BD/HD-DVD rentals less than 1% Netflix volume
 

BD/HD-DVD rentals are less than 1% Netflix volume. No surprise, I guess:

Wall Street Journal Netflix interview

Funny to see both formats fight over a drop in the bucket.

We're slowly coming on the one-year anniversary of the introduction of HD. I have to say DVD definitely took a bigger foothold quicker.

1% ?

Yet they still have SO much trouble getting me my HD-DVD's.

I'm beginning to think that "Long Wait" and "Very Long Wait" are movie titles.

"Neck-and-neck"? As in "equal"???

They said they had all the titles. They didn't say how many they had.

Must be the same for Blockbuster.com

Although, things are getting better. I actually got The Departed HD and Casino Royale BD recently...so that was nice from BB.com

I"ve been only renting HD-DVD's the past month or so and have had no problems getting titles. They are aways available now. Maybe your area is just HD-DVD renter heavy.

My HD-DVDs always ship from other states. All my DVDs come from a shipping location in my own town.

Not surprised it is only less than 1% since even though they stock most/all titles, they don't have shit for quantity. I've become so desperate for HD titles I had to set up a separate queue that is only used for HD content.

I also think it's just a quanity issue, I only rent HD discs although all of mine (except for my trial period) come from here in town. I finally got Miami Vice last week, and it's been in my queue since December before the release date. I have found that returning movies Saturday so they get it Monday usually gets me a new release for Tuesday (pending there is a release I have queued). I was hoping for Children of Men today, but got Happy Feet instead. Children shows short wait already so hopefully I can get it by the end of the week.

I dropped NetFlix when they thought Honolulu, HI was a distribution center for the heartland. :hairpull: After 6 shipments over a month it was deal breaker :goodbye:

I have the same problems with Blockbuster. The popular titles are on very long wait for weeks.

Or worse new titles are "Coming Soon".

Although, Blockbuster said they are "working on" fixing the distribution thing. A movie may say AVAILABLE, but they don't ship it since it's not the closest distribution center. I will wait an extra day to get a movie I really want.

This is just my opinion, but I think the rental market is going to be proportionally smaller for HD discs than it is for DVD. While HD is preferred if it's available, I find a standard DVD to be "good enough" for rental, although I will purchase HD discs. It's not like going from VHS to DVD, where I would just refuse to rent VHS if the DVD was out. I can imagine there are Netflix users who get fed up with waiting on limited quantities and just take the DVD instead so they get to check out the movie sooner.

Plus, the early adopters are more likely to be buyers than renters anyway.

I guess I an not getting "popular titles" from Netflix because I have never waited on any, thus far. But I only have the two per month plan so I have received just four HD DVDs thus far.

Your argument is valid. I also think that because of the high cost of buying titles, people might opt to rent them first - not everyone may want to pay $35 for Rumor Has It... or Ice Age 2 for example.

Man, Netflix LOVES me, I have Happy Feet on the way, had The Departed, Balboa & Casino Royale the day after release day also. They always seem to send me discs even if they are listed as long waits. Thank God Netflix has HD because I'd be broke buying all the movies I've been watching.

Personally I am the other way. I bought a LOT of DVD's early on, but I won't buy as many HD DVD's. Unless it is a movie I know I will watch over and over, I am very happy to rent it. I have a lot of DVD's I bought over 8 years, and I have only watched once.

For this round, (unless prices become dirt cheap) I have bought a few of my favorites already, and then I likely will just rent most of the rest. Netflix has a 2 day turnaround for me (I send today, they send tomorrow, I get the day after) so I as long as I can wait a couple of days I am fine.

I fall into this category. I've only bought 3 HD movies (plus King Kong) and only because i used the google checkout coupons to get them cheap. Otherwise i've rented all the HD movies i can get my hands on.

I'm definitely renting more than buying, but at this point I want to watch all the HD discs available and the majority are not ones I would buy.

I also rent first before buying. Being burned before on blind buys. But I want to watch every HD disc that is available but the way Ballbusters does there new releases drives me nuts. I want to see Children of Men and they have it coming soon. What the hell is that about. Just gets me mad. They finally sent me Jet Li's Feerless after having it in my que since it came out. They must have got back their one copy.

Before I cancelled last month, a lot of the titles I wanted on HD-DVD were long wait or very long wait. It was one of the reasons I cancelled.

What percentage of BRD/HDDVD is selling as opposed to DVD? I know that it's also very small compared to the DVD market.

I'd have to disagree here. At this point in DVD's life, there were only about 400,000 players sold and finding a DVD rental store in April 1998 was (depending on your location) a bit of a challenge to say the least.

I think the "foothold" (both sales and rentals) is pretty similar at this point. Whether it takes off like DVD did is still an open question. I suspect that it will... but there will be a MUCH slower adoption rate than we saw w/DVD. Many people (even those with HDTVs) seem to be of the opinion that standard def DVD is "good enough".