Not to mention his/her username and sig line.

BD may overtake DVD. BD may fold completely.

I think the real future is somewhere in between where the two-tier DVD release (regular and SE) will be replaced by a scheme with a regular edition and a BD edition. That segment of consumers who have to have that fully loaded edition, regardless of cost are the prime candidates for BD adoption.

I still maintain that DVD is far too ingrained into culture (portables, in-auto installs etc) to go away any time soon.

Nice sentence.

You're deluded if you think that DVD is done in four years while BD will go on for 20. Absolutely certifiable.

Did anyone else hear that SONY is pushing a VOD of an upcoming theatrical release (I forget which movie) as a feature of their Bravia sets? The film will download direct to the TV. Even SONY is dipping their dollars into VOD.

Yep, Hancock. Sony VOD service for the PS3 should be launching in the new few weeks as well. Just gotta wait for the announcement at E3.

I think the big mistake is to assume that people are buying HD-TV's because of the HD content. If i had to guess i would say that most people buy new TV's because they want the flat screen only.

Do people actually think that DVDs were popular due to video quality? I think that was the least of the benefits. The most important was that they looked like CDs, and everyone knew that CDs were better than tapes, so DVDs must be better than VHS. Combine cheap players and discs with shiny new tech and you've got a recipe for a revolution.

Blu-ray offers nothing but improved video quality. You have to look at the bottom of the disc to even tell a difference with the physical media. It will never be as popular as DVD, which isn't going anywhere for a LONG time, and by the time the next revolution rolls around, we'll be on to something completely different.

Since the iPod/MP3 player has all but obliterated the Walkman, I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of download/iPod player that easily outputs to TV (like AppleTV) be the next big shift. That would follow the "music does it first" model anyway.

Or they just want a new TV and HDTVs are all that is available if you want something bigger than 27"....

I'm going to have to disagree with that being the main thing that switched most people over.

really? i can think of a few others just off the top of my head...

Bonus View
BD-Live
Lossless Audio
More capacity for extras on a single disc
Take up less space on the shelf

DVD geeks don't care about that stuff for the most part, let alone joe public.

More capacity has yet to do much of anything for "extras". A lot of titles still use 2 discs.

2 Discs = Marketing tactic.

I see the transition to Blu-ray following some of the things that people here have already said. Over the next couple years, it will get to the point where we have $100 players. That will pretty much kill off the market for DVD players, as the prices will be so close that no one needing a new player will go with old technology for extremely nominal savings.

Once players are mostly discontinued, we'll likely see a two-tiered system for quite a while. Quite simply, a hell of a lot of people aren't going to shell out money for Blu-ray when their DVD players are working just fine. The studios want to maximize profits, so they'll release both formats. Blu-ray will stay more expensive for a while, but I'm guessing prices on new releases will become closer and closer. Hell, the studios might eventually even push people towards adoption by pricing Blu-rays slightly below DVDs for new releases.

Five to seven years from now, once the transition is completed and you can only buy Blu-ray players and discs, the format will still fail to ever hit DVD's 'status'.

DVD offered people the chance to have movies on a format that doesn't degrade the more times you play it and will last a very, very long time. It also offered them the chance to get new movies cheap, compared to the VHS rental pricing of old. Lastly, it offered them a revolutionary way to watch television shows. All of these factors combined to create massive adoption among the general public. That same general public is not going to throw away their DVD collections just because a prettier version comes along. It simply will not happen.

People might replace some of their favorites, but will hang onto most of their old collections of DVDs. They'll buy new releases on Blu-ray and be satisfied with upconversion for the majority of what they already have. As their DVDs get too scratched up to play or degrade in other ways, they'll replace them with Blu-ray. That, though, will never be enough to push Blu-ray to the peak levels that were reached by DVD. It just won't happen.

What is Bonus View? I don't even know?

BD Live? So far, no real point to the online features.

Lossless audio? Only matters to people with home theater systems, and out of those, really only the audiophile types (a tiny minority in the long run). To be honest I don't even really care as I find the difference between lossless and compressed audio as pretty minor.

Less shelf space? Most people only have a few dozen DVDs, maybe 100 tops. Us families with 1000+ are a huge minority.

This is a very slippery slope we are going on here.

Studios are not making a ton of profit on DVD, their largest share of revenue is currently from DVD. But this isn't the case for ALL studios. The most obvious example is the statement produced by Tartan films about their all time selling title: OldBoy (BR). For a company with a very diverse catalog and and solid presence on the SDVD market to have one BR title outperform all else is very telling where business is heading (unless someone wants to come arguing that Tartan does not own anything else of substantial quality). It is even more telling how good SDVD business is after we saw how Tartan ended up. Or No Shame, or most recently Artificial Eye in the UK. The reality is that there are a number of factors that have contributed to the negative restructuring of the market and SDVD business is slowly fading away. I would agree with you that there is still plenty of business left in it but on the opposite side of things you also have to consider that the BR market is yet to incorporate a number of sizable players that contribute heavily to SDVD as of this point, one major, Criterion, etc.

That is why the studios, and especially the majors, have been looking to supplant their earnings with a more lucrative model. Volume is bigger for SDVD now but with sales and revenue continuing to decline, and statements coming from WB that they would move away from investing heavily in theatrical productions I expect the studios to focus much more aggressively on BR and enhance its growth. Whether or not some other posters on this forum like it BR is the future, with the potential the studios desire, and with growth on the horizon.

Pro-B

DVD might drag on for two more years like VHS did but by the end of 2012 Blu-Ray will be on top. Another member said that DVD is not losing money there still making loads of money well yes they are but have lost so much money in sales and low prices that's what i was trying to point out sorry it was a little vague.

bonus view = PiP

the fact that Sony is planning to offer BD-Live features on all of their titles in the future strongly suggests that their marketing research shows it will be an important selling point. what does your marketing research say?

The practical reality is not nearly as important as the marketability of those things when it comes to lossless audio being a selling point. There's a reason they put a nice DTS logo on DVD cases and a TrueHD or DTS-HD MA logo on BD cases and it's not just for the informed audiophiles.

and yet, history has shown that, especially in the technology arena, people are drawn to smaller and sleeker things, independent of any practical advantage.

none of your comments nullify the fact that Blu-ray offers all of those things in addition to improved video quality. whether or not those offerings have value to the average consumer is certainly up for debate, but we would all just be spewing opinions based on anecdotes in such a debate. i think it's important to consider the marketability of such things and not just their practical implications.

People didn't switch to CDs from cassettes primarily because the audio was better - they did it because they didn't have to rewind or flip the disc over and they could skip to specific tracks.

I don't know why anyone would think it was any different for VHS to DVD. Shiny new tech with neat features. Picture quality wasn't high on the list for Joe Public...the same people that wanted all those DVDs in fullscreen.

If I asked 100 people on the street what "lossless audio" was, how many do you think would know? 1 or 2...maybe?

No one gives a shit.

Speaking of this:
My dad loves to just watch the parts of a movie he loves. I used to watch him fast forward through movies for the "good parts". *shudder*

Also, the DVD player doesn't occasionally eat tapes and require disassembly to get it out like a lot of VCRs. Simplification of the tech, not shiny pretty video, was I think the key factor.

I bet you would get the same results with anamorphic enhancement. This does not really refute Kefrank's statement.

Pro-B

i don't really disagree with any of this, because it is basically a wordier version of what i said: DVD is a profitable business whose revenue is on the decline, resulting in the industry hoping for Blu-ray to steady that decline.

to me, the "slippery slope" is making entirely false statements that the home video industry as a whole is losing money on DVD.

Exactly no one gives a shit but when Blu-Ray players replace dvd players which will happen within 2 or 3 years once the price falls below $100 then most ppl will give a shit. You think most ppl had a clue about DVD back in 1999 no they where happy with VHS.

Most of you ppl are ignorant and have never have experienced the technology and what it offers as a movie fan is with out doubt unparalleled. I know in ten years time with my Untouchables Blu-Ray im not going to look back and say that looks shit compared to DVD which is a total mess.

Face it DVD was great but it's over DVD was just stepping stone Blu-Ray is the future.

You do realize that Sony promising BD-Live is just them throwing up a portal page to download some trailers for other Sony movies/Blu-ray releases, right?

your hypothetical survey has very little bearing on my point.

consider this hypothetical scenario:
an average consumer is browsing the blu-ray section at best buy to see what all the hype is about. they see the Dolby TrueHD logo and ask the pimply-faced Best Buy employee what it means. the employee says, "it's way better sound quality than you can get with DVD."

same thing with Bonus View. same thing with BD-Live. all those things add up in the consumer's mind and can be selling points, even if they get their blu-ray player home and only use their TV speakers and never actually check out any special features. perception of value is extremely important in marketing and each of those advantages over DVD can offer a perception of value, even if the practical value to most consumers is nearly nil.

Calling the rest of the forum ignorant is no way to win support for your position. Regardless, the problem isn't with the people posting here. It's that the vast majority of the public won't care about things like lossless audio. I know quite a few people with surround sound systems that were running their DVD audio through red & white RCA cables. They'd have receivers that did simulated surround, so they didn't even realize they needed to get a digital cable. Hell, even after explaining it, some of them kept it set up that way. That's the general public for you. It's an impossibly high hurdle that'd have to be cleared for them to give a shit about the things many on this forum hold so dear.

it doesn't matter one way or the other what Sony's BD-Live features will actually be. the point is that they see it as a strong selling point for consumers.