netflix going to Blue-ray only :(:(

And today, the final nail in the coffin:

Toshiba abandons the HD-DVD format and concedes defeat to Sony.

I currently own players for neither format, but I'm disappointed to see Sony "win" this one, because I'm still seething over Sony's anti-consumer use of the XCP rootkit on its media.


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Jeez, I only gave up VHS tapes a couple of years ago and somewhat reluctantly bought a DVD player. Now that technology is already obsolete and I'm going to have to buy a Blu-Ray? Sure, the price will come down, but by the time it does they'll be introducing the next media format.

How soon do you think before regular DVDs are phased out? Do Blu-ray players still play regular DVDs?

The 800-pound gorilla won. I'll pretend like I'm surprised.

No worries, Blu-ray is backwards-compatible, so you can play your regular DVDs. As soon as Blu-ray players come down in price, you can get a new player and start to buy Blu-ray DVDs, but in the meantime, you're safe.

Toshiba's not an 800-pound gorilla?

The whole format war had most intelligent consumers shrugging their shoulders in ambivalence. I'm just glad it's over so I can buy a PS3 finally.

Well NIC, it looks like we both got what we wanted, eventually.

Because the consumer electronics industry exists to make a profit, they'll introduce marginal improvements in products and push them before the technology is truly mature.

As a result, we have a lot of consumer products that last only a short time in the marketplace. (Remember the MiniDisc? Zip drives? CueCat? The Sega Nomad?)

In general, my gut tells me to wait on new technology for a couple of years to see how it evolves.

Are you kidding? This is a great way for the electronics industries to keep stimulating the economy. If you change formats on the consumer every five years or so then the consumer has to keep up with buying new hardware and all the movies they had in the old formats all over again.

It's the best scam we have going in this century.

Actually, I think the best scam is all the new "technology" in razor blades. Remember when I pack of replacement twin blades cost $5 or $6? Now you easily pay $15-$20 (or more) for triple, quadruple, or even quintuple blade razors...and now they even vibrate (which means you have to pay money for the battery).

Of course if you were perfectly happy with an ordinary twin blade razor and don't want to pay more for the gimmick, you're out of luck.

This should've happened from the start, select the better of the two formats and go with it across the board. Since blue ray wins, I expect them to be $ 39.99, just like the old cdrw's are. It's not like they haven't had the opportunity to make them cheap in China. If they are already exploiting labor for cheap product, I refuse to pay any more than $ 39.99 for it and to be honest that's way too much.

If they don't lower the price, guess what, we don't rent their movies. That's where the money is for Netflix.

Another way they're going to get into our wallets, the end of analog broadcasting. They can keep that too for the price of hardware and subscriptions. I have no time to make these people fabulously wealthy for the product we've been getting. I have enough to keep me entertained without having to deal with this nonsense of dvd format and tv broadcast methods.

My cable company just raised my rates again. The cost for the standard package (not digital or high-def) has nearly doubled in less than 10 years. I'm sure they're over-pricing the standard package in order to get people to switch to digital cable, which is just a few months more a month, but I barely watch TV as it is, so I refuse to pay for a bunch of channels I don't care about.

I wish I could just give up TV altogether, but I do like to watch it occasionally.

I hear you, Comcast chose to make my cable experience miserable, they lost out, I terminated service. I then weighed satellite and what it would cost to get that. I chose an antenna and I intend to get the converter box with the Govt. coupon. I get the local networks, that's really all I need or even want any more. I was paying $ 60/month, not any more. If more people would drop service and not allow these people to rape us for a monthly payment, the world would be a better place. Look at broadband, I'm paying about as much as the dial up used to be. There are needs and then there's cable. Comcast is an unwelcome intruder in my home.

I actually walked into Best Buy with the intent of getting an HD DVD player, and walked out with a Sony blu ray. Man, I would be pissed if things had worked out differently.

The sound alone is amazing on a blu-ray player. I don't have my surround sound hooked up to the PS3, but it doesn't even need it.