Tracking Netflix User's Interest in HD DVD & Blu-ray

The Compete blog tracked Netflix customer searches for HD DVD and Blu-ray titles during the final months of the battle:

Interesting tidbit: "...interest in both platforms remains very low (less than 1% of all account managers online)."

Comments

[NETFLIX MOVIE BURNER]

This is what ive been talking about ... even on netflix the demand isnt high enough for either format to triumph over dvd anytime soon ... i think Blu Ray and HD DVD were released premature and with a high price tag. I remember when dvd came in to the picture and vhs was going out... i think the first 2 or 3 year dvd's were about 25 bucks a piece but with WAAAAAAAY better picture quality.Then when they started to add "special/bonus/extra features" thats what made paying 25 bucks worth it. now paying 25-40 bucks for a movie on Blu Ray sure it has a better picture (if you have a 1080p and want to take full advantage of what Blu Ray was made for) and maybe one or 2 added special features BUT your paying almost double for the same movie then what you would pay for on "standard" DVD. 1 thing i do like about blu ray is the picture in picture audio commentary that has been introduced thats pretty cool other then that im sticking to DVD

[Baff]

Uh... is there some way to only search for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movies? I know there are categories for each, but how do you search them?

From the sound of it, this is just a percentage of searches using some 3rd party app when people sort the search by format? If so, then the increasing bars may be significant, but the numbers on the left are meaningless.

People forget that video games are coming on stronger and stronger every year and use the format as much as movies.

DVD is great for movies, but in a few years DVD will not be good enough for video games. Sure microsoft is sqeezing as much as they can onto a DVD but as content becomes more detailed, space will be at a premium, DVD will not be good enough... it's inevitable.

Blu-ray solves that problem. Microsoft will be stupid not to use blu-ray in their next system. and if they do support the new format standard (just like they did with the original xbox) that will only help push the format even more (just like the original xbox). blu-ray is only a year and a half old....give it time.

[Edward R Murrow]

What if Netflix makes it difficult to find and add Blu-ray to your queue thereby artificially suppressing demand for Blu-ray? I know it's a conspiracy theory, but there was a 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas so hiding Blu-ray isn't too far fetched.

I'm wondering how much Blu-Ray is going to take off (seriously). I think that the number of people who have audio/video receivers (who will also get the full added benefit of the step-up in sound, which is also important compared to the upgrade in picture which people obviously see) is quite a bit less than the number of people who have HDTV's.

And I would not include people who have home theaters in a box (most of which do not even have a digital audio in) in the number of people who own an audio video receiver. I am sure glad I didn't go the home theater in the box route -- I've got my RCA HD DVD player hooked up to the analog 5.1 inputs of my A/V receiver so that I can get lossless sound (not possible with SPDIF Toslink optical or coaxial audio connections).

There's still a significant number of people who own large (i.e. 42"-46" LCD) HDTV's and don't have an A/V receiver and speakers (other than the ones built into the HDTV itself). But strangely, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people without A/V receivers do go out and buy Blu-Ray players. Hooking up a Blu-Ray player (directly to a HDTV) is just so much easier than setting up a home theater.

And I'm not saying this as sour grapes, either. I paid less than $100 (which included shipping) for my HD DVD player which I bought in December 2007 (in Like New condition from a seller on EBay). So far I've enjoyed watching Transformers, Blade Runner, Eastern Promises, and Pan's Labrynth. And I'm in no hurry to buy a Blu-Ray player, but I have my eye on the $600 (MSRP) Panasonic model that will be released in April and the $500 Sony model that will be released in the 3rd quarter.

[Super-Bat-Man]

in a few years it will be a lot stronger, once every studio starts supporting it. and once HDtv sets really start dropping in price. PS3 will help a lot too, just like how the PS2 helped DVD. The future Xbox will probably have bluray.

It's still a young format but at least studios and retailers know that they can focus on it as THE HD format now.

[leonardodicrapio]

The PS3 put Blu-Ray over the top. The PS3 is certainly helping Blu-Ray now, but there will finally be some complete Blu-Ray players available this year (and I don't think the PS3 is a complete Blu-Ray player). Considering the cost of these Blu-Ray players, it is pretty sad that none of them are complete (no Blu-Ray player to date can decode all audio codecs; a few can

"Follow Up: High Resolution Audio and HDMI 1.3
By Thomas J. Norton • August, 2007...

Any recent version of HDMI can carry legacy Dolby Digital and DTS in bitstream form. But that isn't necessarily the case with the new, high-resolution formats—Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. To carry those, both the player and the AV receiver or pre-pro must be equipped with HDMI version 1.3. If you have HDMI 1.3 at both ends you're good to go. Or so we thought...

Features
Follow Up: High Resolution Audio and HDMI 1.3
By Thomas J. Norton • August, 2007
An important feature of HDMI is its ability to carry both video and audio. If it passes this information in bitstream form, the receiver or pre-pro, rather than the player, decodes the various versions of Dolby Digital and DTS.

Any recent version of HDMI can carry legacy Dolby Digital and DTS in bitstream form. But that isn't necessarily the case with the new, high-resolution formats—Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. To carry those, both the player and the AV receiver or pre-pro must be equipped with HDMI version 1.3. If you have HDMI 1.3 at both ends you're good to go. Or so we thought.

Many recent AV receivers can accept multichannel PCM digital audio over earlier versions of HDMI. Most HDMI-equipped players can convert standard DD and DTS to multichannel PCM, and most (but not all) players can do the same for Dolby TrueHD.

Decoding any form of Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA into PCM is a completely digital operation—a manipulation of bits. It's a fact that audiophiles have long been skeptical of digital processing, particularly of things that can corrupt the digital data stream, such as jitter. Jitter interrupts the timing sequence, so that the bits do not always arrive at their destination when they should. "Bits is bits," say the digiphiles; "The right bit at the wrong time is the wrong bit," argue the phobes.

Until it's proven otherwise, we'll come down on the side that argues that the all-digital process of converting TrueHD or DTS-HD MA to multichannel PCM digital involves no sonic compromises.

But there are, despite this alternative, advantages to passing these audio formats along to the receiver in their raw "bitstream" form. The most obvious is that no HD DVD or Blu-ray player yet available will decode the full high-resolution data stream of DTS-HD Master Audio into PCM.

Due to the complexity in decoding DTS-HD MA adding this capability would add complexity and cost to new players at a time when there is enormous pressure to produce high-definition players at lower prices. It's cheaper—or at least friendlier to current marketing realities—to put this decoding in the AV receiver, where the enthusiast will pay for it without batting an eye. To make the bitstream transmission work, however, both the player and the receiver must be HDMI 1.3 compliant.

I currently have on hand two HDMI 1.3 players: the Toshiba HD-A20 (HD DVD) and the Samsung BD-P1200 (Blu-ray). Toshiba, oddly, does not claim HDMI 1.3 in their promotional materials and specifications for this player, but they have told us that it does have an HDMI 1.3 output (transmitter) chip.

Until recently, however, there have been no AV receivers equipped with HDMI 1.3, much less the ability to decode a TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream once received. This has restricted our ability to check out the ability of these HDMI 1.3 players to pass along the data from these sources in bitstream form.

But we have just received the new Onkyo TX-SR875, one of the first HDMI 1.3 AV receivers to hit the market. It will not only accept Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio over HDMI in bitstream form, but is also designed to decode both of these formats with full resolution."

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/features/807hdmi13/

The PS2 may have helped DVD a little bit, but DivX was dead by the time the PS2 was introduced. DVD players were also available for around $200 in 2000 when the Playstation 2 was introduced.

"Divx's Death
On June 16, 1999, Circuit City CEO Dick Sharp ordered the plug pulled on Divx development and marketing."

http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/35912/The_Origins_of_the_Original_Divx.html?detectflash=false&

"The PlayStation 2 (abbreviated "PS2") is Sony's second video game console, the successor to the successful PlayStation and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3 as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was released a year later in Japan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2