You hit the nail right on the head. Most of us got into dvd because it was cutting edge at the time. From this thread, there is fear in some posters that their prized dvd collection is no longer valuable because there is a new format out with better picture and sound.
Some of you guys need to understand that just bitching about blu-ray is not going to make it go away or anything but if it makes you feel better about your dvd collection, go right ahead and bitch away.

Retailer-specific special features annoy me a lot more.

Why? Were paying more for Blu Ray so we deserve more then what a person get's on DVD. And just better picture and sound isn't good enough for a lot of people.
Now that bothers me.

Degrading bitrates for SD annoy me. You just know studios are intentionally putting out inferior video transfers for SD (compared to dvds made 2 or more years ago) so that there's a bigger WOW factor for BD. I swear the transfers for dvds have gotten worse since BD won the HD format war. Check out titles made in 2001-02 and compare them to ones made in 2008-2009. Sharpness is just not what it used to be on SD. Not to mention dwindling features and digital coasters.

I still can't fathom this mentality....studios want to entice more people to adopt the format, of course they are going to give them more incentive to do so! Plus there are some special features that you cannot technically do on DVD, such as the interactive PIPs, BD-Live, and what not....

Did people who had a lot of VHS or laserdisc back in 1998 or 1999 get mad and demand that DVDs not get new special features since their previous format didn't have it as well?

Did people who had bought all their albums on vinyl or cassettes throw a fit when CDs were released with extra tracks and demand that the labels needed to stop? What about now, where digital music downloads are taking off and iTunes gets exclusive tracks the CD does not?

I agree with what another poster mentioned...that the retailer exclusives are a far more annoying trend....I'm not a fan of Twilight, but good grief, every store has a different version! One disc only at Walmart, Target exclusive version with extra features and downloads, Blu-ray only available at Best Buy and Target, Borders special edition, Amazon has some box set, when is it enough?!

That is the dumbest comment ever. I've rented and watched the DVD's that are coming out today and they look better then the ones that came out before Blu Ray was around. You sir, are very misinformed or just a DVD fanboy. Get over it! Blu Ray is going to replace DVD!

For what it's worth, I haven't gone Blu and I not only don't resent the BD exclusive features...I find them disappointing. I just haven't really heard of anything so special in features that it really seemed like it was The way to own a movie.

Let's say the eventual Lawrence of Arabia Blu-ray Disc repeats the same features from the 2-disc limited edition DVD but adds Blu-ray Live. Sorry, but as much as I love that film, high def a/v and BD Live just aren't enough to make me want it. You want to impress me? Get a commentary track. O'Toole and Sharif are still available. Furthermore, I will buy a Blu-ray player just to watch Lawrence if they managed to get Spielberg to do the commentary, to atone for bragging about getting an in-person commentary from David Lean.

I can't claim to have enough of a set-up or eye for such things to say, but this is a complaint that has circulated for quite a while now. I wouldn't say it's strictly a "DVD fanboy" thing.

Even though you claim that this is a claim that has "circuclated for a while," I think it really needs to be backed up. In terms of purely bitrate, it makes sense that over time the average bitrate will drop, as studios get better encoders that are more efficient at compressing to MPEG2. Comparing just bitrates, even between two versions of the same film, is a fruitless exercise.

As for image quality, one really has to compare two editions of the same film in order for this comparison to be in any way accurate. I don't know of any example where a newer DVD release had an inferior transfer quality to an older release of the same title, at least within the same region.

I don't think most of the people are complaining about special features that DVD can handle, such as deleted scenes and such. Also, some of the BD-J material could probably be delivered on DVD in a less "interactive" method.

However, the people complaining are assuming that the DVD release could've easily contained those features, like there was space on the disc but the studio deliberately left it off. I'm don't think these assumptions have been backed by any facts so far. Of course, if the studio does try to fit all the same features on both the DVD and BD, then others start complaining about the DVD's bitrates....

I'd say that iTunes exclusives fit under the category of a "retailer exclusive," since they're exclusive to that store. In general terms, digital downloads having exclusive tracks only makes sense if the CD has already been filled to capacity. In my experience, the opposite is often true, where the CD release will contain bonus tracks compared to the digital download version (like Spoon's album Ga Ga Ga having a bonus CD), presumably an incentive to buy a physical version.

I'm sorry, I thought this was a public forum. I have a right to my opinion just as you do, bluboy. Quit trying to be the bully of the sandbox. I never said one format was better than another. Maybe some of us can't afford to be converts or are just tired of being studio bitches.

I think you're comparing apples to oranges. Laserdisc fans generally had a ton of disposable income to support that technology. Switching wasn't as difficult financially. Laserdisc collectors probably had some reservations about DVD as well but Laserdisc was such a niche product, there wasn't much of a vocal opposition to DVD.

DVD was a big improvement over Laserdisc as the price was cheaper for DVD ($29.95) than Laserdisc ($34.95 or more) for new releases. The disc was smaller, better picture, sound, no flipping the disc over (and over again and again if it was CAV format).

Same argument for CDs. Records had been around for many decades and tapes had been around almost twenty years before CDs appeared on the market. CDs offered perfect sound on a small disc that would never degrade from continuous play, skip & mix songs effortlessly.

Most people were happy to up-grade their old scratched records.

DVD, on the other hand only started outselling VHS back in 2003. Launching Blu-Ray in 2006 was too soon and didn't offer enough of an upgrade over DVD.

A better comparison is like when Sony launched the MiniCD and thought it would take over from the CD because it was smaller.

To me, I only really got interested in Blurays since I got a PS3, so I thought id take advantage of it being a bluray player.

I still greatly prefer DVDs but Ill buy blurays if I like the film

Not me. Vinyl sounds better than CDs, but that's a debate for another time.

You have a right to your opinion, and Blu Man has a right to his opinion of your opinion. If you don't want your statements judged by others, don't post.

You made neither of those points in the post Blu Man responded to. He was disagreeing with your assertion that studios are deliberately making lower quality DVDs to give BD a boost.

Note that the post your responding to mentioned Laserdisc and VHS owners. VHS purchasers certainly got less features than DVD, and there was a price disparity between retail VHS and DVD prices.

Some Laserdisc owners were very vocal in their opposition. "Better video" was debatable, since while DVD had better resolution, it was also MPEG2 compressed, which can lead to all sorts of artifacts. LD had uncompressed video. There were also anamorphic LDs. As for "better sound," LD already had PCM, DD 5.1, and DTS available to them as options, in addition to the original analog audio. In cases of a mono soundtrack, an LD may have better sound than a DD 1.0 compressed track on a DVD.

Actually, DVD started outselling VHS in 2002, and DVD players also outsold VCRs in 2002.

http://dvd.box.sk/index.php?pid=hdvd&prj=main
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/f...lz1a01vhs.html

However, aside from that, I don't by the "too soon" argument. If a technology offers a significant enough improvement over a previous tech, it will gain support. Would you rather the studios had not released an HD format yet?

Yes and no. Most "sell-through" priced VHS tapes were about $14.95 (at the time when DVD was first introduced) and only arrived on the market about six months after the title was first released for the rental market.

You could purchase the DVD for $29.95 on its first day of release while the VHS was still $89.95.

I had a collection of 300+ VHS tapes and was growing very tired of Full Screen, bad video picture, Marcovision interference, tapes being eaten up in my machine etc.

DVD was a welcome upgrade for most people.


As I said, I'm sure there was some opposition but only from a very small group of videophiles. I agree the first year of DVDs were not very good but when the encoding technology improved and dual-layer discs became the norm there wasn't much argument left for Laserdisc.[/QUOTE]

I guess time will tell. I still feel Blu-Ray is coasting heavily on the PS3 compatability and caters mostly to that male demographic.

When prices come down I agree it will gain more support but I still feel people have cold feet that something better is just around the corner and don't wish to commit to another disc format.

I believe the rental window was more like 3 months (that was the gap between the Fight Club DVD and retail VHS). Also, that only applied to new films. Catalog titles had usually been out for years on VHS, if not decades, by the time a DVD release showed, and were significantly cheaper.

Yes, but you made it sound like LD owners just jumped on board to DVD without hesitation, which wasn't true.

While those reasons motivated you, they didn't motivate everyone, especially in the first few years. I worked in retail during the VHS-to-DVD transition, and I know first-hand about the general public's reaction.

First off, the switch from FS to WS caused much more consternation than joy among general consumers. Even if they did switch to DVD, they'd often get the FS release. Tapes being eaten was a problem that went away, only to be replaced by smudged/scratched discs due to mishandling (VHS was much more durable in that regard). As for image quality, that wasn't a major concern for a lot of people, as is showing up again in the switch from DVD to BD. Many people are still playing their discs via composite cables or via RF modulators, so image quality isn't quite the boost some claim. As for Macrovision, I don't know what format you switched to that didn't still have Macrovision, but it wasn't DVD.

That's funny, considering DVD in the beginning coasted on the male demographic and got a huge boost from the PS2 and Xbox.

I don't get this rationale. The reason BD came out was because it supports HDTV. The FCC isn't about to approve another video signal change for probably a few decades. If another disc format comes out, what features would it have over BD?

Also, the argument hinges on the idea that peoples previous DVDs and BDs become worthless or unusable when a new format enters the fray. In reality, every BD player also plays DVD, and any new disc format player will likely support both.

No BD booster is suggesting that everyone throw out their DVDs, anymore than a VHS collector should've chucked out their tapes as soon as DVD was released. However, it is viable as a format for new purchases, such as newly made films or catalog titles previously unreleased on DVD. Also, considering the number of DVD fans who eagerly purchased double-dips, BD makes sense as a format to repurchase films you really want to see in better quality.

The true major hurdle for BD is that its main advantages are its main weaknesses, in that in order to get the most out of the format, you need to buy newer hardware aside from just the disc player. At the least, you need an HDTV, and at a decent size. DVD was still SD, so its advantages were incremental: first with special features and slightly improved quality on SD sets, then anamorphic enhancement followed by upconversion for HD sets. With BD, if you only have an SD set you may as well not bother.

Since DVD is like 95% sales compared to 5% Blu-ray you can't really be a DVD Fanboy. Everyone on this site has DVDs. Not everyone has (or wants Blu-ray).

And no, Blu-ray will not replace DVD.

I believe DVD had been available for over 2 years before the PS2 came out. Blu-ray was out for 4 months before the PS3 arrived.

So what part of my statement are you disagreeing with? Are you suggesting that DVD didn't get a boost in the market via PS2 and Xbox?

I certainly didn't. The early DVDs had a few issues that made me leery of jumping in but as soon as the compression problems and the artifact issues smoothed out, I off-loaded my entire LD collection on eBay over a months time. I was extremely lucky to actually make money on most of them, being sold to buyers who still were going to hang on to the older technology.

I think this is true. Most people are not videophiles and while Blu Ray is better in general, I suspect the average person would be more than happy with upconverted video, if they are anything like my basic cross section of friends.

Not to mention the sheer cost of attempting to market yet another format for the consumer. The cost of this is staggering beyond belief. And as noted, one of the benefits of Blu Ray players is that a buyer does not have to replace all of the films in a format switch.


There are a few nuts out there who are such strong proponents they actually do advocate selling off all your DVDs. It's insanity I know, but they are out there. There have been a few thread topics along those lines....something line "Is anbody buying DVDs anymore" and the like. But its not many.


I have to say in my own case that even though I do have a Blu Ray player, I certainly have opted for the DVD counterpart given a direct choice, depending on circumstances.

2 years is not "DVD in the beginning coasted on the male demographic and got a huge boost from the PS2 and Xbox.

Most technology will try and grab the attention of young males because that's the typical demographic. Videogames, HDTVs, movies etc. Why do you think titles like Iron Man, TDK and Indy do so well on Blu-ray while titles like High School Musical 3, Bev, Hills Chihuahua do not? Studios are just now trying to expand to an older generation (classic titles from Fox and Warner).

I feel most did. Most Laserdisc buyers LOVED being on the cutting edge of technology and didn't mind the extra costs involved with switching to DVD. The same people have embraced Blu-Ray with the same enthusiasm. Additionally I feel DVD offered much more over Laserdisc than Blu-Ray offers over DVD.

But hey! It's just an opinion.


It's true any transition to a new technology is going to have its share of growing pains. DVD didn't have any recordable capabilities in the beginning. When it did, it was and still has its playback issues.

If you take good care of your DVDs, there's no problem. With tape, no matter how much you cared for them they degraded over time.

Rentals are another issue which downloading will probably be the best solution eventually.

Yes, DVDs have Macrovision but it does not show up while playing the discs.
Many VHS machines in combination with certain TVs caused a reddish, flickering effect across the top of the screen during playback of pre-recorded tapes.

I remember paying $20 for an ex-rental copy of Platoon back in 1989. In 2001 Platoon came out with special edition on DVD with a lot of extras for $21.95. Did it make sense to upgrade? Taste in movies aside, I would say so.


It's probably safe to say Blu-Ray will be the final spinning disc format.

It's getting to be a rather tedious argument. If you want Blu-Ray, go for it!
At this point, the masses seem content with their current DVD collection and don't seem willing to jump onto another format.

Is there a fear? I think so. I think people fear Blu-Ray is going to give them a reason to feel discontent about the DVD collection they've spent a lot of money on.

You might say "Boo-Hoo! Technology moves forward." Many people, especially now, are feeling they are being financially tugged and pulled constantly to keep up with costly gadgets like cell phones, iPods, faster computers etc.

I think people are asking themselves whether they really need a Blu-Ray player at $250 plus the extra cost of movies when they are only marginally better on their current TV.

Don't mistake it as "whining", Blu-Ray is just low on the list of priorties these days. The sales of Blu-Ray speak for themselves, good or bad.

If you have the funds and the desire, jump in with both feet!

Did you read what I wrote? DVD in the beginning coasted on the male demographic, and it also (later) got a huge boost from the PS2 and Xbox. I thought it was clear that the beginning in the sentence was only referring to the stuff before the and; I guess I was wrong.

My point in referring to Xbox and PS2 was that both gave DVD a boost, which is fine and acceptable, so what's the problem with PS3 giving BD a boost? If PS3 owners didn't see an advantage of BD over DVD, I'm pretty sure that they could still buy and play DVDs.

Which again, was my point. Criticizing BD for appealing to young males is silly, since that's how almost all new technology is marketed.

How long did you have to wait until you had fully replaced your LD catalog? Did you have the original Star Wars?

Forget upconversion, a lot of people are more than happy to keep with SD, buying converter boxes for OTA. If they do buy an upconverting DVD player, they'll likely still attach it via composite. I remember when progressive scan players were becoming widespread and people were buying them because they heard it was "better," even though the TVs they were going to attach them to were interlace only.

The studios like to re-sell you the same stuff over and over, but as DVD double-dips have shown, they don't really need a new format to do that.

Wow, that's crazy. That's like someone selling all their LDs as soon as they got a DVD player... oh, wait.

There's a difference between "I'm not going to buy any more DVDs" and "I'm going to chuck my existing collection."

What are those circumstances? Is is solely price?

DVD didn't need PS2 to survive the first 2 years, Blu-ray clearly does.