Good-bye DVD's

[OverUnderAround]

Hey, I just learned about the brand new DVD machines that are coming out called Blu-ray DVD and HD-DVD. Both new formats are competing against each other. They should be in stores this year. They will replace the current DVD machines we use.

And the new formats (be it Blu-ray DVD or HD-DVD) are NOT compatible with the DVD's we use now!!! That means we will have to eventually buy all new DVD's of what we already own!

The new format DVD machines are high definition ready and can fit (for example) and entire season of Muppet Shows on ONE DVD.

I'll have to read more about the new DVD players. Good-bye old DVDs.

 

[sugarbritchez]

They are always upgrading everything in our lives today. I don't see them completely doing away with the DVD's anytime soon. Plus........if you have a DVD player you can still watch your DVD's anyway.

 

[Vic Romano]

I'm surprised, I really thought the next move in media would be to elimate physical media of any kind and go right to file format. Like instead of going to say Target to buy a DVD, you have like a portable memory stick instead, only it holds some ridiculous amount of memory like 500 gigs, and you go to the counter and say; "I'd like to buy the Muppet Show season 1" and then you give the clerk your memory stick, he transfers the shows on your portable device, you pay, go home and download it to some new system where you have it stored forever.

You know... it sounded a lot cooler in my head.

 

[sugarbritchez]

I'm surprised, I really thought the next move in media would be to elimate physical media of any kind and go right to file format. Like instead of going to say Target to buy a DVD, you have like a portable memory stick instead, only it holds some ridiculous amount of memory like 500 gigs, and you go to the counter and say; "I'd like to buy the Muppet Show season 1" and then you give the clerk your memory stick, he transfers the shows on your portable device, you pay, go home and download it to some new system where you have it stored forever.

You know... it sounded a lot cooler in my head.

What about buying online? Would that be elminated?

 

[Drtooth]

Hey, I just learned about the brand new DVD machines that are coming out called Blu-ray DVD and HD-DVD. Both new formats are competing against each other. They should be in stores this year. They will replace the current DVD machines we use.

And the new formats (be it Blu-ray DVD or HD-DVD) are NOT compatible with the DVD's we use now!!! That means we will have to eventually buy all new DVD's of what we already own!

The new format DVD machines are high definition ready and can fit (for example) and entire season of Muppet Shows on ONE DVD.

I'll have to read more about the new DVD players. Good-bye old DVDs.

Just another example of rich turds making life tougher for us poor folk who can barely afford the regular DVD's. I mean, it was hard enough getting certain things on disk as it is!

Personally, I say to Hades with these moronic ""High Definition" disks. Does anyone REALLY care if the explosions in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" look slightly more realistic? This is like those people who can afford home theater style crap waving their "I make six figures" jive in our faces.

Besides, I feel it's just the greedy giant corporations that want to keep updating garbage for pennies, passing it off as "New technology," so they can make a profit. They actually COULD be compatible with DVD's, but then that wouldn't give them a new beach house in Malibu, would it.

I think we should get a 3 year amnisty. Or at the very least, skip the rediculous "HD" notion to begin with. You need to get a $4000 + TV alone to even know a slight difference (and it is only a slight difference).

I felt the next technological wave was more computer based. I.e. we'd be able to download Movies and TV shows from the internet and play them on some sort of I-Pod type device, or special secondary hard drive that connects to a Television. It would be more cost effective A) and curb people from downloading said shows and Movies illegally off the internet, B) which is what's going to happen if these moronic disks come out.

 

[Vic Romano]

Yeah, Drtooth, that's the way, and you said turd! That rules! So like I was trying to say; physical media will be taken over by file format, via transfer process at a store, or like sugarbritchez said as downloads.

 

[Drtooth]

Exactly. And that's in a few years. What's the point, especially since they can't play old disks?

 

[Vic Romano]

Well it makes sense. First, okay well not first but just go with me here; there were records (which many people still use and record on I might say), then came 8 tracks, cassette tapes and then CDs. Minidiscsmade an attempt but never took off. Now how do people get their music? MP3s, file format. We download our music, why not our TV and movies?

 

[sugarbritchez]

Good Point

 

[anathema]

As someone who used to work on BluRay, I'd like to note a few things

The two formats are not compatible with existing DVDs only in the sense that they are different formats. It's pretty much guaranteed that all HD-DVD and BluRay players will be able to play regular DVDs (in the same way that your DVD player today can play CDs) for the very simple reason that any player that does not support them simply will not sell. If you choose to buy into either of the new technologies you won't have to hang onto your DVD player if you don't want to.

DVD isn't going anywhere any time soon. As this thread demonstrates, the average viewer simply isn't interested in hi-def

The big selling point of the new formats is likely to be hi-def. As such, there's unlikely to be much interest from the studios in releasing non-hi-def material on the formats. In order to cover their costs, never mind make a profit, a single season of (say) The Muppet Show released on a single HD-DVD or BluRay disc would have to be priced at a similar level to the 4-disc DVD releases we have now. Regardless of the fact that you're getting the exact same content on each format, the average customer will perceive that they're getting better value for their money from the set with the most discs...hence the single-disc releases would not sell. Expect new format releases to be largely movies and hi-def TV shows.

Hi-def itself is definitely worthwhile if you have a larger screen (>40 inches, usually). Below that point you may or may not notice the difference. However, standard-def shows will never look any better than they do now


Regarding the downloading of movies and TV shows: broadband connections are nowhere near fast enough to make this practical yet, and not enough people have one in any case. Speaking personally, I'd much rather buy a physical item in any case, especially since the DRM that's likely to accompany any legal downloads will make it difficult if not impossible to make backups of your purchase, and in any case DVD-Rs, CD-Rs and hard drives are not exactly failsafe.