Bad news for HD DVD fans with Netflix — as of Dec. 15 the movie rental company will no longer offer HD DVD rentals. Customers found an email message in their inboxes yesterday, informing them of the phase out which had been planned since all last February when all major studios sided with Blu-ray.
“Effective December 15, 2008, we will no longer carry HD DVDs. At that time, we will automatically replace any HD DVD titles in your Queue with standard DVDs when available,” said part of the email from Netflix.
It would be interesting to see how many HD DVD rentals actually go out, considering the format still breathes some life among HD DVD user groups and hi-def bargain hunters who can now get some HD DVDs at Amazon for only $7.99.
However there must not be enough rentals to keep the format available for Netflix customers. For those movies from Universal that are still unavailable on Blu-ray you’ll have to settle for the standard DVD format.
This is why I dropped netflix, going into my queue and changing things.
Blockbuster still rents HD DVD, and Netflix went out of their way to drive HD consumers away.