If DVD Is Dead, What's Next?

uglysad writes "The Age has a piece discussing the fact that, from the home entertainment industry's standpoint, the DVD is dead. So what is next? From the article 'It will come as a shock to film fans who have spent their Christmases stocking up on their movie collections, but the technology industry is in agreement: the DVD is dead. Consumer electronics companies have begun to show off what they believe will be the next generation of home video technologies. But despite the common belief that the DVD is history, the industry is split over what the next step should be.'"

Comments

I don't think so

[grasshoppa]

There is only one thing the next generation has going for it; Capacity. In everything else, DVD has a distinct advantage. It's cheaper, it's entrenched and it's easier to work with.

Personally, I think the "industry" is in for quite a shocker this year, as bluray and hddvd barely make a blip on the radar. Same with next year.

Re:1. Exaggeration 2. ??? 3. Profit!

[tfcdesign]

In that light, I see iTunes' tv and movie downloads, the new Google downloads, and several others wiping out DVDs sooner than another storage media.

Re:DVD is going to stick around

[Aadain2001]

Oh I did! I knew VHS was going the way of the doodoo as soon as DVDs started hitting the shelves. How could anything like VHS survive DVDs? Smaller form factor, better quality (both in sound and video) (that doesn't degrade each time you play it), more extra features, etc, etc, etc. Everything they are holding up to "replace" DVDs are nothing more than increased storage/better video quality, but that is only benificial to people who do have HD TVs (which isn't many). Oh, and different/better/more draconian DRM features, which we all just LOVE! Nope, DVDs will be around longer than the industry wants them to be, but just as long as consumers want them.

DVD is not dead

[Orion Blastar]

nor is VHS. Even BetaMax still is alive and kicking and in use in some places.

Remember that Laserdisc system and how VHS and video tapes were dead? Laserdisc is the superior product with a superior quality picture and sound than VHS had.

Guess which format people supported and used the most?

The DVD is not dead, do I need to invoke Monty Python here "I'm not dead yet!"

HDTV formats are way too expensive for the average person to use and own. Ever tried to price HDTV cable and satellite boxes lately as well as the monthly fees for them? Ever priced an HDTV TV set lately? Wonder why those TV sets under 35 inches do not support HDTV? Only the wealthy can afford them.

I know a lot of people who don't even own a DVD player and still use VHS players and recorders. Most of them have older TV sets that cannot take the DVD digital input and need an adapter just to use one. Now try to convince them to spend thousands of dollars on an HDTV system to play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disks instead of their 20 Inch Analog TV set with the VHS video tape device? The most they can spend is like $50 to $100 for new equipment if they go without certain things for a while and cut their budgets.

DVD Players sell for as low as $35 each with $15 for the Analog to Digital adapter to use them on that 20 inch Analog TV set. A $50 minimum investment just to upgrade to a DVD playing system. $100 for a good one that won't shoot craps in the next few years or so.

The way I see it, as far as HDTV DVDs go, Blu Ray is BetaMax and HD-DVD is VHS as far as formats and pricing and marketing goes. My money is on HD-DVD, because it seems only handful of suppliers will support Blu Ray like Sony (who invented it). This is the BetaMax vs. VHS wars all over again.

Re:Industry is in for a surprise...

[PCM2]

I think the movies studios are seriously overestimating how much people care about quality. Sure, there will always be the high end types that always have to have the latest and greatest home theater equipment - the kind of people who bought laserdiscs back in the pre-DVD days. But the vast majority of people just want to watch the movie, and will do so via the path of least resistance - it's convenience that matters, not quality.

I'll go you one further. There are a lot of movie buffs who like to see a high-quality picture. But, by and large, those types of consumers are passionate about old movies -- movies from the 1970s or earlier. None of those movies were filmed with DVD in mind, or even with home viewing in mind. The negatives will surely have deteriorated over time (George Lucas has said that Star Wars would have been lost forever very soon if he didn't go through the process of remastering it when he did; too bad he had to tamper with it at the same time). What's more, ultra-high-resolution HD processes probably won't be particularly flattering to the film stocks used at that time. Whatever classic movies do make it onto HD-DVD will either look slapped together -- with spots, hairs on the film, crackle and all -- or else they'll be heavily digitally retouched. Some people think that music fans are crazy when they say classic 70s albums sound worse after they've been digitally remastered for CD, but even the average consumer is going to be able to tell the difference between an original print of "The Godfather" and one that's been painted over with seven layers of Photoshop.

Re:whatever

[mgv]

Seems a little hasty to make such a claim. VHS isnt dead yet. The only media I can think of that is dead is the 8-Track and 70 RPM.

No, its not dead at all. The HD/Blu-ray thing is a furphy for people who want to watch movies. Why?

1. Most people don't know what is high definition anyway. Plasma TV's are 488 lines, which is less than standard definition that you get with a DVD. Most people (consumers) think they are fantastic. Technophiles might notice, but considering that the electronics industry got many people to DROP the viewing resolution by going from TV to Plasma says something important about how much punters care about resolution.

2. Even if you want high definition, you don't need more storage space for it. Processing power is going up alot, and that means that more efficient codec's than MPEG-2 that DVD's use will easily do high definition in the 8.5 GB available on a standard DVD for a nice long movie.

3. So why do they want to get rid of DVD? Hardware manufacturers want more sales, and can't think of a way to get consumers to buy another (more expensive) player. They could just go for a player that does a better codec (MPEG-4 or H.264), but that needs content. And the people who provide content - who mostly don't care about hardware sales except for Sony which does both - want a new DRM/encryption as DVD's are cracked.

So, in essence, this isn't really a consumer oriented move. But this shouldn't be a surprise - how many people want DVD audio? Brought in by the content producers as there was not protection on a music CD; that hasn't killed off the music cd.

Of course, Apple actually managed to get people to get people to give up unencrypted music for the iTunes music store, but that wasn't about quality - they offered something genuinely new, which was the iPod. Your entire music collection in a tiny package (or a good subset of it on an even smaller one).

I don't see this coming with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Sure, I'd love the extra storage for hard drive backups. But for video - not the way that the content industry wants to package it - as a huge (20-30 GB) movie file that's heavily DRM'ed. No thank you. All my music comes off a hard drive now, and my videos will soon too.

I can promise you that I won't be wasting 20 GB on each movie, and that I won't be unhappy with the quality of a MPEG-4 serial episode that weighs in at 0.35 GB for a 40 minute episode.

The next real innovation won't be in larger, uncompressed storage - it will be in legal down loads of videos, at relatively modest quality, which will almostly certainly be compressed heavily to keep the traffic down. Until then, I'll keep on ripping my DVD's and digitising broadcasts .....

My 2c worth.

Michael