Netflix has gone blu-ray only

The popular online video rental service Netflix has announced that they have decided to support Blu-ray exclusively for high definition movie rentals.

Netflix will no longer purchase movies in the rival HD DVD format, and once the life cycle for those discs has ended, they will no longer stock the format for rent.

National geographics is pure blu-ray

Joining ranks with warner, National geographics will now only release it´s movies on the Blu-ray hd medium.

Astonishing to see some people still buying hd-dvd in US of a while here in Europe people even get money when they trade in their useless hd.dvd players and instead pick up a blu-ray player.

top 250 sales chart @ amazon.com

sales chart for HD movies since warner went Blu-ray

It´s a chart from amazon.com showcasing how hd-dvd sales on amazon has rocketed downwards while Blu-ray has remained in the top ranks.

Blu-ray blows hd-dvd out of the water

Hollywood reporter article

It mentions how the paramount sell out didnt manage to even make a dent in the high definition movie war and how Blu-ray outsells hd-dvd in ever single region all over the world, it´s not just outselling, it´s completely tromping the competition, so please warner, end it all and just go blu so we can finaly get all our hd movie loving in one nice format named Blu-ray.

The HD war, one more blu-ray week

let´s forget worldwide for a short while, not because hd-dvd won in a non na region, but because blu-ray´s lead is even bigger worldwide, so let´s forget that and just look at last weeks North america numbers.

Over 3:1 in favour of Blu-ray and 8 out of the top ten was blu-ray movies, not to mention that blu-ray´s top movie outsold hd-dvd´s top movie by a 8-1 margin.

Ah yes, what does it mean in %? Blu-ray has 76% of the hd market in north america in other words and hd-dvd 24%.

nxtbook has the numbers if you click the link

73% of sold hd movies in europe is...

Blu-ray of course and that´s total, not per week or anything, it´s total during 2007, a devastating defeat for hd-dvd of course, according to recent numbers from Media control gfk international, read more about it in this article (Swedish only)

HD disc awards 2007. Blu-ray sweeps it

Out of 11 categories in the HD disc award, Blu-ray takes a wopping 7 including the three heavyweight, movie of the year and best animated movie and best picture quality.

*High Def Title of the Year: 300, Warner Home Video. Blu-ray.
*Best Live-Action Blu-ray: Casino Royale, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Blu-ray.
*Best Animated: Ratatouille, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. Blu-ray.
*Best Picture Quality: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. Blu-ray.
*Best Long-Form Music Video: Dave Mathews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City Music Hall, Sony BMG. Blu-ray.
*Best Catalog: Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Blu-ray.
*Best Collection/Multidisc Set: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Blu-ray.

Not to mention that the third installment in the pirates franchise shuttered all High definition movie sale records so far in it´s first week in North america, one more great week for blu-ray in other words and one more not so great week for hd-dvd.

Hd-vmd in real life test

The player NME ML777S is noisy but delivers a decent picture and sound quality on Mel gibsons the apocalypto, however it has issues with panoramas since it doesnt support 1080p 24 and it lacks the content of blu-ray and worst of all, it´s dvd upscale is horrible, it´s ugly looking and several movies kills the player...

Despite the player freezing, which could be credited to a monday morning example, the picture quality when upscaling dvd´s is plain and simply ugly! and the lack of hd movie support makes this a big no no in our humble opinion.

If you´re looking for a true HD movie format, go with blu-ray or hd-dvd(which we think you should avoid since blu-ray is sweeping the stage globaly, kind of stupid to buy into a format that looks like it´s going to extinction, but we might be wrong) anyway, hd-vmd should be left in the dust when you decide which hd movie format to go with.

Warner leaning towards blu-ray only

As the topic states, warner is leaning towards dropping their hd-dvd support and focus on blu-ray only, currently warner supports both formats but since they sell alot more blu-ray movies and the blu-ray format in general outsells hd-dvd worldwide by a big margin it´s only logical to drop the loosing side.

Great win for ps3 and Sony and blu-ray consumers if that would be to happen, heck in the longrun it would be good for every consumer out there.

Michael bay pt III. Blue-ray vs hd-dvd

I´ll say no more then to qoute michael bay, who is currently locked to hd-dvd only so nope, he´s not a blu-ray only person speaking out trying to protect his format, this is simply how it is qualitywise for Michael bay.

Does anyone here want to challenge what I feel suits my films better in terms of look? I see every frame of my films over a hundred times before it is ever released. I know the lighting conditions I shot it and the result on the DI. I know the range. I know what the final product should look like - Blu-ray suits my films better.

Simple and sweet

Michael bay speaks about blu-ray and hd-dvd

Ouch, the outspoken Michael bay has done it again and one has to aplaud a director locked into hd-dvd that speaks up so loud and well about blu-ray, anyway, this is a man that´s not content with seeing his movies on hd-dvd only.

In other words, prepare for Michael bay and his movies to hit blu-ray sooner then later.

What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth.

As you can see, Michael bay blaims Microsoft for keeping Hd-dvd in the race even tho the hd-dvd format is so totally outgunned and outperformed by Blu-ray

And here´s the link to Michaels own post Guess the hd-dvd camp will try to blaim Michael for being drunk again like they did last time he spoke up :)

Blue-ray - vs Hd-dvd in Australia

Ouch, one more region and one more gory defeat for hd-dvd.

Looking back at 2007 through the entire year, blu-ray has outsold hd-dvd by an almost 6:1 margin and yes, that´s for hd movies being sold in Australia.

And thus, Video chain video ezy is now joining blockbuster as a blu-ray only supporter.

Blu-ray vs Hd-dvd, sales chart

A well, one more week for Blu-ray on the winning streak and one more for Hd-dvd on the loosing streak and one more week with alot of people being fooled into buying a hd-dvd player.

I just read about a poor sod whom bought a hd-dvd player earlier this year to purchase HD movies for his kids, problem is, disny is blu-ray HD only... Makes you wonder when people will catch up to the ugly reality that is hd movies.

Anyway, he´s now buying a ps3 for christmas, first and foremost to use it as a blu-ray movie player and of course also to play games with his kids.

Data for the week shows 72.6% of high-definition discs purchased by consumers were Blu-ray and just 27.4% were HD DVD, which means hd dvd isnt gaining, they are loosing ground in the hd movie war.

Blu-ray (97%) vs hd-dvd, Japan

We continue our travel around the globe to find out how blu-ray and hd-dvd is holding up in the various regions.

We have so far seen blu-ray win in every region we´ve looked up, almost 70% in us of a, and even higher numbers in Sweden, in fact almost as high as in Japan, because even tho blu-ray outsells hd-dvd in north america and outsells it even more in Europe, it doesnt hold a candle to how it is selling in Japan.

Blu-ray players, including ps3 of course since it´s an excellent blu-ray player (best one so far in my humble opinion) outsells hd-dvd and as far as hd recorders, well blu-ray doesnt just outsell hd-dvd, it pummels it into oblivion with a 97% marget penetration and well hd-dvd of course gets the remaining 3%.

Now why is reports like this important? Well from a personal pov they arent, we already have our hd movie player in the shape of the ps3, but for everyone still not using a hd movie player it is. Picking up the loosing side isnt fun, which is something people all over the world can testify to, thing is, the companies making the loosing product dont care about you spending your money on a product that´s loosing out, they want your money even if they´ve already started to make plans to switch in a year or two.

For them well, big deal, you just have to purchase the next thing from them, in this case a blu-ray player in a year or two when hd-dvd is laying in the dust if you´ve been unlucky enough to pick up a hd-dvd player right now, of course, it could be the other way around aswell, but seeing how uneven the fight is, week in week out in sales numbers, hd-dvd winning wont happen. Which is why lifting out sales numbers is important when the difference is as huge as it is between blu-ray and hd-dvd.

ad number two

Blu-ray vs Hd-dvd the comedy punches

Blu-ray has aparently some funy people behind them and has thus launched honest and to the point video advertisements on the web :).

Anyway, you cant argue with such ad´s, great stuff hd-dvd owners and take note if you´re thinking of buying either blu-ray or hd-dvd.

Oh, for clarity, we do agree with theses ad´s.

blu-ray vs hd-dvd sales chart, nov

Well onward to blu-ray vs hd-dvd.

Last week blu-ray once again walked and jumped all over hd-dvd and this week, well it´s no different then anyother week this year, yes, blu-ray has outsould hd-dvd every single week the entire year, now, why is that important?

Well it means to you as a consumer that you should pick up a blu-ray player if you´re going high definition, unless you can afford both that is.

Nov 4 to Nov 11.

1. Ratatouille -- Blu-ray
2. Spider-Man 3 – Blu-ray
3. Cars – Blu-ray
4. Transformers – HD DVD
5. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry – HD DVD
6. Spider-Man The High Definition Trilogy – Blu-ray
7. Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 1 – Blu-ray
8. Knocked Up – HD DVD
9. 300 – Blu-ray
10. Meet the Robinsons – Blu-ray

And in case someone doesnt know, every hd movie is available on dvd aswell so regardless of format you can get your movie in standard dvd definition since both blu-ray and hd-dvd plays regular dvd´s, but one movie that should be enjoyed in high def is for sure Ratatouille on blu-ray, great movie for both kids and adults.

Best bang for the buck hd movie player with exceptional hd movie quality? The playstation 3 of course.

Korean tv service for the ps3

Korean iptv for ps3 and European dvr functionality a few months away, well the beloved ps3 just keeps ticking away the checkboxes on it´s road to becoming the nr.1 media center solution.

To be honest, we do have a x360 in our home aswell but that´s being used for nothing but games in our youngest kids room together with a ps2 and psp and he spends most of his time playing on the family ps3 in the living room with the rest of us, seriously playstation 3 is the real hd cornerstone in our houshold and it´s just so smooth being able to do it all with just one tiny, great looking console, great stuff and just so smoothly behaving it´s something we could never do without again.

Just imagining having to have a dvd and standalone blu-ray player, a x360 + it´s hd dvd standalone adon a stereo and computer in the living room, now our ps3 is doing all that, playing blu-ray and dvd movies, playing music, streaming movies and music from the wireless pc in another room and whenever we feel like it, downloading music and movies from the pc or importing the music straight from the cd (gives a higher quality then streaming) so we can play it whenever we feel like it from the ps3 hd, which in all honesty is what we always do nowadays when listening to music and soon it´ll support divx aswell, removing some of the transcoding needs as of now.

Not to forget that we dont have to pull up the desktop pc or laptop if we want to check out something on the web, we can do that straight from the ps3 and it´s an excellent implementation aswell.

Bring forth iptv to Europe aswell as Korea and give us the dvr thingy come 2008 and things will be even prettier.

Blu-ray vs Hd-dvd

The numbers speaks for itself.

week ended 4 Nov: Blu-ray 71% of movie sales and hd-dvd 29%.
Year to date: Blu-ray 64% hd-dvd 36%.

Link to nielsens numbers

The transformer boost aparently only lasted for a week for the hd-dvd camp, and not even that week had them outperforming blu-ray.

Now, take into account the new and more affordable ps3 40gig unit and realy, why would anyone go hd-dvd, not even xbox 360 users has a real incentive to pick up the hd-dvd ad on for their console, it´s pretty pricy and ad´s one more unit in front of their tv, so if you´re going to have two units anyway and you already have one x360, far better picking up the more then affordable 40 gig ps3 and use that for your hd movie pleasure, not that big of an difference in price compared to the hd-dvd adon for your x360 and it will allow you to enjoy blu-ray movies instead of just hd-dvd movies and blu-ray is the winning hd movie format.

Secondly, picking up a low priced ps3 gets you access to even more games and since both x360 and ps3 have some neat exclusives this year (think uncharted for ps3 and ratchet and clank and haze and warhawk first and foremost) well that is of course much better then picking up a hd dvd adon for your x360, as of now, hd-dvd is going down the drain, the outsold ratio is increasing, not decreasing, and every hd-dvd exclusive movie will sooner or later end up on blu-ray, as were disney and sony will never release their movies on hd-dvd.

Simple pick aint it? With the exception of some die hard x360 fanboys it would be fun hearing what you sane x360 owners thinks of this.

Oh and dont forget that your lovely ps3 already supports the holy blu-ray 2.0 features, except for the software of course, but unless you´r living in a void like some do, you already know that sony´s lovely ps3´s blu-ray player keeps getting updated firmware per firmware and what it can do today is far beyond what it could do at launch, and when it launched it was already one of the best blu-ray players.

In other words blu-ray 2.0 wont be far away for the playstation 3 which is something that cant be said for early stand alone blu-ray players.

Final verdict is that you just got to love being a ps3 owner as far as high definition entertainment goes (games, movies, music).

Dell sells ps3 + ratchet and hdmi cable for 399us$

Included in the deal is also the Spiderman 3 movie on Blu-ray, best ps3 and game console and hd movie player deal this season? Well we think so, so just go ahead and hit the link and order one ps3 for yourself, the value of this walks all over the competition (wii and x360 and standalone hd.dvd and blu-ray players).

here´s the complete list.

• Game/Movie system (the ps3 itself)
• Sixaxis wireless controller
• The game Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
• AC power cord
• Audio/Video cable (HDMI or Component cable sold separately)
• Ethernet cable
• USB cable
• Startech 6ft HDMI Cable
• Spider-Man 3 on Blu-Ray

Dell, online shop