't have the high quality hype like now.

[curt_gendron]

Yeah, it sucks. I bought an HD-DVD player over a year ago. I love it. I have about 10 movies and it does a great job of upconverting regular DVDs.

I'm been following this battle for a while now. A few months ago Warner Brothers went exclusive to Blue Ray. HD-DVD sales started to slip around that time. Then last week Netflix said it was stopping HD-DVD rentals and Best Buy said they were going to promote Bluray only. That was the beginning of the end. Then Wal-Mart said they were going to stop carrying HD-DVDs at the end of last week.

Sony managed to get enough of the studios to support Bluray only. That is what really killed HD-DVD. Sony sold them on the better piracy protection of Bluray (which is debatable whether it really exists)

The two formats both provide great picture quality. One doesn't outshine the other in that respect. HD-DVD just did it cheaper. Oh well, I'll wait until Bluray players get cheaper before I'm gonna get one.

- Curt

[Jaei Sun]

I'm glad that HD-DVD is dead, Blu Ray single layer holds almost as much as HD-DVD dual layer.

HD-DVD single is 15 GB, dual is 30 GB
Blu Ray single is 25 GB, dual is 50 GB.

[Shane@DBPerformance]

Beta's main downfall was that the tapes didn't have nearly as long of a record time.

[tpunx99GSX]

looks like my toshiba HDDVD player was a waste. at least i only got it for 100 bucks with 3 HDDVDs. I had both formats covered with the PS3, oh well maybe ill just use the Toshiba as a regular dvd player, it upconverts my old dvds. woot.

[INTRIGUED]

I'm glad about all of this, Reminds me of when I was up at Best Buy looking for a new Blu Ray movies and one of the salesman was standing next to me talking to a co worker basically talking shit about Blu Ray and how "HD-DVD is where its at". I was so pissed about that, Totally trash talking the product I was looking at (for a very long time) I just thought it was very unprofessional. Opinions are like assholes, Everyone has to have one.

[X Factor]

I bought HD DVD... but i'm thinking the remaining stock out there in stores will now price drop huge, so i'm hoping to pick some stuff up cheap.

My TV isn't 1080p anyway so nothing to lose by just making a big collection out of the movies I think are worthy of buying.

[gofastman]

I thought this was an interesting pic:
http://www.cd-writer.com/images/blu-raycu.jpg
I would think the blu-ray disk would be more prone to data degradation over time than the standard dvd, but I really don't know anything about it.

[Kracka]

What is that a pic of and what is it showing me?