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Internet Netflix to Finally Phase Out HD DVD
Michael Barkoviak - November 14, 2008 1:42 PM

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50 comment(s) - last by Gzus666.. on Nov 18 at 9:14 AM

Netflix consumers will have one month before the rental service stops renting HD DVDs

Online movie rental company Netflix sent an e-mail to its subscribers informing them they would no longer be able to rent HD DVDs.

"Effective December 15, 2008, we will no longer carry HD DVDs," a message to subscribers said. "At that time, we will automatically replace any HD DVD titles in your queue with standard DVDs when available. You don't have to do anything."

"Last February, we announced that since most of the major movie studios had decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in Blu-ray, we were going exclusively Blu-ray as well and would be phasing out our HD DVDs."

Since Sony-backed Blu-ray won the format war and HD DVDs are no longer being released by movie studios, this decision isn't shocking. Netflix will stop selling used DVDs by the end of the month, and it's unsure what will happen to the company's HD DVD catalog -- Netflix never sold high-def content.

The company will now shift support back to DVDs, Blu-ray and streaming services, with a strong emphasis on Blu-ray and streaming services. The company recently announced several partnerships in which consumers will be able to stream TV episodes and movies directly into the living room using a set-top box or certain Blu-ray players.

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360

By therealnickdanger on 11/14/2008 1:52:33 PM , Rating: 3

Only five days away and then I can stream all my Netflix stuff to my 360s! Netflix is also debuting their HD-streaming on Live! W00t!

RE: 360

By Jimbo1234 on 11/14/08, Rating: 0

RE: 360

By mmntech on 11/14/2008 3:31:16 PM , Rating: 5

Bandwidth caps might go (but I doubt it) but HD streaming won't be practical unless we can hit sustained 20mbps download speeds without it costing an arm and a leg. Current speeds are too slow for proper on-demand HD content. North American internet infrastructure needs some huge upgrades.

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RE: 360

By Screwballl on 11/14/2008 3:57:39 PM , Rating: 1

Right but modern 480p standard definition TV is very easily streamed, can just upconvert them...
Why not start with what works than jumping straight to HD streaming...

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/14/2008 3:59:48 PM , Rating: 3

And enjoy compressed sound? Nothing sounds better than low sample rate compressed sound. Push that through your $100 home theater in a box and talk about a sweet experience. What a joke.

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RE: 360

By gramboh on 11/14/2008 6:30:39 PM , Rating: 5

I'm convinced everyone who makes claims like this (480p upconversion, HD streaming) has never seen a Blu-ray/HD-DVD title on a decent setup (say $1.5k 46-52inch TV, $500 receiver, $700 speakers).

Crappy compressed streaming is nowhere near close enough. You need about 12-14mbit to stream decent looking 1080p h264 (say video encoded at 12mbit, compressed from Blu-ray source and DTS 1.5mbit sound compressed from lossless source). Uncompressed is probably ~20-25 for video and ~6 for sound. Good luck getting those sustained rates in the next few years.

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/14/2008 7:24:35 PM , Rating: 1

$700 speakers? My 2 floor standers alone were double that, ha. But seriously, agree 100%.

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RE: 360

By NubWobble on 11/15/2008 3:40:55 AM , Rating: 2

Now let us imagine all the things you could do with your family with all that money, the places you could go to and the things you could see. I don't envy people who brag about seeing the things I experience on holiday on TV only.

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RE: 360

By therealnickdanger on 11/15/2008 10:09:12 AM , Rating: 3

Haha, why not do both? Don't be such a downer, seriously.

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RE: 360

By NubWobble on 11/17/2008 1:24:49 AM , Rating: 2

I refused to spend that kind of money on CD and DVD when it was first launched and I refuse to jump on the BluRay bandwagon. If being realistic is being a downer maybe you should go tell those people who have lost their houses, jobs, lives because of the current economic disaster. "Don't be a downer, buy a PS3."

I am in no way suffering from the Wallstreet induced malaise and would love to buy a BluRay rewriter but I won't. I refuse to support Sony, nothing they have made in the past years has been worth buying. Anyway having a 683" TV and an accompanying BluFail device don't add epeen, not in the least because I care more about content than visuals.

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/15/2008 12:10:21 PM , Rating: 2

If only I didn't trade a TV that I was no longer using for those speakers, then maybe that could hold water. That is of course assuming that the trade didn't happen with my father who wanted a flat screen for his other living room and had a set of speakers he replaced with a different set for his music server. I'm merely giving the retail price of the speakers, as quality speakers are not cheap.He listens to headphones most of the time anyway, you know how audiophiles are.

Also, I have no kids, no wife and my father does well enough for himself to get what he wants anyway. Plus he really doesn't like going places, vacations tend to be more work than vacation anyway. Brother is in college, I think he will do just fine on his own and my mother is still with my father, so no problems there.

You experience Iron Man, Xmen, Matrix, Talladega Nights, The Thing and any one of these http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/ in real life on holiday? You live quite the fu*ked up life my friend.

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RE: 360

By jonmcc33 on 11/18/2008 7:46:47 AM , Rating: 2

Aw, you live with daddy! That's so cute!

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/18/2008 9:14:30 AM , Rating: 2

I trade something so I somehow live with my pop? I live close to my parents, about 8 miles. You are truly the master of deduction.

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RE: 360

By Jimbo1234 on 11/15/2008 12:15:19 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, $700 in speakers? yeah LOL... my center channel was $1500.

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RE: 360

By therealnickdanger on 11/15/2008 2:20:18 PM , Rating: 5

$1,500 center channel?

yeah LOL... my cables alone were $150,000.

(Mine actually weren't, I was just making a point. The only reason not to show off is that someone always has something better. ;-) )

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/16/2008 5:20:13 PM , Rating: 1

http://www.hometheatersound.com/equipment/paradigm...

Pretty easy to boost the cost on nice speakers. $2500 center right there. Granted the Signature series Paradigms are outstanding speakers which even outdo some of the super exotic stuff for double the price or more, still some serious cash.

http://audiogon.com/

Ogle the greatness that is Audiogon. 100 grand plus is not unheard of for a set of floor standers. Extreme audio gets quite nuts. Even better, find one of the $500,000 record players, those are works of art and about the best sound you can get.

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RE: 360

By foolsgambit11 on 11/16/2008 3:16:42 PM , Rating: 1

From a previous poster in this thread:

quote:
streaming won't be practical unless we can hit sustained 20mbps download speeds without it costing an arm and a leg.

I'm sorry, but if you've spent that much on your home theater setup, maybe you should splurge for better internet. What? Can't get better internet where you are? Maybe you should move.

I mean, obviously, you've got your priorities, and at the top of the list is a quality viewing experience. Why not structure your entire life around that?

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/16/2008 5:24:00 PM , Rating: 2

The problem is sustaining that kind of speed to stream an entire video every time you wish. Good luck finding that speed from any residential ISP. On top of that, they will get rather annoyed when you bring their network to it's knees. Imagine if thousands of people started doing that in each of the major hubs, it would pretty much stop the network in that area.

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RE: 360

By Shadowself on 11/17/2008 11:02:44 AM , Rating: 2

Uncompressed HD is approximately 1.5 Gbps.
Uncompressed 7.1 sound is approximately 24 Mbps.

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RE: 360

By Clauzii on 11/14/2008 9:55:42 PM , Rating: 2

We should all live in Sweden.

25-50 megabit (You'll get min. 25 but up to 50) is like $60,-/month. Upload is 7-10 mbit! Even here in Denmark, a line like that is ~$100,-. And that is with only 1 mbit upload!

Equalize now!

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RE: 360

By Oregonian2 on 11/16/2008 11:50:07 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Bandwidth caps might go (but I doubt it) but HD streaming won't be practical unless we can hit sustained 20mbps download speeds without it costing an arm and a leg.

Haven't been able to test the "sustained" part, but my 20/5 FiOS works pretty darn nicely, and it's $52/month, which isn't even a whole finger, let alone an arm or leg. Some people pay that for DSL (I used to not that long ago).

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RE: 360

By timmiser on 11/18/2008 12:56:16 AM , Rating: 2

Comcast just called me yesterday to inform me that I exceeded their 250 GB per month cap and if I didn't reduce my data downloads below that threshold by next month, they would suspend my account for 12 months.

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/14/2008 4:22:14 PM , Rating: 2

The death of the only thing that supports 1080P and full uncompressed 7.1 sound? Yea, that sounds likely. A format that has been out two years fails to take complete share overnight and everyone thinks it is the death of it. DVD took 8 years to finally overtake VHS and it had no competing format or a recession to deal with. Some people, just wow.

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RE: 360

By Nfarce on 11/14/2008 5:14:10 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
The death of BD is nearing

Huh? Well everything dies eventually. It will be some time before BD is replaced. Just as an example, camcorders are going HD these days, and the 50GB storage (proven 100GB capacity of a multi-layered BD disk) will be around for some time. Just like people are currently burning SD home video to DVDs and sharing them with friends & family, so will they in a few years on BD when HD video recording becomes more mainstream. In short, BD is gonna be around for a while from what I see. But long term, I see us getting away from the mechanics of plastic disk storage and hard drives in general - very long term.

quote:
Seriously, how many people actually watch movies over and over other than 5 year olds?

Just ask women that question about "Titanic" and "Sex And The City" season DVD collections. And guys like me who had to watch all three Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean flicks a few times each to make full sense of them. Besides, having a nice 300+ DVD library variety adds to the aesthetics of a home theater room - and offers plenty of diverse entertainment to keep the in-laws out of one's hair ;-) .

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RE: 360

By Samus on 11/14/2008 5:59:51 PM , Rating: 1

I'm just glad Obama doesn't plan to pass possible legislation requiring e-commerce goods to be taxed by the receiving state. It's been floating around for years unfortunately :(

That 'is' a possible source of tax revenue (for states, not the fed) but obviously would hurt the economy more than help it. I'd probably purchase less altogether and places like Newegg would be substantially hurt.

Considering he hasn't picked an economic advisor and is coming up with these conclusiong alone, it appears he has an idea how the economy works. That's a start.

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/14/2008 7:29:18 PM , Rating: 2

Well, the man went to Columbia and Harvard University, if he didn't at least have a reasonable understanding of these things, I would definitely be a bit worried.

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RE: 360

By BansheeX on 11/15/2008 3:54:44 AM , Rating: 3

Start being worried then, because most of the idiots that are in the Federal Reserve and managing our financial firms are ivy league schooled neo-keynesians. The type of "economics" predominantly taught in this country comes from a man named John Maynard Keynes who completely misunderstood the causes of the great depression and proposed government-centric ideas that government and socialist academics latched onto as a replacement for classical ones. That's how America enabled the path to bankruptcy and how a coinflip became 50% more reliable than every financial firm in America.

Here are some hilarious clips of Ron Paul economic advisor and austrian student Peter Schiff vs a neo-keynesian (Swonk) and a supply-sider (Laffer).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucDkoqwflF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o

Here's Schiff explaining in detail how we got here in 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3Qefbt0n4

Here's Schiff's outlook going forward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP_aJ7LcAAA

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/15/2008 12:33:37 PM , Rating: 3

Yea, I'm not afraid of Obama any more than the rest though. I'm more concerned about things like taking us off the gold standard and the other constant stupidity they enjoy. Ron Paul loves reaming them on that and so many other things. Ron Paul is actually smart though, that seems to be the difference.

Hope they figure that crap out, I don't want to have to move to Canada or Europe, not a huge socialism fan. Strongest country in the world and it seems they will kick our ass economically rather than with an army, ha.

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RE: 360

By foolsgambit11 on 11/16/2008 3:54:49 PM , Rating: 2

Come on. The gold standard? What's the point in limiting total wealth to a certain finite quantity? Gold has no intrinsic value. Why don't we go to a tree-based economy? Your money's only worth the number of trees you've got in your country. During wars, instead of collecting people's gold for the war effort, we could go out and plant trees.

To make the value of all the gold in the world equal the value of the world economy now would make gold incredibly expensive. So expensive, someday it might start to make sense to transmute lead into gold. In fact, the limiting factor on the price of gold would be the cost of the power needed to transmute lead into gold.

Besides, if we were to go back to the gold standard, why wouldn't we just go to a single world currency? Since the idea is for governments not to have control over the total value of currency in circulation, it would make sense to just have a single currency - the U.N. Dollar, maybe?

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RE: 360

By Gzus666 on 11/16/2008 5:31:17 PM , Rating: 2

I'd be OK with a world currency, would probably put things in balance.

If we were still on the gold standard, they estimate oil would be $3.50 per barrel. That is not a typo, $3.50. Having an imaginary number set to your money is kinda crazy. Also some of our strongest times as a country were while we were on the gold standard. Hell, use diamonds if you really want. Any resource works, we practically do it with oil anyway. Don't put all your eggs in one basket I guess.

Sooner or later China is going to want their loans repaid, thats not going to be good. I have a feeling if WWIII happens, it will be over us owing everyone money.

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RE: 360

By Oregonian2 on 11/16/2008 11:57:10 PM , Rating: 2

Yes, might be $3.50 a barrel, but you'd probably be making fifty cents an hour if you've got a good job.

Actually I'm not sure how it's work out. I more suspect that gold just would be a million dollars an ounce and that the only winners would be the gold mining companies and those who own the mines. The new materials that they have to replace gold on connectors would have been invented earlier, and nobody would have gold jewelery.

I also suspect those pushing the gold standard are those owning gold or stock in entities that do.

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RE: 360

By foolsgambit11 on 11/16/2008 3:36:20 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah. We've done so awful since 1933.

Take a look around. I mean, obviously, I can't spew wealth numbers at you, because you probably believe those are flawed by a basic misunderstanding of what value is.

Then separate fiscal, monetary, and economic policy. They affect each other, but they are different.

There is no doubt that we need some change in how the system is run, but these people who want to throw the baby out with the bathwater seem to forget that there's a lot worth saving, and that the system can function very well. Think of it like nuclear power. Done right, it works great, and pound for pound, produces the most returns. But it has to be done carefully, thoughtfully, and with constant monitoring to ensure optimum performance.

Ron Paul is great - he's the other side of Lyndon LaRouche. I personally think they're the same person....

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RE: 360

By AlexWade on 11/15/2008 8:59:28 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Seriously, how many people actually watch movies over and over other than 5 year olds? I watch it once and then never again, except for maybe 3 or 4 titles.

I do. I'll watch Star Wars 3-7 (but not 1 and 2), and Serenity, and the Bourne trilogy, and Better Off Dead, and Princess Bride, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the Matrix again and again. In fact, I'll watch all those movies several times a year. I've already watched Serenity 3 times this year. I've watched Princess Bride so many times I can almost quote it.

I will admit, most movies today are so bad that seeing it the first time is a waste of money and time.

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RE: 360

By AlexWade on 11/16/2008 9:24:47 PM , Rating: 2

I feel stupid. I just realized I meant Star Wars 3-6 and not 3-7. As many times as I watched them, and I mess up like that.

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RE: 360

By Doormat on 11/14/2008 2:41:31 PM , Rating: 2

Is it really "all" the netflix stuff, or is it that selection of 10,000 or so movies (most of which are crap) they have that are available to stream to PCs?

Thats the problem with netflix, is that now that they're finally using the "net" to transmit "flix", the content providers are standing in the way, refusing to allow many movies to be streamed.

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RE: 360

By MrBlastman on 11/14/2008 3:08:04 PM , Rating: 2

Netflix is great - I love it and have been using it for almost 5 years now. I wouldn't go back, nor ever pay for a premium cable channel again. I also haven't bought a DVD in the past 5 years either, really no point.

I'm sure their "Watch Now" content will grow - it started out weak but that is due to, like you said, movie companies being hesitant to allow their products to be streamed. It is inevitable that they give in, it is only a matter of time.

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RE: 360

By SunAngel on 11/14/2008 3:51:39 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I wouldn't go back, nor ever pay for a premium cable channel again. I also haven't bought a DVD in the past 5 years either, really no point.

...be careful how you word your thoughts. yes, having to buy digital cable just to get on demand is unfair; however, it is what it is. cable tv is not bad it is just the pricing is ridiculous. as far as dvds goes, i refuse to pay the premium for blu-ray/hd dvd quality. for the time being and until they decide pricing hd movies more respectably, dvd are perfectly fine.

netflix's watch now service is okay. not as great as it could be, but again it is what it is. i'm okay with shelling out my monthly to netflix. yet, if cable tv changes their pricing and allow on-demand as a-la carte then there a nice chance i'd jump ship and go on-demand. on-demand has better selection and more recent releases.

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RE: 360

By hopsandmalt on 11/14/2008 10:06:00 PM , Rating: 2

You do realize that the offerings of Netflix on the 360 are a small library of movies that are older than most of us put together. There are a few good gems here and there but not the best library. No new releases, etc.

Its basically what you can stream from their (netflix) website now.

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RE: 360

By EglsFly on 11/14/2008 10:26:03 PM , Rating: 3

I could care less about HD Streaming. If I am going to put down money for a movie, I'd rather have that go towards purchasing it where it can be watched over and over again and anywhere I want, like you get with a hard copy.

If I take my family to the beach, I want a hard copy to take in the car for the kids to watch on the way, to the beach house, etc...

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How 'bout Blu-Ray when available?

By consumerwhore on 11/14/2008 1:56:30 PM , Rating: 2

So, will Netflix also get the Blu-Ray version of the movies they had in HD-DVD format, if available?

I hope so. I happen to be able to play back both formats, so obviously, I don't care what is delivered to me as long as it is the best format that's available on the market.

RE: How 'bout Blu-Ray when available?

By Regs on 11/14/2008 3:21:19 PM , Rating: 2

I'm still waiting for the Matrix Triolgy on Blue Ray. What is taking so long?

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RE: How 'bout Blu-Ray when available?

By saiga6360 on 11/14/2008 3:30:26 PM , Rating: 4

You mean this?

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Matrix-Collection-B...

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RE: How 'bout Blu-Ray when available?

By Spuke on 11/14/2008 5:31:24 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
You mean this?

That alone is worth buying a Bluray player on Black Friday.

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RE: How 'bout Blu-Ray when available?

By Regs on 11/18/2008 8:35:54 AM , Rating: 2

Thank you!

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Newsflash

By piroroadkill on 11/14/2008 1:48:16 PM , Rating: 4

Dead format is dead.

However, I still have a HD-DVD drive!

RE: Newsflash

By Spuke on 11/14/2008 3:10:19 PM , Rating: 2

I thought Netflix had already stopped their HD DVD rentals.

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What happens to them?

By DCstewieG on 11/14/2008 2:44:43 PM , Rating: 2

They don't say what they're doing with the discs. They're out of the used DVD business now. Do I get to keep the ones I have at home? I think I should.