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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
So tonight I’m enjoying a $1.50 hot dog and soda at Costco with my three kids when I noticed a shopping cart filled with some new HD-DVDs and a Toshiba player at the next table. I kept debating in my head if I should warn the family of four men and a mother of their possible DOA purchasing choice. Finally, I just walked over after wiping away the relish from my mouth and said, “Hi, I don’t mean to be rude, but I noticed your HD-DVD player in the cart. Did you hear that Toshiba announced it was leaving the HD-DVD market, Monday?” They all looked at me with a stunned expression and said they hadn’t. I also told them that basically only one major studio was supporting the format and pretty much by the end of the year, HD-DVD would be the Beta of this millennium. One of the guys replied, “Wow, I’ve got to return this then! No wonder it was so cheap!”
I didn’t note the price of the player when we walked in, but by the customers comments, it sounds like Costco is already slashing the prices on the hardware. Smart retail move before the masses figure out that Blu-ray is the way to go now.
I had hoped HD-DVD would have made it through but truth is, on paper, Blu-ray is just a better format. The DVD Forum should have listened to Sony when it made its proposal for the next generation DVD format years ago. I guess it knew what it was talking about and with a bit more money in the bank than it had in the 80s, looks like it learned from its Beta mistake.
