News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

January 20, 2008

business

For HD DVD, the hits just keep on coming

Posted Jan. 20, ’08, 12:00 PM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Business

Format warsAt a press conference of the Blu-ray Disk Association, they announced sales figures of movie titles released on Blu-ray the last year. It seems that customers have already voted with their wallets and they’re 2:1 in favor of Blu-ray, as opposed to HD DVD.

Not only did Blu-ray movie titles sell twice as much as their HD DVD counterparts, they outsold them every single week of the last year. In December alone, Blu-ray sales topped six million units, significantly outselling even the same movies released on the competing format. I guess we now know why Warner Brothers made the decision that they did.

I do have a little confusion about its relation to Apple though. Does Apple even intend to bring Blu-ray to Macs at all, what with Apple TV now allowing users to rent movies in high definition from the iTunes Store right from the comfort of their couch? Are they already a step ahead and planning to do away with the use of optical media completely, the MacBook Air being the first step in that general direction?

It does sound like a bit of a stretch but then again, it’s Apple, so you never know. Any thoughts?

[Via PC World]


P.S. - This is my hundredth post. I applaud your patience, dear readers, for having tolerated me so far. Let’s keep up the good work. Cheers!


7 Comments

Charles said:

My ideal device would be an Apple TV with a built-in Blu-Ray player. Though, you are probably right that it will not be coming my way, as Apple has every reason to play down disc media and play up downloaded media. Once again, consumers are worse off because a company thinks it can make slightly more money some other way...

January 20, 2008 4:47 PM
PT said:

So where are you suppose to store the downloaded movie when you buy it? On you physical media?

January 20, 2008 10:05 PM
Aayush Arya Author Profile Page said:

You're not supposed to store it at all. You're supposed to rent it, watch it within thirty days and then let it delete itself automatically.

And even if you do download movies for permanent storage, I think Apple wants you to store them on hard drives. :)

January 20, 2008 10:51 PM
Anonymous said:

I've got news for Blu-ray and it's not good. Because of this stupid hi-def war I've not invested in either format and since the Apple TV announcement shows me a solution that will do what I want for less both formats can take a hike. Sure, 720p isn't as good as 1080p but then I still think that DVD quality is great so this is not important and the convenience of ordering a film instantly is definitely worth that price.

As the MacBook Air has demonstrated, optical disks are the past and data delivery over the Internet is the new hotness.

January 20, 2008 11:52 PM
Claude Alvares said:

LOL! I didn't realise this at all! While Blu ray and HD DVD are having their own war, Apple seems to have been thinking way ahead! For most people, 720p HD is fine quality. And $4 for a movie instead of $20 for a blu ray disc just makes sense for the average customer.

January 21, 2008 3:16 AM
krye said:

Forget movies! I'd love to see the Mac ship with a Blu Ray drive for data storage. I'd love to be able to burn 50G backups. My iPhoto library alone is 30G and my music is probably another 30G. So I could backup iPhoto and iTunes using 2 Blu Ray discs. That's awesome.

January 21, 2008 5:48 AM
CVBruce said:

I think that the signals are clear, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are going to be the last DVD media produced.

Apple is right, the future will be downloaded movies, stored on hard disk.

Movie theaters are already doing this.

I would expect to see a Blu-ray 2.0 option only on the MacPro, for those professional types that absolutely need to burn a Blu-ray disk.

January 21, 2008 10:32 AM

Leave a comment

 



Visit other IDG sites: