Blockbuster goes Blu-ray, HD DVD=beta?,

I just bought the Sony S300 it upconverts DVD's nicely and plays CD's too. I hear that $400 will be the price point at Xmas.

IMHO, it is the lack of content/new realeases coming out on HD-DVD that will drive people to Blu-Ray. I already have most of the movie DVD's I want....so I wanted to ensure I get the most out of what is newly released (I do not plan to re-purchase my existing collection in HD or Blu Ray format).

A salesperson told me Blu-ray players are outselling HD-DVD 6 to 1 but this was not what deecided me.

Check this out Product Wars

Lack of content depending on what you watch. There are many movies on HD-DVD that you cant find on Blu Ray. Its about top movies.

The European studios are almost 100% HD-DVD and Asia is leaning that way too.

I like foreign films personally.

Salespeople work for places that are paid to "Place" products favorably. Blu-Ray has greased a lot of palms.

A salesperson told me Blu-ray players are outselling HD-DVD 6 to 1 but this was not what deecided me.

That is if you include Playstation 3 sales but there is no way to know if a PS3 is being purchased for Blu-ray or gaming. 150,000 stand alone HD-DVD players have been sold v 100,000 stand alone Blu-ray players.

06-24-07: Rysa4
Fundamentally the Blu ray disc is a bit of technologic problem because it requires much more processing and hard drive space to function than an HD-DVD player; thats why they really havent been able to roll out all of those purported added features on the blu ray discs....

HD-DVD is straightforward and delivers the goods, without all of the false hullabaloo about a "Blu Ray victory is ineveitable" and other marketing drivel. Cart came out way before the horse.

That's the way I see it too. Blu-ray is *not* the better mousetrap. HD DVD is a more elegant solution, requiring less storage space to achieve equal resolution, standard interactive features, and standard high-def surround sound schemes which are optional on Blu-ray.

I hope the public sees it that way. I think Blu-ray is so complicated and memory-dense that it'll take years to work out the bugs and realize the theoretical potential. You can have it all right now with HD DVD.

There's so much spin coming out of both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps that it's hard to really get a clear picture of what's really happening in the marketplace.

Talking off the record to mass market dealers, neither format has seen significant adoption up to this point. Gross sales have been described as "dissapointing."

Still, it's far from over.

And no matter how much we deride Wal-mart, they have snuck their way up to being #2 in mass-market CE behind Best Buy, and are gunning hard for #1. They've got a lot more savvy than I would prefer to give them credit for.