I'd also add that even if BD overtakes DVD, it will STILL be more profitable for companies to put out DVD product that will play in 100% of players (assuming BD keeps backwards compatibility) over a product that will play in a smaller percentage.

BD players supplanting DVD players wouldn't be the "victory," the supplanting of the software would be the mark of the "win."

Well, when will they start making BD/VHS combo players?

Why do people keep saying this? It's the outstanding upconversion capabilities of most HD players that makes them such an easy sell. The HDTVs that will be in most homes will make people WANT an upconverting player, and the fact that it plays the "one and only HD format" will make HDM desirable. All the studios have to do then is stop releasing new titles on SDVD.

Upconversion is also what differentiates this transition from the VHS->DVD transition, making it even easier to accomplish.

What's important to remember here is that this time around, 5 years into the transition most people will have new, better TVs. The tens of millions of HDTVs being purchased even as we speak create an additional market force. People will want everything to be digital, and everything to be high-def.

that seems a little simplistic. i guarantee you that studios will not stop releasing new titles in SD until hi-def TVs and disc players have reached mass market penetration. that point is quite a ways off and SD DVD is too big of a (relative) cash cow in the meantime.

This will never happen, but if you consider the way that studios want to license media so they always get paid for usage, consumers should have a license to the media they purchase. So really, as you replace something that you have already paid for the rights to own, you should only have to pay for the media and any upgrades. This would come in the form of a discount. Or, if I own a DVD, I should be able to get downloads of the movie for free. I already paid,,,,right? Ha!

Last time I checked DVD is a digital format. And to say people want high-def just because they want digital is inaccurate.

My dad, a pretty tech-saavy guy, pluncked down $2,000 for an HDTV and he refuses to call Directv to get a HD DVR...because his current set up works for him and he doesn't want to mess with it...he got

Upconversion is what will keep the DVD format around for longer than you think, not spell its doom.

I totally agree with you and have given up trying to make them understand. They'll never get it until what we are saying becomes the reality. But rather than admit they were wrong, I think we'll see them jump onboard and pretend they were onboard all along.

It's not unlike what the media will do this weekend if the Jaguars some how upset the Patriots. Suddenly everybody would be pretending they thought the Jaguars were the best team all year.

Fine. Please leave if you have given up trying to educate us.

MOD NOTE: When will DVD die? Who knows. What I do know is that at this rate, with all the personal commentaries flying back and forth, this thread will die a quick death. -namja

I love that idea. Getting studios to it seriously might be a problem. LOL

Upconversion is a technology for disguising the fact that DVD exists as a way to deliver digitally-encoded analog media to analog displays. DVD is 4:3 NTSC (or PAL) video.

And finally, upconversion will become widespread through the sale of HDM players. When "Transformers 3" comes out as an HD-only disc and you have a player that will play it, why wouldn't you buy it?

The only answer is that you don't buy discs, you rent, and you'd rather see it in HD via On-Demand or Netflix "watch instantly" or TiVo UnBox or whatever for $2.

Where's SDVD in this picture?

Furthemore, short of a download or VOD, what are they playing it on since HD players will still not be the mainstream.

In five years? They'll be the only players you can buy.

Well, I remember buying some new-release movies from Wal-Mart that said it came with a free download of that movie online at, I believe, Wal-Mart's website. Does anyone else remember these?

It's like you can read my mind.

That may be too simplistic as well. The PS3 hasn't achieved the mass market penetration of the PS2, but that hasn't stopped the PS3 from getting the majority of the new titles while the PS2 gets ignored. Granted, there are more technological hurdles to overcome in coding a game for systems of different generations than there are of mastering movies in SD vs. HD, but I don't think you can simply look at mass market penetration as a set-in-stone requirement for this to happen.

I don't foresee any studio halting 100% of their SD DVD production overnight, but I definitely see it tapering off... after the first HD-exclusive movie is released, it'll happen more and more often, and with hi-def players being dirt cheap at that point, nothing will stop the consumer from upgrading... Not even the fact that they may be a year or two away from retiring their SD TV.

Do you mean BR players, or SD players? I'd pick the latter if I had to choose.

I am not talking about the players, I am talking about the media. Eventually DVD players will break down and need to be replaced and they may well replace it with a cheap BD deck in time.

The trick is getting to get people to replace the movies they have bought. MUch harder proposition, and as the climate changes in the market, it will get harder.

A videogame release is a totally different beast from a movie. A video game has to be prepared for moths/years before it is ready to be pressed, and then released. Game houses assumed that they needed to move on to PS3 assuming that it would be the next big thing. I am sure they never dreamed that PS2 sales, over a year after PS3 launched, would be equal. I am sure they would have loved to keep more PS2 projects going, because they would be more profitable for them. Hindsight is 20/20.

The film industry can move much faster in a different direction than the video game industry. For example, Universal would not need to reshoot "The Bourne Ultimatum" to bring it to BD, but "Halo" would have to be completely rebuilt (aside from concept design) from the bottom up.

I look at it sort of along the lines of some current CD or DVD players on the market. Many of these are able to playback SACD or DVD-A, but there's no guarantee (nay, likelihood), the buyer will realize this functionality or ever make use of it. The same goes for BD playback on the media decks of tomorrow.

Please answer: WHY will it matter whether they replace any titles or not?

What will matter is that the studios stop issuing NEW releases on SDVD. People can keep their existing SDVDs and play them forever on their BD players.

That's what makes phasing out SDVD easier than it was to phase out VHS.

I think that's a false analogy, for a few reasons.

First, and foremost, the industy has everything to gain from making HDVD the new standard. It streamlines the entire marketing process immensely not to have two SKUs for every title. The more titles you can get into the retail stream the more you can sell, and double-inventory is a real drag on that.

Second, hi-rez surround audio required different processing beginning (sometimes) at the recording or (always) at the remixing stage. So the music industry was never in a position to change its entire stream of new releases over to a new format the way the video industry is. Most new movies made in the past few years are already HD-ready, and the process for remastering older films is well-established (if not cheap).

Third, unlike HDDVD, there was a format war between SACD and DVD-A that was never resolved, motly because...

Fourth, hi-rez surround music is a niche market, whereas high-definition home video is on its way to becoming the biggest mass market in the history of the world. That's why we had the HD format war in the first place.

And what about the hundreds of millions of DVD players that are already out there? Phasing out DVD means alienating all those players. Studios will never phase out DVDs until BD players become ubiquitous, and that won't happen until they become super affordable. DVD is the cash cow for studios.


Two SKUs generally mean more profit for the studios, not less. That's one of the reasons why we have FS/WS/CE/SE for the same title, somtimes all at the same time. I think this point actually supports the longevity of DVDs than the other way around.


HDM is a niche market. It may catch on, but we've seen no signs so far that it'll be anything beyond a niche product.

Without catalog releases, how many titles will be released in any given week? If BD is just an extension of DVD, then why wouldn't studios just shoot for 100% of the market and just release the DVD ratehr than part of the market with BD?

BD needs to establish some type of experience that is not comparable to DVD in order to overtake it, or it may be relegated to "niche" status, which wouldn't be the worst thing. I think an enthusiast forum would be pretty cool.

After having collected Quadraphonic LPs and open-reel tapes, Laserdiscs, SACDs and DVD-A's, I'm here to say that HDVD becoming a niche format would not be a good thing!