has anyone been able to rent new hd dvd releases from blockbuster online. last week I got the 360 add on and started a blockbuster account. I added a bunch of hd movies like forbidden planet, Casablanca, superman returns and they were saved. now they are all gone and don't even appear on the site anymore to rent. has anyone else noticed this? also how is netflix with new releases on hd dvd?
Thanks

They are there.....I just got Training Day today. I know for pre-releases they keep them at the bottom of your queue now. Blockbuster's site has been a mess....so, try adding again.

They do have HD-DVD though. MI-3 also shipped for me.

I guess I have the same question. I'm not currently a BB online member, but am thinking about joining. And they do say they have HD-DVDs. If you go to the collections tab and then pick HD-DVD.

But... when I go to each movie, they are not noted as HD-DVDs. And all the covers are the SD-DVD covers. If these were added to a cart, would they send HD-DVDs or SD-DVDs?

Seems confusing enough that I might just go with Netflix. When I was a member there, it was clear what was a HD-DVD. My local store does have HD-DVDs, so I thought BB-online would be the way to go, but am wondering how others manage this.

I went with the 2 week netflix trial offer, mainly because my local BB's suck, all of them are franchises not corporate owned so we don't get the new BB features until about 6 months later. I called a handful of the local BB stores when I bought my 360 add-on and none of them were planning to carry HD/BD rentals, locally I belive that Family Video will be the first to offer HD rentals, but nobody has a firm date.

So until then I decided to try Netflix on the unlimited 1 at time account ($9.99 month), and it has been mixed results. I started the account on a Friday, but my first disc (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) didn't ship until the following Monday/Tuesday arrived here on Thursday. The disc looked liked it had been cleaned with sandpaper almost a spirograph pattern on both sides (it's a combo HD/DVD) started watching the HD side and it froze up about chapter 21 tried going directly to chapter 22, 23, and 24 but it would never start back up. I decided to finish the movie on the SD side, and my luck it made it about 2 mins further into chapter 21 then it did the same thing. I reported the problem to Netflix and mailed it back Friday. Got my second disc Wednesday, and finally got to watch it last night it played through just fine.

Another reason I chose Netflix was a friend has used them for years, and has always spoke highly of them. He gets his movies from a in state distribution center so it takes 1 business day to send it back, and 1 business day to get another movie back. I guess the HD DVD's are not available in all distribution centers because my first one came from Texas, and the second Kansas City.

Yeah I don't understand how even the HD-DVD's you get from Netflix looks like it was used as third base in a little league game sometimes.

I have yet to have one so bad it fails, but sheesh!

Shame on me for thinking that your HD-DVD customers might be a slightly "higher class" of folk, one that would take slightly better care of the discs.

I love Netflix, BTW. But like you mentioned I live 1 mile away from my local distribution center, so I have great turn around. I wouldn't have signed up had I not known that.

Yeah disappointed that it was my first one (not to mention I actually liked the movie up to that point) and still haven't seen the last ~30 mins. I went ahead and paid the first months fee and going to stick it out for at least that long.

I'm hoping as HD movies and renters become a larger group they will start stocking more copies of HD titles. I would be okay with only 4 rentals a month, although I still think 5 rentals/month is my 'magic' number where I'm getting the most value for my buck. Again all this is probably temporary until someone locally starts renting the discs, depending on their pricing structure.

I use Netflix for HD DVD as well. The only issue that I had was that I was sent the DVD instead of the HD DVD of Cinderella Man once.

I have been a Netflix user for almost four years. I love Netflix and for the most part, and I have almost never had any issues with SD-DVDs skipping or being scratched beyond belief. I have rented about 11 HD-DVD movies and four of them have been scratched to bits to the point of non-playing. My copy of Forbidden Planet stopped 30 seconds from the intro, and I couldn't even chapter skip to a point where it was fine. My copy of The Searchers stopped three seperate times. I tried to use a rag you would clean eye-glasses with, but it did not help.

In short, I think for the next few months there will be more issues with scratches and such since there are not that many HD-DVDs in Netflix's inventory. When a new blockbuster SD-DVD comes out, think about how many copies Netflix needs to help the millions of people that subscribe. Until HD-DVD becomes more popular, the discs will be shared at a higher rate and thus more proned to scratches...

I'm sure this question has been asked by many people but I ask it again.

What are these people doing to these discs? I have over 400 DVDs and every one of them are as pristine as the day they came out of the case.

All you do is take it out, put it in the player, watch it, take it out of the player then back in the case. What is so hard about that? I can't think of a situation where I could make some of the marks I've seen by accident.

Oh well...

For Blockbuster.com, to select an HD-DVD disc, there are TWO ways I do it. One, go to the top where it says COLLECTIONS - > HD-DVD sub-category.

Or, pick the movie you want...go to the ALL EDITIONS tab and choose there.

HOWEVER, availabilty it limited on a lot of these movies. I know most are on Short Wait to Very Long Wait...some of the older, are Available though. I have received 3 thus far, no issues....Training Day, Corpse Bride and Accepted (this one had a wait, but shipped)

Also, you get a NEW inner-envelope with these with a RED HD HD HD HD HD HD HD all over it. All of mine have looked brand new.

However, blockbuster has seemed SLOWER lately with shipping movies with the new in-store deal.

I just rejoined Netflix to rent HD-DVDs exclusively. I've been very satisfied with them as I've used them on and off over the past 7 or 8 years. I had stopped using them recently since I can get most of the movies I'm interested in from my local library now. I'm hoping to get Ant Bully this week, but no movement yet from my queue so far today.

Do they have the correct HD-DVD covers for you? Or do they show only SD-DVD covers? I'm not a member yet, but when I do that (pick HD-DVD from Collections), every title I see has the SD-DVD cover and no mention that it is a HD-DVD.

I'd prefer blockbuster because of the new in-store deal (and my local BB does have HD-DVDs). I just want to make sure I don't wind up with all SD-DVDs when I do join.

I wish I knew the answer to that question

The answer is that the Joe-Sixpacks of the world don't know how to take care of DVD's. They probably set the bare discs down on a non-clean surface of somekind and/or stick their greasy dirty fingers all over them.

I think SOME are correct. IT will say [HD] in the title in your queue, so it is pretty easy to decipher which is which.

Signed up for BB when I got my HD-DVD Add on (that option seemed best to me as my local rents HD-DVD's and almost all seem to be in all the time). I've only rented HD's from the online store and they seem to be getting to me very fast and I haven't found any that are to scratched to play so far. Is it possible that you had some unreleased in your QUE?

I've rented lots of HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs rom Netflix and have had no issues at all.

I think I am the only person here that just doesnt rent. The entire idea of spending money for an item that I will have to give back in a few days just never settled well with me. I rented a little during the VHSera but once DVD's came and this site went up I stopped renting. My last rental was Terminator 2 on DVD and the only reason I rented it was because my local Best Buy didnt get thier shipment in on time and I really wanted to see it so I went over to Blockbuster and got it.

I am the same way with Videogames. If I am going to spend money on something I might as well spend a little bit more and actually own it. If its so bad that I dont want to keep it then I can always sell it later on down the line. I am obviously in the minority here but as a movie fan and an avid collector I just hate thinking about spending money on something that I cant own.

PS..

I'm with you, PS. Only very recently have we done any renting with the Redbox $1 rentals. My problem with rentals was always that ever $#-4 is too much when I can own the title for around $7 or 8.

Well, a HD-DVD is $20-$30...a rental service is $17.99. Now, I own 300+ DVD's and I rarely watch a movie twice lately. I will buy a few HD-DVD's, but the cost is not really that great right now.

Compare that to the cost of going out to the movies and its still not bad at all. I will easily pay anywhere from 15-25 bucks for a standard edition DVD for a movie I want. If its a special edition with multiple disc the ill pay up to 30 and if its criterion the price is not an issue. Thats the prices I am ok with and have no problem spending that much for beng able to own it. I however just cant see spending 4-5 bucks for a movie that I have to give back eventually. I would just rather spend the extra 15 bucks and own it outright.

Like I said I am the same with videogames and those are even more expensive to buy but also more expensive to rent as well. Gaming is an area where I pay close attention to gaming sites and the overall scores a game recives. Gameranking.com is the best site out there for seeing how good or bad a game is doing overall in the press. I will only spend 50-60 bucks on a new game if it scores very well otherwise I wait for the prices to come down to like 20-30 before buying it. Again tho I just cant see spending like 6-7 bucks ( I think thats how much it is to rent games now) for a game that I will have to give back. I love the fact that at any given time I can pop in any movie or any game I want unresricted. I currently have over 2300 DVD's, over 100 HD-DVD's and well over 300 Console games for PS2, Xbox, Xbox360 and GameCube.

In the end tho I guess it really depends on someone finances and wether they can afford to purchase rather than rent. I am at a point with my business where I can spend lots of money on stuff like that and get away with it. That however was not always the case so I can at least see where people do rent. Its just not my kind of thing.

PS..

I guess it depends on how many times you would watch it again.

I also have a DVD collection that is large (around 2500 titles), but it's become aparent to me that I don't watch the vast majority of those titles enough times to justify the costs. Even if I can afford to buy whatever discs I want, it isn't a wise business decision.

With HD-DVD, I'm trying to do things differently with my collection. Maybe if the prices hit $8 or so, I'd not worry too much about making a smart business decision...

Anyway, I don't think (as you said) it has to do with people's finances and whether they can afford to purchase discs, at least not with everyone. Because while I could go buy whatever HD-DVD I wanted, it isn't smart if I'm only going to watch it once.