I, like most people here, weren't VHS collectors. DVD is what made us DVD collectors and it's because of that, that now we are HDM collectors.

I'm unclear as to what you mean by the DVI-HDMI compatibility as hit or miss. I have a Sony LCD that has only one DVI input and I use a DVI-HDMI cable and the picture is great playing from my PS3.

As for me, I hardly buy any more DVD's now. I'm buying some cheap leftover HD-DVD's and Blu Ray for new releases. I can wait for those older titles, I think it's pretty certain they will eventually be released on BD.

Bought a PS3 in early Feb and I've been buying mostly blu-rays since then.

Sure, they happen during holidays. But when J6P sees the price of a player for $299, then a few months later when he goes to use his holiday gift cards and sees the same player $100 more, you don't think they wonder what is going on? Simply put the only player that has remained static in price is the PS3. Despite not having a change in MSRP, price fluctuation is a change in price, despite your assertion.

VHS Collecting? You mean spending $100 to get a VHS the same day Blockbuster got them for rent? Or buying their used copies for $10-$15? There were not a whole lot of "bargain prices" VHS movies available. DVD's advantages were huge and the fact that they were smaller in size then VHS it was a lot easier to "collect" 50-100 titles and barley fill up a small cabinet. VHS tapes were huge, and sometimes movies spanned several tapes. As much of a movie fan that I was in the mid 90's, I only had a total of 30 or so tapes, mostly consisting of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St, Romero Zombie Films, and South Park tapes, all bought second hand due to the insane pricing.

As for buying DVDs....very, very few.

The Darjeeling Limited recently (Fox, HELLO?!?), and some TV on DVD, Ive pretty much stopped buying DVDs except for the odd $3.99 title at Best Buy of a movie that may not get a Blu-ray release for months, year, or ever.

Point taken, but VHS doesn't compliment DVD. HD DVD compliments DVD. That's the big difference. Not to mention the backwards compatability of HD Players, DVD upconverting, etc.

VHS has nothin' on me, bro.

J6P wasn't looking at blu-ray players 3 months ago, now, or even 3 months from now.

J6P is more concerned with finding out whether or not he needs to buy a converter box to get that fancy digital tv signal next year on his standard 100lb tube tv.

Back to your reasoning: Retailers have some of the biggest tv sales during the 2 weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Now, the tv that was on sale 2 months ago is $200 more because it's not on sale. Is it so hard to figure out what's going on there? I think that J6P might even understand that.

Sales happen, then they end, then eventually they'll happen again.

People will always buy TVs. People need TVs.
People will not always buy a Blu-ray player and may not ever need one like they need a TV.

How about this:

A dig. camera during the holidays was on sale for $299.99.
It's not on sale now, it's back up to MSRP at $399.99
Not too difficult to figure out that:

A) It was on sale because of holiday promotions.
B) It will very likely go on sale again sooner than later.
C) The retailer and the manufacturer are under no obligation to keep something on sale permanently like some of you seem to expect.

The 2009 HDTV Scare paired with low prices on HDTVs altogether, is actually enabling your J6P to buy an HDTV, rather than getting a D/A converter for the tube. You're saying J6P is actually keeping his 32-36" CRT, and foregoing a 50-65" HDTV? Not quite. They are certainly buying HDTVs. RPTVs, plasmas, LCD, you name it.

The biggest controversy and debate, is the next step in HD, which is obtaining hardware such as Blu-ray players. HDTVs are not having any problems whatsoever in selling. It's the HD players. J6P is still debating the HD world outside of broadcast. Most J6P's are not debating whether an HDTV is necessary. They're just debating if an HD player is necessary.

DVD's are at their cheapest in years and the last ones I bought were both steelbooks of Grindhouse and Exiled, the Johnnie To film. Other than that I just upgraded the HT and bought only HD movies. I Netflix all the films I want and buy them on HD formats if i want them. I got a new tv, blu-ray and HD DVD players as well as a new reciever. BOGO Free offers allowed me to upgrade essential films in my collection such as Blade Runner, Hot Fuzz and movies with DTS MA or True DD. I also just bought new Polk Speakers with the money I saved.

Now i just have to figure out how to unload the entire Criterion Collection. Here in Austin, we have several stores that will pay good money for used dvds so that helps the cost of upgrades as well.

Yeah, but it pisses people off when they miss a good sale. The typical logic is, "if they could sell it that cheap last week, WHY NOT NOW!?"

They had a sale year or so ago (not Xmas time) on the American Pie movies. $2.99 each or somethin. But to this day, no store's regular price is under $10. Hell, I think CC/BB was still charging like $15. Why!? Those should've become $7.50 titles at the very least.

I still have a few DVDs I'm going to buy. Mostly old movies from the 40s or older - which usually doesn't benefit that much (well of course there's a picture quality improvement, but not as much as an improvement found on 70mm films made in the 50s or contemporary film) and will likely have to wait a long line before it was being released on BD anyway.

Not for me. I buy what I want to watch and add to my collection.

If and when something comes out on another format that I want to watch and add to my collection, I will do so.

IMHO it will take years for BD to catch up on many of the titles I want.

To get back to the OP's question, I think the general population isn't even considering this an issue.

So far, HD media buyers have been a very, very small niche of users, and may well stay that way. Like many, I believe that DVD will "win". Blu Ray (and any other HD media that may be developed) will stay a very small market share. For most people, upconverted DVD is "good enough", and the mass market will likely never replace the ubiquitous DVD player with millions of BR players.

It is all individual choice of course, but I would say no.

For me the issue is price. Sure, BR looks great, but for me, upconverted DVD is close enough that I won't pay more than $10 for HDM. I average less than $5 for a standard DVD, and would rather have 3-4 of those than 1 BR title.

I've learned to sit and wait on buying DVDs more. I had a lot of sealed movies I bought because it used to be release week would be the cheapest price for at least a year or so. It seems like DVD prices drop faster now. I'm still willing to buy a DVD, but only if there's not an HD version. And I'm only willing to pay $10-$13 for an HD/BD for a double dip unless it's an absolute favorite.

I picked up Terminator 2 Ultimate about 4 months a go at Walmart for $3.99. I like the Terminator movies, but not enough to buy a BD for $15-$30.

Then again, I don't expect BD to ever supplant DVD like some people do. Maybe I'd feel differently if I thought BD was going to actually replace DVD.

There's still very little I want to see being released on BR, but on the other hand I'm not buying many SD discs anymore either.

Nope, still buying DVD's if there's no Blu-Ray release in sight. Latest one: Nancy Drew (which actually had a shitty compression artifact-filled transfer, but it's better than nothing).

I'm buying HD DVDs like they are going out of style (which they are ) but I haven't been eager to buy anything on DVD lately.

Eventually I'll buy a Blu-ray player when the hardware and media get more affordable, so I'll spruce up the collection again at that point.

Ultimately, it all comes down to price. I didn't plan to upgrade half of the titles I owned on VHS, but for $5, I couldn't pass some of them up.

I imagine it will be a similar story with Blu-ray.

Ditto this. There was an article in the Tech section of our paper on Sunday indicating the stats show that even though we're heading for (or in) a recession, there has been an increase year/year in TV spending. Most other electronics buying has decreased over last year.

I totally, totally disagree. Now there is no format war, J6P is looking at BluRay. Anecdotal evidence, both my dad and uncle have asked about it, and plan on buying soon. The precursor to this? Buying a nice new HDTV. I know quite a few other people in that boat as well.

If the title isn't available on Blu-ray, pick up the DVD (I pick up the DVD version if the BD version won't be available for months as well).

If it's a TV on DVD, pick it up because chances are most TV titles won't see a BD release for a long, long time.

If the DVD and BD versions are both available, always buy on BD.

^yep, sounds like my plan.