| Reasonable said: Why does this keep coming up? 1) mass market share for downloads is most definately years away - i.e. while a minority (which will grow) are downloading now, they are massively outweighed by those buying/renting physical media 2) a lot of people just like a physical copy - that's all there is to it 3) DVD and BR are not in competition. Hello! The big companies have decided BR is going to replace DVD and you can bet that therefore it will (even if they have to stop making DVD disks to force the last laggards off the format) 4) You can bet Sony and other BR backers will also get their fingers in DLC as well - and compared to many Sony is in a great position as it owns content (is that a Sony Studios movie you downloaded? Thanks for the revenue!) 5) Even if another format pops up it is unlikely the studios are going to go through another format war anytime soon - i.e. BR is going to get a completely free run at the market now - and remember point 3) - DVD is not competition for the format, its a transition from one to the other. So please let this go. The odds are simply in BR favour at this time and for foreseeable future whether you like it or not. |
Attempting to force consumers off DVD by discontinuing production is very unlikely. Weening consumers off and luring them to Blu-ray by ceasing DVD-only players and replacing them with Blu-ray players (which have legacy DVD BC) is much more likely.
And DVD does compete with Blu-ray in a number of ways:
1. Why buy Blu-ray versions of your movies to replace the DVD versions already in your collection, especially if your nice new Blu-ray player upscales those movies? Considering that the mainstream can't be considered videophiles like some of us, the increase in quality isn't going to matter.
2. HDTV penetration in the US is likely less than 25% according to a Nielson report. Why go Blu-ray if your TV can't even take full advantage of DVD? This means 75+% of TV's in NA won't allow consumers to really enjoy the improved picture quality.
3. DVD recording is starting to spread. Over the past 2 years or so, standalone DVD players/recorders have started to be popular, allowing those without DVRs to do their own program recording as they once did with VHS. It will likely be a while before the same capability will exist for HD optical players, so once again a DVD entrenchment will need to be overcome.
