News Woolworths to ditch HD-DVD

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/01/29/woolworths_ditch_hd-dvd/1

High-street retailer Woolworths has announced that its stores are to go Blu-Ray only in a surprising show of support for the Sony-backed HD disc format.

 

good, the faster the format war comes to an end the better...

 

True, shame the lesser format has won though

 

maybe the lesser format did win but i'm glad that there is now a clear option for anyone upgrading to a high def format. I've personally been holding off from going high def purely because i didnt know which to go for in the long run. Whilst i feel sorry for all those who braught HD-DVD systems and will soon struggle or even be unable to buy any movies in the HD-DVD format i do feel that having a victor will mean less confusion in the market and more people will now be able to take the step into adopting High Def

For those that comment about blueray being the sony backed system, wasn't microsoft backing HD-DVD? if i'm wrong fair enough but it apears to me that its a no win situation for the anti-sony & microsoft crowd

 

In a battle of storage mediums i would prefer the one with the greater capacity to win.

 

Jag, I was having this discussion with my sister-in-law (who works as a games tester for Sony ) and I said that HD-DVD was better, but couldn't remember why. What is different about the two formats (I'm feeling lazy).

Andy

 

1. Does anyone still shop a woolworths?
2. When did they move from board games, childrens toys and clothes?
3. Is this not just an advert to tell everyone that they are just about to start stocking blu-ray and when HD-DVD does better they will stock that too?!?

 

Good. I can see already the price of bluray players are starting to drop. Sony needed their format to win, as we all know it's not the console that makes the money, it's the software and peripherals (or in this case, bluray films) that makes profit and with their console being a 'cheap' bluray player, they need some money back for the lack of margin on their console.

All we need now are cheaper bluray pc drives (and discs)!

 

BD drives (readers) are only about £88 now, Kenco.

 

Is there software for playing BR moves yet? more importantly how long before we can afford BR-RW?

 

PowerDVD Ultra is able to play both HD DVD and BD.
I was once told BD had a larger capacity, of around 30gb, while HD DVD only had about 12gb, thats rubbish. I have a HDDVD film, and the disk is just under 30gb.

Sam

 

HD-DVD is about 25GB and I believe BD-R is about 50GB?
It's a shame as I preferred the fact that HD-DVD was region free, but I don't buy at woolies and have both formats anyway so I guess its a moot point really.

 

1. Yes
2. How old are you?? Im 26 ans ever sinc eI was small they dad always sold Music Films and sweets as well as what you said.
3. They do stock Blu-ray and the reason for discontinuing the HD-DVD is because it aint selling as well.

I hope transformers will then come out on Blu-ray wont be long then, whem HD DVD is dropped completly as more and more support for the format is dropped.

 

maybe that is what killed it......

 

Wow now that's some uneducated postage

True BR is region limited but every other part of the spec is superior to HD-DVD

 

How is it lesser?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high_definition_optical_disc_formats#Technical_details

Begs to differ.

 

inc the DRM, so whats better for the consumer? and whats better for the mpiaa? This isn't necessarily the same thing.

 

Meh, DRM's a fact of life. If you're that way inclined, there's always ways round it. It didn't take that long fro DVD Jon to sort out CSS.

Broken DRM + Technical superiority = Win for enthusiast and win for general consumer (who'll never think about the DRM anyway)

 

HD DVD has DRM too, so your argument is moot.

 

Exactly.

A BD-R/RE Writer is only getting on for £390ish!!

When the writer drops about 300 quid off it's price tag, I'll probably get one

Mind you, it's similar to when dvd drives and writers first hit the market. They, too were about £90 for a reader and some ludicrous amount for a writer.