Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

With the announcement from Walmart today that they will no longer carry HD-DVD hardware or software, the HD-DVD coffin has been nailed shut. I knew the end was fast approaching when I received an email from Netflix last week that they were phasing out HD-DVD over this coming year. Soon after, Best Buy endorsed Blu-ray, and now Walmart dropped it entirely.

Toshiba should be formally announcing the dismantling of HD-DVD in the coming weeks, putting to bed this useless war. Unfortunatly, I bought into the losing format. Not a total loss as it still makes my DVD's look extra crisp, but I will miss the HD content for the time being. Blu-ray still has some catching up to do in terms of performance, reliability, and price. While their counterpart has been eliminated, the true competitor, DVD, is still the predominate choice. Not surprisingly as the difference between the two is marginal, and that is coming from a big screen viewer.

GJ said about 16 hours later

"stick with your DVDs" no kidding. At the end of the day, I'm not certain Blu-Ray will win the war, either. Neither BR nor HDDVD ever did much of anything to the share of DVDs in the market, because for most people, DVDs are fine and will be for the foreseeable future. As Geoff and I have discussed many times, most people simply don't have room to stick five-foot wide TVs in their house, or don't want the TV to be the centerpiece of the house. Since the high-end formats only make a difference on the bigger screens, they've had "niche product" written all over them. Their manufacturers are guilty of assuming that customers would just keep buying bigger and bigger screens--something I think is bottoming out for most people under 44".
Steve said 1 day later

I agree with GJ. With the exception of disc capacity, blu-ray is not as attractive to me as HD-DVD. And who needs 50 GB for movies? I assume they don't use near that much space for a typical blu-ray movie.

Had they lowered the price of HD-DVD players back before I bought an upconverting DVD player, I would have bought an HD-DVD player.

That said, neither format put a dent in DVD sales, maybe a little ding, or a scratch - that's it. I would expect the war to continue, and I think some studios may regret selecting Blu-Ray as their high-def DVD format in the future, unless Sony drops the price of Blu-Ray players to match HD-DVD.