Over Half of HDTV Owners Still Don't Know What Blu-ray Is

NPD's latest survey of consumer awareness about Blu-ray tries to cheerlead, with the headline, "Consumer Awareness and Potential for Blu-ray Disc Devices Rising." But then you read the results—45 percent of HDTV owners are now "familiar with Blu-ray," up from 35 percent the same time last year. That means over half of HDTV owners—not regular people with standard def TVs, we're talking the leading chunk of consumers that should be well aware of Blu-ray—still don't know what it is. That's horrendous. More »

Netflix: Rental-by-Mail Has Five Years Left (Subtext: Discs Have Five Years Left)

At Netflix Investor Day, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings revealed their timeline for the end of the rental-by-mail biz, and why they're digging so hard into digital distribution: It "will probably peak in the next five years." Taken more broadly, it's more or less predicting that the real end of physical media is in T minus five years—'cause presumably, as long there are discs, Netflix's model assumes you'll get 'em from Netflix. While the end of physical media has been predicted lotsa times, it's rare that a company puts a death sentence on its core business, so this isn't the cheap willy-nilly futurism we're used to gagging on. [Reuters via Alley Insider]

LG Kills Blu-ray/HD DVD Hybrid Player

LG will stop swinging both ways with HD formats this fall, when it ceases production on its Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player. (Samsung's is already dead.) I'm just kind of amazed an already dead format manages to keep getting deader. [DVD Town]

HD DVD's Death Hasn't Helped Blu-ray Sales, Which Are So Bad NPD Won't Talk About 'Em

You guys have apparently been listening to our warnings about not jumping into the Blu pool just yet. NPD says that even after HD DVD stopping peeing in it and lied down to die, not only have Blu-ray sales have only jumped a meager two percent (after falling 40 percent from Jan.), but they're so bad, they won't even release the actual numbers. NPD pegs price as one major factor, with the wait for BD-Live players as another. Course, it's more likely the deeply feared DVD problem: For most people, it's still good enough. [Yahoo, NYT]

Paramount's First Blu-ray Flicks Hit May 20, Will Blow Your Face/Off (Sorta)

Even though Paramount has taken longer to announce their Blu-ray slate than the other former HD DVD lackey, they're getting 'em out the door quicker, surprisingly. The first three BDs (I hate the acronym, but let's go ahead and digest it) from Paramount arrive May 20: Face/Off (yes!), Bee Movie and Next. Then it gets kinda sparse, with intermittent releases through the rest of the summer, though its first simultaneous new release w/ DVD will be The Spiderwick Chronicles on June 24. Not the hot roster I was looking for (Woo's opus excepted), but at least the Blu ball for every major studio is finally rolling. Update: We just did one better and got Paramount's press release with the full list (which confirms HR's report), check it out below. More »

HD DVD Fallout: Nukes 95 Percent of Toshiba's Profits

"Toshiba Corp. said its profit plummeted 95 percent in the January-March quarter due to costs of its exit from next-generation video HD DVD business." $12 million profit, down from $251.57 million last year. Ouchies. [AP]

Microsoft: Your Xbox 360 HD DVD Player Is Still Awesome

Game Daily had a chat with Microsoft Game Studios VP Shane Kim about the Xbox 360, and one of the topics that came up was the defunct (but cheap!) HD DVD player, which you might still be tempted to eBay for $1.25. But you shouldn't! Kim effuses sentimentally about why you should hang it onto it, which is odd considering how nonchalantly other Microsoft execs have been brushing it off: More »

First Universal Blu-ray Discs Hit July 22, But Where's The Big Lebowski?

Five months after converting to Blu-ray, former HD DVD diehard Universal will finally release its first Blu discs: The Mummy trio on July 22. The Mummy was already on HD DVD, so they're firing off re-releases from the get-go. All told, Universal plans to drop about 40 discs by the end of the year. Appropriately starting with Doomsday, all new flicks will go out on Blu, with a smattering of older movies like Knocked Up. But no sight of the The Big Lebowski in the release, which is the only Universal flick we really care about. Okay, there are some other cool releases coming up, like Heroes: Season 2, The Incredible Hulk (hopefully not shitty) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. More »

Amazon Handing Out $50 to HD DVD Victims

Following up Best Buy's $50 pledge to HD DVD victims, Amazon is also doling out a $50 credit to anyone who bought Toshiba's folly before Feb. 23, 2008. Naturally, they're encouraging you to use it on a shiny new Blu-ray player, but you could use it to take advantage of their HD DVD fire sale. Unfortunately, they're not doing trade-ins, so this is all you're gonna get. Check out the email below for all the fine print. More »

Wal-Mart Refunding HD DVD Players Bought On or After Nov. 1

Wal-Mart is a little late to the HD DVD pity party, finally deciding to offer tokens to suckers who threw in with the dead format. Until April 30, they'll refund any HD DVD player bought after Nov. 1, as long as you've got the original receipt, though you don't need the original packaging. More »

Dell Marks End of Format War with $880 Blu-ray-Equipped Inspiron 1525

Dell is commemorating Blu-ray's victory by offering a Blu-ray playback (not read-write) drive in its cheap, many colored, 15.4" laptop, the Inspiron 1525, and for a decent price. Starting at $880, you can watch BD movies on its screen (at 720p resolution) or send the video to HDTVs via HDMI. In case you're wondering how decent playback would be on a PC with integrated graphics, Dell mentions that it's using a built-in Broadcom Media PC accelerator located in a mini-card slot. See details after the jump. More »

Best Buy Pledges $50 For Each HD DVD Buyer; Trade-Ins, Too

Apparently, the cost of Best Buy declaring Blu-ray the winner is $10 million—at least, that's how much it plans to give away when it issues a $50 gift card to everyone who bought an HD DVD player or HD DVD Xbox drive before February 23. (So, BB sold at least 200,000 HD DVD players in 2006 and 2007?) And it's not even something you have to fight for: If you are in the Reward Zone program, bought it with a Performance Service Plan or just made the transaction on BestBuy.com, the company will send you a card by May 1. If you paid cash at a store, though, you'll have to dig out that receipt. The company, like its competitor Circuit City, is also offering trade-ins for players and discs, regardless of where you bought them, through BB's online trade-in center. Make the jump for extra details. More »

Batman Begins First HD DVD Movie Rereleased as Blu-ray?

Batman Begins will be released in Blu-ray July 8th, making it the first (or one of the first) movies we can recall being rereleased from HD DVD to the not dead format. The disc'll come in a standard and special edition format that includes storyboards, a comic book and $7.50 in movie credit towards Dark Knight, which hits theaters on July 11th. To Warner: Good job picking a movie to flip. [Home Media Magazine via High Def Digest]

Don't Miss the Format War's Bloody Aftermath

We popped this feature last night, but wanted to remind you so you didn't miss some key explanations: More »

Xbox Blu-ray Drive Rumors Finally Fatally Smashed

Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, told Reuters that Microsoft isn't exploring any kind of Blu-ray add-on for the Xbox 360.

Microsoft, which has stopped making an HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, would continue to invest in its Xbox Live online service that already lets users rent hundreds of movies, including ones in high-definition.

And even though I don't believe the studios will go whole-hog into HD downloads very soon, our studies show that if anyone can pull together a decent library of so-called HD content, it's Team Xbox. [Reuters]

Toshiba Takes $1 Billion Hit on HD DVD (Still Turns a Profit)

The Nikkei business daily is reporting that Toshiba will take a $986 million hit this year for its ill-fought HD DVD campaign, though somehow the manufacturing supergiant will manage to post a roughly $2.5 billion profit nonetheless, down from a projected $2.9 billion or so. The estimated cost of HD DVD for the company this year was supposed to be closer to half a billion, but the halt in production means costly line changes and "other charges." Toshiba itself isn't saying a word yet, but damn if there ain't truth to this. [Reuters; Bill Image Source]

Samsung Killing Second-Gen BP-U5500 Dual Format Player Before It Sees the Light of Day

Samsung just cancelled their $599 second-gen dual format Blu-ray/HD DVD player, the BP-U5500, which was due out soonish. Looks like LG gets the dual player market for HD DVD flotsam all to its self. We bet they're thrilled. [PC World]

Toshiba: F*** the Format War, We're Going Nuclear (No, Really)

Who needs to wage a costly format war when you could build nuclear power plants? That's Toshiba's thinking exactly. They just launched a brand new company, Toshiba America Nuclear Energy Corp., which will "enhance" its nuclear power business in the US. Um...what? [Yahoo!/Reuters]

Circuit City's HD DVD for Blu-Ray Trade-In Confirmed By Sources, Readers

Readers of Gizmodo and Digg have been able to confirm Circuit City's not-so-secret-anymore HD DVD for Blu-Ray player trade-in offer a Circuit City employee told us about yesterday morning. One report from a Giz reader says that he used the offer to get a new PlayStation 3. In addition to this, we just got all the dirt in the internal memo, aptly titled "HD DVD - The End," which allegedly was posted in an internal Circuit City forum: More »

Circuit City Trading In HD DVD for Blu-Ray Players, Says Employee

According to a Circuit City employee in Chicago, the consumer electronics chain is trading in HD DVD players bought into their stores "within 3 months of the announcement," as opposed to their 30-day return policy. According to the internal memo announcing the demise of the format, they will either give customers a Blu-ray player—paying the price difference, if any—or a gift card. The trade-in, however, will not be widely promoted and it will be only made available if the customer asks for it. Have any of you tried this?

Universal's Appropriately Final HD DVD Release: Atonement

After Paramount's remaining HD DVD schedule (to be generous) came out, we hit up Universal to see what their roadmap looked like. Unfortunately, it looks to be just as barren. Here's the response we got:

We have Atonement available on HD DVD March 18th—we have not announced anything additional.

More »

Paramount Kills Entire HD DVD Release Schedule, But No Blu Flicks 'Til Summer

There won't be a soft transition to Blu-ray for Paramount—they're dropping their whole HD DVD release slate right this second. Their last two movies on the dead format hit Tuesday, even though we won't see Blu titles from them until this summer—that's months of lost $$$. More »

Dreamworks Still Tied to HD DVD's Corpse By Toshiba Contract

Okay, so one big studio actually hasn't made the jump to Blu yet: Dreamworks, which was paid $100 million to join HD DVD back in August. As we had pieced together in our closed-door analysis, they can't break rank until Toshiba lets them. Says Dreamworks chief: "It really is in their court at this point to really declare what the next step will be. We're poised either way to jump..." More »

HD DVD's Animatronic Secret Weapon Not Enough to Defeat Blu-ray

As if 1080p video, full-resolution audio, net connectivity and multi-tuner signal decoding wasn't enough, Toshiba's HD DVD team had even cooked up a system of embedded animatronic control before the format was put out of its misery. In this video left over from CES 2008, this little mechanical jazz band playing the Duke Ellington classic "Take the A Train" is controlled by, that's right, an HD DVD disc. Here's how: More »

Beating a Dead Format: Onkyo Breaks Up With HD DVD

The rumor is official. Onkyo was notable for being one of the few hardware makers outside of Toshiba that planned HD DVD players. Also, I apologize for so many of these posts. It'll be over shortly. [Onkyo]

Show's Over Folks, Paramount Officially Goes Blu

Paramount's PR department is slower than the rest of the industry. They're officially Blu-ray as of today. So now it's totally and completely finished: All of the major studios, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best Buy and Netflix are full steam ahead on Blu-ray. If you haven't digested the fact that HD DVD is gone by now, maybe it's time for some Tums. And counseling. [Reuters]

Toshiba Thinking About Blu-ray for Laptops

While Toshiba said they had no plans to produce a Blu-ray player when they killed HD DVD, it turns they're at least considering Blu drives for their notebooks. Next question: Who would they buy them from? Surely not Sony.... [Pocket Lint]

Amazon Officially Backs Blu-ray

Amazon is going to take the unusually forward-thinking step of promoting Blu-ray "more prominently" on its site over HD DVD. The good news for those of you who wanna expand your movie collection for dirt cheap is that they're going to keep selling HD DVD stuff for the time being. [CNN Money]

Turn Your HD DVDs Into Blu-ray

The process of converting your HD DVDs to Blu-ray is time-consuming, potentially costly and sucks balls. Really, there's almost no reason to, since you can bet most everything on HD DVD will be released on Blu, and if you have a million HD DVDs you don't wanna rebuy, you should just buy a dual format player. But if you revel in pain, here's how to do it, thanks to the crazy video guys at Doom9. More »