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Toshiba, NEC Plan To Create Yet Another Optical Format
selderrr writes: "Dow Jones Newswires is reporting today that Toshiba and NEC are planning to propose a new optical disk format to the DVD Forum that will offer four times more storage capacity than current DVDs. In February, a consortium of nine companies, including Sony and Matsushita, announced a new format that would offer 50GB of data storage. While the Toshiba/NEC option is smaller at 40GB, it is cheaper to produce. The two disc formats will not be compatible." Related, coryboehne writes "The New York Times has a great report detailing the history of the DVD. According to the article digital videodiscs and their players have now surpassed the VHS in terms of sales for the first time (In 2001, $10.3 billion was spent on movies, 52% of this on DVD's, now compare this to 2002, $12.4 billion total revenue with 65%, going for DVD's) . Funny considering that DVD's are only in about a third of American homes (about 30 million households, and consider that a quarter of these homes have more than one player), compare that to the unbelievable amount of VHS players (about 90% of homes in the USA have a VHS player) and it quickly shows just how popular the DVD has become."
Of course not. Nobody needs more than 640K.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
In 2001, $10.3 billion was spent on movies, 52% of this on DVD's, now compare this to 2002, $12.4 billion total revenue with 65%, going for DVD's)
These figures aren't all that surprising, considering that VCRs have more uses than just watching pre-recorded movies. Lots of people probably have VCRs mostly for time-shifting purposes. I, myself, only rent movies infrequently and don't buy a great number of them. Whereas, DVDs really only have one purpose, to play pre-recorded movies. They also offer higher quality and more convenience than VCRs, so it's not surprising that the sales figures for DVDs would be increasing, and although only a minority of households have DVDs, the ones that do would belong to the more hard-core movie collectors who are more likely to spend money on movies than average.
I'd bet that a minority of households have 1.5GHz+ computers with the latest GeForce video cards, but that they represent a disportionately large share of video-game purchasers.
The reason dvds have so much market share compared to vhs is because the movie catalog rollout to dvd. People with DVDs who love Godfather will re-buy the title on DVD, even though they already have Godfather on VHS. People are replacing thier movie collection in the new format.
I'll be doing it for of the newly released special edition Pulp Fiction DVD.
I'm not a *new* buyer. I'm a *repeat* buyer of the same movie. Naturally, this is not sustainable. Ad DVD adoption increases, and as the back catalog is filled out and people have replaced their collection, DVD will be no different from what VHS is. I doubt VHS is going away soon.
Of course, when VHS *does* go away, and the DVD catalog is complete, and the everyone has replaced their collections -- the movie introduce an "all new" format and start the cycle over again.
For accurate head-to-head measurements, check unit sales of LOTR on VHS vs DVD.
Software Wars
Like many others, I own both a DVD player and a VHS recorder/player. While I occasionally buy films in the VHS format (even less frequently now that I have my DVD player), I bought my VHS player primarily for watching rental films and for recording stuff on TV. DVD, on the other hand, has been heavily marketed as a player of purchased films, and although I now rent films in the DVD format, I bought my DVD player primarily to watch purchased DVD films.
The DVD may have better image quality, and room for more hi-fi audio channels (stereo sound quality on the VHS is excellent, though), but the main reason I prefer DVD is media durabilty. Every time I watch one of my VHS films, it wears down. Image and sound quality deteriorate over time and with use. I'm reluctant to let people borrow my favourite VHS films. With DVD i have no such hesitations.
I think this accounts for a lot of the difference in sales. The VHS is marketed as a recorder, the DVD is marketed (at least in Sweden) as the hub of your home cinema. While all newer films are available on rental DVD, purchasable DVD's are much more visibly available than their VHS counterparts.
Excellent marketing by the filmmakers. They recognised that the change of technology generations gave them a chance to push for a change in consumer patterns.
It would be nice if they see the advent of Internet media distribution as an opportunity as well, and not a threat.
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
The companies supporting Blue-ray are: Hitachi Ltd., LG Electronics Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Pioneer Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, and Thomson Multimedia.
-- null
No doubt because people can easily use their VCRs to pirate movies. I guess Jack Valenti was right after all.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.