Broadband to Kill Off DVD?

Elteto writes "Just when we thought the DVD could not be any more ubiquitous, Serge Tchuruk at the Alcatel Forum in Paris announces that the days of the rapidly adopted medium are nearing their end. The increasing availability, affordability, and speed of broadband will contribute to a more efficient delivery method of media content. Will DVD join LaserDisc in obscurity?"

Comments

Physicality

[useosx]

Yeah, when people stop being interested in physical objects.

Re:Physicality

[jarich]

Yup... DVDs will be gone right after the books!

Re:Physicality

[DustyShadow]

How often do you buy CDs? Since mp3's got popular, I barely buy any physical CDs anymore. I think last year I bought maybe 5. Once DVD's are able to be downloaded quickly and easily, I probably won't purchase very many, though I already don't these days because of my netflix subscription.

Re:Physicality

[The-Bus]

Way to generalise based on your own experience...

No, CDs will not die off. At least not quite yet. There is something more rewarding about having an LP or a CD as opposed to pointing to a folder which represents a a few sectors of your hard drive in such an order that they can play 'Blueberry Hill'.

DVDs have been able to be downloaded quickly and easily for the past couple of years, but you're right, burners are not the norm yet. At the very least, you will still want to back up your music.

I still buy a LOT of CDs. My appetite for new music is insatiable to only several degrees below financial ruin. I usually buy the CD, convert it to MP3, then listen to that. I'm still uncomfortable buying albums on iTunes because, well, I just paid money for a file. Paying $0.99 for Guerilla Black's 'Compton' is basically a drop in the hat, so I don't mind. But I'd rather keep "important" works in a format which is at least already backed up. Even if I keep all my CD cases in a box in the basement and all my discs in binders.

The problem then, is not so much with CDs as it is with iTunes - economically, it makes sense - but for $0.99 I'd like to get more than what amounts to a really good FM recording.

Re:Physicality

[ratsnapple tea]

Well, not necessarily. The problem is that physical media are going to be much better as delivery mechanisms for video than broadband, for the foreseeable future. I'll let Steve Jobs explain, for you Apple fans out there. :P

People are much more attuned to visual quality than audio quality. This is the most amazing thing that happened in the music industry to me: We had the cassettes and then the CD, which raised the quality supposedly, right? The next format after the CD should have been a higher-quality format just like we got television going to high-def, but it wasn't. SAP and DVD audio have totally failed.

What was the successor to the CD format? MP3, a lower-quality format, but one that provided a convenience of being able to transmit music over the Internet that no other format had. So convenience won out and people settled for lower quality. The first time I've ever seen that in my life.

But that's not going to be the case with video. No one is going to go back to VHS quality just because they can download it faster over the Internet. It ain't going to happen. The download of DVD-quality movies takes hours over most people's broadband connections, and we're going to high-def in 2007, let's say. That's going to add bandwidth and get even slower as we go to high-def. To download a high-def movie is going to take you half a day if the bandwidth increases. Is that instant gratification like a song that takes just a minute to download? No.

Therefore, the threat to Hollywood--of which we're a small member at Pixar--is very different than the threat to the music industry. Actually, the biggest threat to Hollywood isn't the Internet; the biggest threat to Hollywood is DVD burners.

Re:Physicality

[gstoddart]

Yup... DVDs will be gone right after the books!

And backups!

Re:Physicality

[Grishnakh]

As I said, I've been collecting cd's since 1986. There are only a handful of artists I enjoy that are still producing new material --- when they release it, I buy it.

I'm pretty much the same way. The problem, however, isn't that I'm happy with what I have, and don't want any more. I'd love to hear new music that I really like, just like I like reading books that I've never read, or seeing good movies that I haven't seen. The problem is that there just isn't much good music left; almost all music produced lately is crap.

Re:Physicality

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing DVDs to books doesn't quite work... People buy books because they'd rather read from paper than a screen. People don't buy DVDs because they'd rather watch movies directly off a plastic disc than from a screen.

Re:Physicality

[filmmaker]

Not quite true, Mr. Jobs. The first time people accepted lower quality for the convenience of portability and copy-ability was when we accepted cassette tapes as substitutes for hi-def LPs.

Re:Physicality

[FuturePastNow]

I think you've hit on the reasons for CDs to exist. A pressed-disc CD will probably last longer than you will, as opposed to a burned disc that will deteriorate in a few years.

Also, a 128kbps download will just not please some people. Audiophiles want the maximum quality they can get, and if they want it digital, they will rip it themselves to their own specifications.

Re:Physicality

[evilviper]

DVDs will be gone right after the books!

Terrible comparison. eBooks COULD have taken over the world, but technology is holding them back. Screens are still poor technology for reading, every e-book reader out there is propritary, and DRM is a sure way to stop adoption of anything.

If videos are offered without those impediments, they have a good chance of replacing physical media.

Re:Physicality

[brogdon]

"What was the successor to the CD format? MP3, a lower-quality format, but one that provided a convenience of being able to transmit music over the Internet that no other format had. So convenience won out and people settled for lower quality. The first time I've ever seen that in my life."

This would be a fine point, except for the fact that in most situations, with the speakers and headphones that most people use, the quality of the two formats is almost indistinguishable. The average user has a $300 iPod hooked up to a $15 pair of headphones. The relatively minor difference in quality is going to be muddled over by the poor output of his cans.

Hence mp3 won out because convenience was all that John Q. Public knew to judge by.

Re:Physicality

[pekkak]

Because books look cool and you can really impress people with a decent bookshelf. Usually the two most interesting dead things for me in anyone's apartment are their books and cd's. Oh yea, someone could object that I could also impress people with a great personality but they don't sell those in stores. Books I can buy though.

Re:Physicality

[drsquare]

Newspapers are far from gone. People want something they can read on the bus, and it doesn't matter too much it they forget it or it falls on the floor or gets stamped on. They want something they can take to work and leave it lying about on the shop floor without losing hundreds of pounds if their e-reader gets robbed. They want giant pages they can lie out on the table rather than a tiny screen. They want pictures they can cut out and stick on the wall without dragging a printer about.

Re:Physicality

[Pollardito]

"So convenience won out and people settled for lower quality. The first time I've ever seen that in my life."

it's funny that he should say that given that the Apple argument has always been that their "higher quality computer" is only losing the PC arms race because of interoperability/price issues (both could be seen as convenience)

"But that's not going to be the case with video. No one is going to go back to VHS quality just because they can download it faster over the Internet. It ain't going to happen."

i'll have to remember that the next time that i'm watching clips of The Daily Show on a jumpy/grainy RealPlayer feed because it's more convenient than catching it at its scheduled time. also, isn't it fairly standard that DVD pirates apply lossy compression to fit movies onto single layer DVDs? couldn't we be more willing to settle for lower quality audio than video due to the fact that our threshhold for detailed vision is lightyears ahead of current technology, while our threshhold for detailed audio is quite often outdone by current tech? i've been fooled by ringing phones and sirens in TV commercials, but i've never been close to believing that something that i saw on the screen was actually happening in the same room. once you've reached that level of realism, you can sacrifice further gains for convenience without a thought.

Re:Physicality

[Drakonite]

You haven't bought a book lately have you? Last time I spilled water on a book numerous pages were rendered unreadable and the glass was almost empty.

On the same token, I've had a full glass of water spilled directly onto my PDA (which I use as an ebook reader) while it was running (and charger plugged in no less) and after quickly shutting it off and letting it dry out before using it again it still works great.

"crumple pages etc of it up" ... if I applied the same force in crumpling a book as it'd take for my PDA to flex at all it'd rip the book in half.

As for burning... Unless the flame was placed directly on the touch screen with an open cover I seriously doubt my PDA could be damaged enough to stop it from working by a fire that wouldn't destroy enough of the book to make it unreadable.

For the record, despite how easy ebooks are (or could be) to obtain, I prefer reading printed books as well... but some of your reasoning is complete bullshit.

Re:Physicality

[kbw]

People buy DVDs because they don't want to have to keep paying to each time the movie is watched.

Re:Physicality

[malkavian]

Nah..
People buy DVDs because:

1: They hve pretty covers (and usually extra bits on the DVD).

2: They're viewable in guaranteed high quality on a cheap piece of hardware.

3: You don't have to be connected to the net to watch a DVD.

4: You don't have noisy cooling fans in the background when watching a DVD.

5: If you hate the movie, at least you get a great coaster for your money.

A competing format may well help lower the cost of the disks though, which would be a great boon to us all.

Re:Physicality

[rob_squared]

Pardon me, but some people do like reading books off of a screen, because it lets me keep hundreds of books in my pockets, and not even the mightiest of cargo pants can boast that for physical books.

Besides, with screen that are beginning to have the look of paper, I imagine ebooks will become much more popular.

Re:Physicality

[mrdaveb]

A DVD collection is similar to a music collection - it's a significant investment of time and money. If it doesn't fill up a shelf and people can't browse it and admire/laugh at your taste, then it seems less worthwhile.

It's still very difficult for a lot of people to attach value to 1s and 0s that don't come in a pretty container. It's obviously more convenient if you you have all your movies on a hard-drive, but it's definitely lacking something.

Re:Physicality

[mrak and swepe]

And with a physical disk, at least you have some control over how much advertising you have to watch before the movie starts (although analogue tape wins hands-down on this issue).

Call me cynical, but I can't help but believe that streamed movies will be prefixed with 20 minutes of un-skippable ads.

Re:Physicality

[Dan East]

6: I have the right to watch that movie as many times as I want, for as long as the DVD exists (decades).

7: I can watch the movie without some 3rd party knowing I'm watching the movie.

8: I can resell the movie if I don't like it or if I grow tired of it.

9: I can lend the movie to my friends.

10: We can watch 3 different movies in 3 different rooms at the same time without fear of running out of bandwidth.

11: It is easier for my 2-year-old to choose a movie by looking at physical cases than by browsing things virtually in a computer.

12: The movies are explicitly protected by my home-owner's insurance from theft or wholesale damage, because it is tangible. What happens when some .com that you purchases online movie rights through disappears? Who knows.

13: The movie is protected from editing (including censorship, for countries like China). Imagine if the only versions of Star Wars (original trilogy) you could access were the "special editions", because that is the only thing Lucas wants you to see.

Dan East

Re:Physicality

[elgatozorbas]

14: You can _watch_ the movie, period. I mean: you are not dependent on the availability/goodwill/not-out-of-businessness of the other party. No hassle.Plus: you don't care about the emergence of new possibly better standards. You have the media and the gear.

No.

[FooAtWFU]

How many people used LaserDiscs or had LaserDisc players at the height of their popularty?
How many people have used DVDs and DVD players? Or have a DVD drive in their computer?

They may be going the way of VHS or casette tapes (or at worst 8-tracks), but they're not going the way of LaserDisc any time soon.

TV noobs

[crypto55]

People will never be able to figure out how to run a VoD file on their TV...
"Honey, why won't the ethernet cable fit in the coaxial input?"
Wait, that would be MPEG, not NTSC streams...

HA!

[yuriismaster]

I don't even need to RTFA for this one...

Broadband cannot replace DVD's. I don't see a day where accessing large amounts of data is as guaranteed as having a disc with everything accessible right then and there. I know I would rather have my DVD available than rely on some server that may or may not go down when they feel like it.

I also enjoy being able to boot a device not connected to the intarweb with a DVD. I don't see DVD's going anywhere, unless Blu-Ray/HD-DVD manage to oust it (this will still take many a year for the prices to even out)

No

[GerbilSocks]

HD DVD or BluRay will kill off DVD.

Re:No

[Vellmont]

The problem with BluRay taking off as a medium is that DVD is already "good enough" for the vast majority of people. The quality of a DVD already surprasses what a normal SD-TV can produce. Until the prices of HD-TVs start going down to be similar to the price of a normal TV, most people are still going to have regular SD-TVs.

So don't plan on BluRay replacing DVD anytime soon. Consumers have a long history of resisting format changes until the benefits outweigh the costs. To complicate matters even further there's still a battle over which standard, BluRay or HD-DVD will win the battle. Unless one or the other deals a knockout punch early on, they'll both end up losing to the old format of DVD. As I've already said DVD is "good enough", and there's a large segment of the market that doesn't want to get burned with useless equipment (i.e. Beta, and 8-track).

Then what do you put....

[gkuz]

...under the Christmas tree? Weren't e-books going to replace physical books by now, too?

This guy is an idiot.

[bburton]

Will broadband kill off the DVD?
Short answer: No.

The DVD format will be nothing more than a flash in the pan, according to the chief executive of Alcatel.

Come on people. This article is just plain stupid. I can see the DVD being upgraded, for more storage capacity (see blue-ray), I can see the DVD fading away gradually (like VHS); but saying that Joe Sixpack will suddenly stop buying DVDs and use, say a broadband connected Tivo-like-device, is ludicrous. Technology lingers. That's why Microsoft has to build in special modes in their OS to run older programs. People still use legacy technology! Hell, I still have a tape player in my car. :-)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The article doesn't talk about Tivos, Internet TV streams, or some new emerging technology. In fact, it doesn't really mention anything!

I'm not sure how articles like this end up on slashdot. I should write an article: New Power Source will replace Gasoline!

Hey, put me on slashdot!

Broadband never everywhere

[gregmac]

Broadband is not everywhere yet, and never will be. I can take a dvd and watch it in my laptop or a portable player in the car or train (while driving through a tunnel through a mountain), on a plane, in the middle of nowhere, etc..

Furthermore, people have large collections of DVD. Why I want to wait even a few minutes to download something when I can just stick it in my DVD player. More likely, by the time that DVDs take a few minutes to download, I will have my entire DVD collection sitting on a massive harddrive in a media jukebox anyways (provided some corperation doesn't make that illegal, anyways) and I can watch on demand, just like downloading. Except I don't have to pay extra bandwidth fees (if applicable) or anyone else any money who wanted to charge per viewing (since they can).

Uhhh, Consider the Source

[bacon55]

http://www.alcatel.com/ http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_02 /b3865705.htm *ahem* I don't think this really needs discussing any further. People have interests, these interests are financial - people will say things to support these financial interests. Obviously the CEO of a NETWORK company would like to convince people that physical storage of data is a thing of the past.

Re:Laserdiscs

[bsgk]

How many people do you know have cable? Boom, done. Everything is there for the digital download of content (all types) straight to the set-top box. Your parent's will never know they have broadband. The will just get the box from the cable company and have full access (PPV or subscription, I don't know, but I like subscription) to Netflix / Blockbuster / movie label content.

Re:Not Soon

[Eccles]

DVD players can be had for under $40. I doubt mass produced BluRay or HD DVD players that still play regular DVDs would cost much more, so people will probably end up buying a dual format player and slowly migrating to the new formats. Discs with entire seasons of shows would be cheaper than the current ones, and thus those discs will probably kick-start the higher def format sales.

I agree that most people would be loathe to replace many DVDs with HDTV format ones, except their very favorite ones.