kefrank

Is that based on anything other than speculation? I'm not saying there definitely was no incentive deal, but of all the things that happened during the format war, Netflix dropping HD DVD seemed the least likely to be motivated by some kind of incentive package. They remained firmly format-neutral until after the the WB announcement when the writing was clearly on the wall. Surely the BDA offered Netflix much better incentives well before that when the competition was actually heated.

Netflix announced they were dropping HD DVD just eight days before Toshiba announced they were quitting on HD DVD. I think it's just as likely that Netflix went to Toshiba behind closed doors and said, "Now that WB is out, what's the future of the format?" and Toshiba let them know that they were going to bow out, so Netflix acted immediately.

Incidentally, when Netflix made the announcement in February, they stated that they would phase out their stock of HD DVDs completely by the end of the year, so this should come as no surprise to anyone.

Qui Gon Jim

Perhaps. I thought the timing was a little different (not disputing your timeline). This scenario is also very plausible. Thank you for discussing and not attacking.

The Bus

Wish they sold them.

Gizmo

As do I. I still need several films to round out my collection but they are becoming a pain to find.

kefrank

Yeah, I couldn't quite remember how it went down, so I looked it up. WB made their announcement around the beginning of January. Netflix made ther announcement at the beginning of February and Toshiba made theirs about a week later.

Thanks to you as well for the cordial discourse.

porieux

Have they said what they are doing with the discs?

oldchuckles

I think Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits probably had something to do with Netflix dumping HD DVD rentals. I can't put my big toe on it yet, but somehow you know Bill Hunt is out to bury HD DVD anyway he can. I smell something stinky about this Netflix announcement and it ain't my big toe I'm smelling!

The Cow

Pretty sure it's your toe.

Goldblum

HD-DVD is already buried. The funeral was almost a year ago.

DVD Polizei

I just bought some dead bodies a few days ago.

oldchuckles

I have a room full of rotting corpses (laser discs, that is). I hope the contamination doesn't spread to my beloved HD DVDs. I suppose Bill Hunt would love that to happen to our precious HD DVD collections!

Seriously, is it possible for laser rot to be passed from laser discs to HD DVDs?

bunkaroo

^^^^

Seriously, is it possible for you to post without mentioning him? I smell a man-crush.

DVD Polizei

I doubt this could happen. Laserdiscs are much thicker, heavier, have a march large diameter which greatly increases contamination potential, and have a significantly larger mass. Not to mention, I would think the chemical make-up of Laserdiscs is different than HD DVD and the newer media plastics.

fitprod

Assuimng your not joking... LaserRot was caused by a fault curing process, where are entered between the layer of the LD and would corode the aluminum layer.

CD's, DVD's, HD DVD's and Blu-ray's are created by a process that does not glue two layers together. (Excluding Dual-sided discs...)

fitprod

oldchuckles

Thanks Polizei and fitprod for your responses. I keep all of my dead media in the same closet. I am glad to read that laser disc rot cannot spread to my HD DVDs. Another question, can laser disc rot spread from one laser disc to another laser disc or from a contaminated laser disc player to a non-contaminated laser disc? I am asking because I would like to watch some of my rotten laser discs but I am afraid of the virus spreading into my player and then into non-contaminated laser discs.

As for Netflix, shame on them for throwing out their loyal HD DVD customers. Maybe we were a small market share, but we were loyal to our preferred format.

videoguy

I had purchased a collection of like 90 laserdiscs and a player for like 100 bucks from someone I used to work with right as dvd was becoming popular. This past summer I found a buyer for all my laserdiscs and copied them onto recordable dvds. Took a few weeks with 2 machines running all day. I did discover quite a few discs were bad, all at the end of the movie. It seems possible that there was a bad manufacturer or something because only a few were problematic. They should have never run the movie to the very edge of the discs.
I'm now hoping to start the same process with my VHS tapes.