Blockbuster has 1450 retail stores for movie rentals, and they have been renting both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats in 250 of them. According to Blockbuster the Blu-ray format was dominant with of the 70% popularity of high definition movie rentals, which indicates an obvious customer preference towards Blu-ray. This has been considered as huge, if not devastating, blow for the HD DVD camp, as a good availability of rentals is a key issue in video format selection, as it was decades ago in the Beta vs. VHS video cassette battle.

“The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing,” Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising at Blockbuster, told the Associated Press. Blockbuster said it will continue to rent HD-DVD titles for now in the original 250 locations and online.

The consumer choice was helped in large part due to the lopsided availability of titles in Blu-ray, Smith added. All major studios except one are releasing films in Blu-ray, with several, including Walt Disney, releasing exclusively in Blu-ray.

Source: Broadcast Engineering