Wannabe

HD/BR will replace DVDs when:

* More than 50% of U.S. households have a HD/BR player.

* The average cost of HD/BR players falls below $100.

* The average cost HD/BR discs are equal to or below the cost of DVDs.

* The cost to manufacture HD/BR discs falls below the cost to make DVDs.


However the real thing that will kill DVDs is "On Demand" viewing. Ownership will no longer be a tangible concept. What we call televisions will eventually connect to the Internet - you'll pay to have the option of watching a movie (or whatever) for a limited time period or for an unlimited one. In 15 years there will no longer be a physical product. Then, purchasing DVDs will become mostly pointless.

DrStrangeL0ve71

But most stores don't sell them and some newer movies like Revenge of the Sith aren't coming out on VHS at all.

Mr. Salty

They're hardly joke formats. They're a natural and obvious evolution that was inevitable with the rolling out of HDTV.

Digital television, which in most cases means high-definition television, is here. As mandated by the FCC, it is replacing the format that has existed since television was invented more than 50 years ago. It will take several years for HDTV to overtake analog TV as far as market penetration, but it will happen as a matter of law.

And once people have HDTVs, it doesn't make much sense to only have standard-definition content available for them. That logically means some sort of high-definition disc, whether it's HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

Yours is the same tired, short-sighted argument that VHS-adherents were bleating back in 1997: "We don't need DVDs. VHS is good enough. There's not that much difference in picture quality."

And that's when DVD players were introduced at $1,000 or more, with some discs costing $30 to $40. I had to wait a year and a half before DVD players dropped to the $500 range so I could afford a second-generation Sony player. Some people thought it was odd that I'd spend that kind of money to watch movies, but within a year almost everyone had a DVD player.

I think it's promising that HD-DVD players were introduced to the market at a comparatively low $500. (Even CD players debuted at more than $1,000 25+ years ago.) And the discs are $15 to $25, which puts them in the ballpark of what we're paying for standard DVDs.

I can only imagine what the price of HD-DVD players will be within a year or so.

So, HD-DVD may not be something you'll want to buy right now until the whole HD-DVD/Blu-ray battle shakes out, but if you've gone to the expense of buying an HDTV, why would you not want to buy HD-DVDs if they cost about the same as standard DVDs?

Mr. Salty

Just because you can't grasp the concept doesn't mean they're lies. Numbers are numbers. The NTSC television standard has 480 lines of resolution available. VHS only managed to use about 270 of those lines, where DVD takes full advantage of all 480. But HDTV, and HD-DVD, has 1,080 lines of horizontal resolution.

How can it get better? 1,080 is more than 480. Is that clear enough for you?

speedyray

This just makes me laugh. There are still massive amounts of this country without high speed Internet available - some places where dialup is hard to find - yet you think everyone is going to give up owning stuff for On Demand technologies. Well, I tell you what - I already have this capability and it sucks. Plus - when some jackass runs there car into the pole I can not whatch any On Demand. I think I will stick with ownership as will the vast majority of Americans. We are a consumer culture and that is not going to go away.

radewagon

I guess i'll throw my two cents in. The way I see it, HD formats have a long way to go to get out of the niche market. I seriously think that dvd would have had the same problems if it hadn't been for what dvd did to the home video market. The dvd format made remastering a movie's picture and audio profitable (finally, a picture that doesn't look like garbage!). It successfully incorporated bonus items (a few vhs titles tried it). And it increased (drastically) the proliferation of OAR's on home video releases (DVD was the first affordable way for people to get their hands on a widescreen picture for most movies). So, there was a lot more incentive, for the consumer, to upgrade one's currently existing titles to the new format. HD just doesn't offer as much of a change as DVD did to VHS. I think HD will obviously take over at some point, if only because there are so many people pushing for it, but it'll happen very very slowly.

darkside

The HD formats have to settle their format war and get costs in line with current DVDs and hardware. This will take 2-3 years. From that point I expect them to catch up to DVD sales quickly and eventually become the main home video format. There are just too many HDTVs being purchased for this format not to take off in the coming years. Granted one of the two HD formats may not make it and for consumers probably shouldn't make it.

darkside

This really bugged me because Warner missed a golden opportunity to include the mono mix in TrueHD. The Toshiba player could have decoded a single channel TrueHD signal and output it to most any receiver giving us probably the best sound a mono track could have. I really hope as the format evolves they start including the mono and stereo tracks along with the remixes. There is certainly plenty of room on there for an additional soundtrack.

Kant

pagansoul

I started buying DVD almost right away as soon as they became available in 1997. I didn't even have a player, I used my computer DVD drive to watch movies and there were not many DVDs out there. I loved them. I'm a collector, I like to own things, not rent. There will always be people like me just as there will always be people who prefer to rent or use a subscription service and don't want to clutter their lives with things that will go out of date. Most things do go out of date, very very few become collectors items that can be resold for profit. I'm middle aged, have what is concidered a huge collection of DVDs by friends and family but know that when finance permits I will upgrade my system and buy the next generation of video, if I don't go blind or die first. Blu-ray or HD or what-ever...bring it on. I hope I see data crystals before I kick the bucket. I want the entire library of the world on one rock. Hell, if I could download right into my brain I would do that.

FantasticVSDoom

And the simple fact that my wife can see a noticable difference is all you really need to know ...

FantasticVSDoom

To say its not needed or a joke isnt even worth commenting on...I agree that "on-demand" has the potential to overtake both of these, but it has a looong way to go, and I dont see that happening anytime soon. To say that you cant see a difference is crazy, and imo its just something to say to make an argument. All that being said, SD-DVD will be around for quite a while so I dont think there is anything to fear on that front.

NatrlBornThrllr

Yeah, kind of like MP3s did to CDs.

Dream on.

Drexl

Um, he said his wife CAN see a difference.

darkside

Its early and I'm dumb, what can I say.

PacMan2006

I agree with Mario on this arguement. At some point, you have to just be satisfied with what you have. And like a couple people have pointed out...DVD to me is good enough. I am honestly not sitting watching a movie on my DVD player thinking, "MAN! If only this looked better." When we had VHS you could do that. The tape would wear out. Fast-forwarding and rewinding were a pain. Going back to you favorite scenes was touch. That has all been improved with DVD significantly. I don't have the same gripes anymore. I'm satisfied.

And I think people on message boards are usually more hardcore DVD fans than the average person. I was on another DVD board, and people are taking advantage of the DDD sale today. People were showing what they were buying...and the prices were in the HIGH hundreds. You look at the HT collection threads, and people take photos on hundreds upon hundreds of DVD's. People here care about DVD's to the smallest degree, and also seemingly have a good amount of money to spend on them. I don't think that goes for the rest of the Amercian public.

Lastly...I was at BB the other day. I saw the HD-DVD display on a widescreen TV. They were playing Batman Begins.

And while it looked good, it didn't blow me away. I think if it hadn't been promoted as HD-DVD, I just would've assumed that it was either regular dvd, or possibly Batman Begins on HBO in HD or something.

It obviously looked clear, but it wasn't something that made me want to go out and tell all my friends about this great new technology I saw. Maybe Batman Begins isn't the best sample to use to show off the HD-DVD technology...but watching that for 5 or so minutes didn't and wouldn't make me even consider switching from DVD to HD-DVD.

The clarity made me stop and look for a minute or two...but that really was it. I wasn't blown away in comparison to when I first saw DVD, HD-TV, or even next generation gaming consoles of their time like the Nintendo 64, Playstation 2, and now XBOX 360.

darkside

Best Buy set ups are horrible so I'm not shocked that HD DVD is blowing no one away there. TVs with the brightness, contrast and sharpness turned up full blast are not going to do anything but ruin HD DVDs. I think DVD will still be the leader of the market for some time but after viewing HD DVD in the proper set up I can tell you that DVD will never be good enough for me on most films.

Wannabe

Heard of itunes?

I've converted every one of my 500 CDs into high bit rate MP3s and use a networked computer to stream them all over my house. I never touch my CDs anymore and I look forward to the day where I don't have to touch or store DVDs (or whatever they'll next be called).

PacMan2006

^^Really? haha...thats interesting. It was playing in a HD-DVD player. I even walked up and checked out other HD-DVD's like Training Day.

Cartload

Was it playing the whole movie or just a clip from it? There's a Batman Begins trailer on the HD-DVD demo disc.

bboisvert

Gotta love Best Buy... "Lets put a standard DVD in the HD-DVD set up. That'll impress the masses!"

PacMan2006

Wow...I had no clue. I'm glad someone said something. Although I am still happy with my current DVD's...it's nice to know the future of dvd's will look better than what I saw.

steelpotato

The new format can frankly not catch on fast enough. I cannot wait until the day Criterion starts from #1 again.

Mok

Is it true that they can never make a HD/BR player combined, due to copyright. I heard somewhere where it is prohibited for HD/BR to be on the same player. Can anyone clear this up ? thanks.

SergioM

Maybe I'm the freak in the group, but is there anyone out there who's REALLY excited about HD DVD? I'm not. And neither are any of my friends who also collect a lot of DVDs. It's been met by us with collective yawns. Smells like another attempt by electronic companies to spend more money on fancy eqiupmment which will go bust after a few months due to a lack of public interest and soon to join other great advances like 8 track tape. Is anybody out there with me? Or am I the only one who feels this way?