bhome83

I was just curious how fast the transition to blue ray is gonna be. The players have come down quite a bit in price. Will regular dvd's just become obsolete in a few years? I don't see a reason (other than lack of patience) to buy a new release dvd when it will be on blu ray in the near future. Though im wondering how near a future will it be?

fitprod

Here's this simplest question to ask.

Are there titles you can live without until you buy a Blu-ray player?

Personally, I cut back on buying feature film DVD's back in late 2005, knowing the HD transition was coming. The only stuff I've bought on DVD since then has been TV shows, and if that show has recently been broadcast in HD, I've held back until the DVD was cheap enough. I haven't even bothered with the most recent releases of the CSI's, 24 or Desperate Housewives. (But I was all over Lost, Soparnos and Rescue Me on Blu-ray.)

Ultimately the decision is up to you.

fitprod

SonOfAStu

The only DVDs I've bought in the last few years are TV shows that were not produced in HD (Scrubs S1, It's Always Sunny In Philly S1&2), and Grandma's Boy for my girlfriend. I couldn't even tell you the last time I put a standard DVD in a player. There's too much HD content out already that I could never keep up with it all. Between HD cable, PS3 games and Blu Discs, DVD is dead to me.

dan30oly

Welcome to Last Year.

Yesterdays SD release of the Stargate SG-1 movie was the first non hi-def movie I have bought since...well, I can't recall the last SD movie I bought.

Mr. Cinema

I still buy some dvds. Especially those that I don't think will see a HD release for a long time. For example, I'll be buying the upcoming 2-disc War Games dvd. I seriously doubt we'll get that on BD anytime soon, if ever.

I'm content with my 2-disc Wall Street because the BD's video ratings are poor. I just bought the new 2-disc Mrs. Doubtfire for $15. A movie like that is good enough for me upconverted. I'll pass on the $28 BD version that's coming.

Dane Marvin

Since I went Blu, I don't buy DVDs. We Netlfix everything we want to see that's not out on Blu-ray (and we Netflix some of the Blu-rays we don't want to buy). But DVD's aren't going to be phased out by the general population for a long time. Sony is hoping that this 'transition' that you speak of will be fast. I'm inclinded to believe it will be more of a 'co-existence' than a transition though.

Artman

Heart of Darkness has been my only DVD purchase in nearly two yrs. So yeah, I'd say it's time to stop. Unless you like rebuying the same movie within months of each other...

tonyc3742

Seeing as how I don't have a BD player yet, and BD player prices are actually increasing, and there aren't any gotta-have titles for me yet, *and* I haven't been really interested in movies much recently, I'm fine with DVD (plus I'm a little burned being an early adopter of HDDVD).
It's hard to make myself pay 20-35 bucks for a single movie when I've recently been buying tv series and seasons for ~15-20/season, and movies for <12 or so. I'd bet that 65-75% of my DVD collection will not be on BD in the next 3 to 5 years, if ever.
However, I'm also buying fewer SDVDs, just trying to catch up on backlog and find deals, so if I'm going to spend 30 bucks on a title, I'd rather get a season of a show than one movie.
Obviously just my opinion and YMMV.
I think DVDs will still be produced for a number of years, at least for certain content.

PopcornTreeCt

I still buy foreign and indie stuff that'll never be released on Blu. I cringe though when I buy new releases like The Darjeeling Limited and Margot at the Wedding because those should be on Blu.

dharding

What is this dee-vee-dee thing you speak of?

Haven't purchased anything that wasn't HD-DVD or Blu-Ray in well over a year...

dan30oly

The PS3 that was $399 two months ago when I bought it is still $399 and won't be going up in price.

tonyc3742

If and when I get a BD player, it'll probably be the PS3. However, I have an older TV with only DVI, and in order to upconvert I need to use HDMI (correct?) which is hit-or-miss compatibility with DVI. Plus, like I said, I'm a little resentful of both buying into the wrong format and Sony's rather aggressive tactics to make BD the "winner".

Drexl

However, that doesn't usually pan out. If a movie misses its day and date opportunity, it becomes another catalog title and could take quite a while to make it, especially if it's not a mainstream film (and if it was, it probably would have been released then). For example, look at some of the movies in 2006 that weren't released on HDM, like Little Miss Sunshine and The Last King of Scotland. Those could take years to come out, especially given Fox's focus on action and sci-fi.

There are probably few examples of a movie missing its DVD release date and coming out a little later on HDM. A Scanner Darkly and Pan's Labyrinth are all that come to mind, and the latter was mostly held up due to New Line's lack of involvement in HDM.

That said, I buy hardly any DVDs now because $15-20 doesn't seem worth it for SD these days, and I'm too preoccupied with getting the BD releases that come out to want to spend more on DVDs.

speedyray

I stopped like a year ago - all HD DVD and BD these days and has been since I went dual format 15 months ago.

Vendetta-AKK

The only stuff I still buy on SD DVD are some TV on DVD and DVDs, around the $5 to $7 range, that I want but don't want enough to ever pay more that that for.

DVD Polizei

I'm personally not waiting until the year 2155 for all DVD titles to be on Blu-ray.

JimRochester

I haven't purchased a a regular DVD for several years. I get Blockbuster online, burned copies, Christmas and birthday presents are the only ways I get new DVD's outside of HDM.

Deftones

Just because one machine has stayed steady in price doesn't mean they all have. Every machine that was on sale at BB or CC around Christmas has now gone up to the MSRP. Sony, Samsung, Sharp have all been at a lower price within the past 3 months. Hell, I even bought my Panasonic BD30 at the beginning of the year for $369 and it's now back up to $500.

dan30oly

Sales happen during the holidays, it's not like they raised the MSRP...oh God, I'm defending blu-ray, I have to go vomit now.

NEUMANN

just buy a hdmi-dvi cable and you are good to go,it will upconvert just as good as hdmi to hdmi

DVD Polizei

I buy quite a few Anime titles, so HD is not even an option right now--save for a few titles. And even if they were in HD, I simply wouldn't have the cash to run out and start buying everything in HD.

HD is going to have to do something spectacular, because the number of titles being released currently, will be almost impossible to keep up with, not to mention the tens of thousands of other titles already in production since the late 90's.

If anyone ever has their entire collection of movies in HD, I'll be very surprised. For the avid collector, I doubt HD will even make 50% of their collection.

NEUMANN

Thats the same exact thing that VHS collectors said in 1999

neiname

No it's not, VHS=>DVD is not comparable to DVD=>HD-DVD

I've pretty much halted buying most SD in favor of HD although I recently purchased the re-release of Seven Samurai. I might return it beause it will eventually be released on Blu-ray in 10-15 years and it's foolscreen and I prefer to wait for the widecreen

FantasticVSDoom

I used an HDMI-DVI cable on both my HD-DVD player and PS3 with my older TV and had no problems at all... I can understand if you are waiting for the price to go down, but if this is your main reason, I wouldn't worry about it.

Anyways, yeah I stopped buying SD regularly little over 2 years ago and now its even more sparse. Basically just the Disney DVDs that wont see a BD release for a while.

Viper187

I've found myself waiting on a lot of new releases now because I'd rather buy BD and don't have that much money to waste. I only buy SD-DVD movies that I don't think will see BD release anytime soon, like Maniac Cop 3; I'll never understand why the DVDs of 1 and 3 got US release but 2 didn't. I've still got about 300 VHS movies to replace, and I find myself anxiously awaiting titles like Mrs. Doubtfire on BD since I never got around to getting the SD and it seems like a waste not to go straight to BD. I wish they'd hurry the hell up with Kill Bill.