Damed

Just thinking here.

Will the studios stop digging old films out of the vaults and releasing them on DVD when HD releases start coming out? I mean, I know they will still release *new* releases on both formats, but what about older, less known, "cult" films?

I am concerned that they will be focusing more on the new format(s), going into their "popular" catalog and re-releasing titles on HD, rather than digging up the not as well known films for a decent DVD release.

Any thoughts?

marcellusk

I don't think so. Remember when dvd's first came out and studios were still putting movies out on vhs? Dvds are so mainstream now (you can get them in grocery stores) that they'll be around for a while. So they may put movies out on both until hd becomes more affordable.

OldBoy

i think this topic is pretty much covered here...

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=450784

Brian Shannon

No reason too. Millions of dvd players out there, not a single hd player yet.

Josh H

No, the DVD user base is huge. No one has HD player yet and these will be adopted fairly slowly. It will be a number of years before it catches up to DVDs (if they ever do).

Thus, if anything, I expect the number of older films released on the HD formats to be relatively low for several years, and (as I've argued in the HD forum) I personally don't think the back catalog titles will ever be as extensive on the HD formats as they are on DVD.

I think too many people already own them on DVD and most aren't going to upgrade them. Even on this site of movie fanatics, most are saying they'll keep their DVDs and only upgrade a select few. Thus I imagine joe six pack will replace even less dvds. Thus there just won't be as lucrative a market for for catalog titles as their was for DVD.

Remember Laserdisc was a mainstream failure and VHS was mainly a rental and recording format, so their was a much smaller number of people who had extensive film collectoins when DVD launched.

Drexl

I think it's a legitimate question. What the OP is asking is if supporting several formats instead of one could affect their overall output. As in, could some of the resources a studio uses to release older films be shifted towards HD releases?

I would say probably not, since most transfers are done in HD these days anyway, and because the user base is too big. Unlike with video games that have to be ported, releasing movies on different formats isn't too hard. UMD movies haven't slowed down the DVD releases, and they don't seem to have too much trouble putting out multiple versions (fullscreen/widescreen, rated/unrated, etc.).

Eric F

No.

DVD is selling gangbusters right now. Why would they stop?

PatrickMcCart

Probably not because the studios are going to concentrate on eye candy for HD for the first few years.

So, you're likely not going to see BluRay's of The Champ or The Jazz Singer right away.

Qui Gon Jim

Not at all saying they are going to stop, but DVD sales growth is slowing. That is one of the reasons studios are looking to the next big thing, or "sell it baby one more time."

I also think that catalog releases will come quicker for HD than they did for DVD but I think it will be a long long time before any format has the title saturation that DVD has. I especially think this about TV.

RoboDad

If I am reading the OP's question correctly, I don't think they are necessarily asking about DVD being abandoned.

It takes time and resources to produce a new DVD (I'm not talking about manufacturing them, but authoring, possibly remastering, gathering bonus materials, etc.). Assuming that there is not an unlimited supply of people and equipment to achieve this, at some point someone must make a choice as to which film to devote available resources to. With Blu-ray and HD-DVD being the next big thing, and most studios wanting to get them off to a good start, will they choose to devote more resources to new HD releases that otherwise might have been used to prepare SD-DVD releases of older titles?

rdclark

I don't think the advent of HD discs is an issue in this regard.

The work of restoring a film and creating a new transfer, of producing extras and commentaries, of remixing the audio, etc., is independent of the release format. These days, any new transfer of an older film will be done in HD anyway.

It can be released on DVD, or on HD disc, or licensed for HD broadcast, or whatever markets can be found for it.

The cost of pressing the discs and packaging them is trivial compared to the costs of creating and marketing the product, and that's true whether it's HD or standard DVD.

HD disc is just another way of packaging the same product.

RichC