Which technology? We definitely do not need higher resolutions or bigger discs or better sound or whatever. SD TV had to die for a long time but the current HDTV resolutions are here to stay for a long long long time.

So if it comes to buyable media BluRay will be most likely the used standard till the end of time (Which explains why Sony Toshiba and co. invested so hugely in this war), Once BluRay discs and players are available for the same price as DVD, DVDs will slowly die.

So the only technology you can talk about are downloads. Which most likely will be a success and the biggest competition to BluRay. Sometimes in the far away future for most countries and regions that is. For comparable quality you need huge datarates (BluRay is 54Mbps), Really big HDs to save your movies and last but not least you will have to fight with all the standard download problems: You cannot sell or lend them you can only watch videos on devices that are connected to your download service and so on.) Yes downloads will be a big competition and eventually they will take over but this will take a long time.

Well I cant speak for other countries, but in the UK when the DVD started showing up in stores they were around 50% more expensive than what we were used to when the latest VHS came out. Then as the popularity grew the price of VHS dropped to values like £3-4 on average, while the DVD counterparts were anything between £15-20 for many years, i even remember buying just one of the special edition versions of lord of the rings TT for something like £35.

Bluerays average around £15 and you usually can pick up 3 for 2 so you can scrape a tenner each if there is enough out there than you want. So with average DVD prices dropping now as VHS did, and the prices of BD being the same as DVD was way back when, i struggle to see how the BD will fail yet the DVD succeeded when the pricing and scenario were so similar.

The way i see it going is over time BD players becoming cheap enough that people will buy it instead of purchasing a DVD player, for the top releases (in the UK at least) the price between DVD & BH is only a couple of quid so getting the BD version is a no brainer, and eventually it will be a natural process of evolution.

Its probably the most mentioned new technology i hear about from technophobes so i think it is starting to get some traction in the non geek world.

gavind5uk said: Well I cant speak for other countries, but in the UK when the DVD started showing up in stores they were around 50% more expensive than what we were used to when the latest VHS came out. Then as the popularity grew the price of VHS dropped to values like £3-4 on average, while the DVD counterparts were anything between £15-20 for many years, i even remember buying just one of the special edition versions of lord of the rings TT for something like £35. Bluerays average around £15 and you usually can pick up 3 for 2 so you can scrape a tenner each if there is enough out there than you want. So with average DVD prices dropping now as VHS did, and the prices of BD being the same as DVD was way back when, i struggle to see how the BD will fail yet the DVD succeeded when the pricing and scenario were so similar. The way i see it going is over time BD players becoming cheap enough that people will buy it instead of purchasing a DVD player, for the top releases (in the UK at least) the price between DVD & BH is only a couple of quid so getting the BD version is a no brainer, and eventually it will be a natural process of evolution. Its probably the most mentioned new technology i hear about from technophobes so i think it is starting to get some traction in the non geek world.

Where are you getting your Blu Rays?

15 GBP is amazing

All new releases here in central London are double the price of the DVD release. 10 GBP DVD, 22 GBP Blu Ray

Are you being fair in your comparison ?

They have offers for DVD's too you know.

 

Kyros said: If Blu Ray catches on before the next tech supersedes it, Which technology? We definitely do not need higher resolutions or bigger discs or better sound or whatever. SD TV had to die for a long time but the current HDTV resolutions are here to stay for a long long long time.

 

You are right, there are limits. Our Eyes can't get a higher resolution than they have, our living rooms don't get bigger, our hearing doesn't improve suddenly, but have you ever thought that the DVD quality might be good enough for many customers?

Most people hear the sound directly from the TV or a small sound system. They don't get any impovements from the BluRay audio possibilities and if they watch it with smaller TV sets or they are sitting at a higher distance from the TV, how many people do really see the differences between an upscaled DVD and a BluRay, and how much are they ready to pay for this difference?

Don't forget we arew not talking about big blockbuster movies but even romantic movies and so on that don't want to show every detail clearly. You don't want to show how much makeup the actor had to have and so . Othzer movies use the film grain as a special effect, but most normal people would always expect to really see a very clear picture with fine details in every movie otherwise they wouldn't understand why they should buy the more expensive format.

I already know several people where we tried BluRay, but in their situation I wouldn't pay one Euro more. They don't need to see the difference with your equipment but they have to see the difference with their equipment in their own living rooms!

It doesn't help if they would have to buy other equipment or move their furniture. It is their living room and these rooms are full of compromises.

Here is a link I just found:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i7fcfe6ddd3b5d6c21858c855850d2183

"Total DVD sales rose 1.9% year-over-year to 252.9 million units. That included 3.7 million Blu-ray titles, representing a 378% rise over 2007."

People can make their own judgement whether BR is dominant or not.

Well i get all my movies from amazon so just taking a quick look, In the Blueray section, 6 of the top 10 sellers are singular films (i.e. not documentaries or compilations), and these average out to £15.80, by comparison, the same DVD films average out to £13.40.

The last time i purchased bluerays was on one of those 3 for 2 so i got 3 for £32.

And yeah i dont dispute that there are DVD offers about, my point was that, in the UK at least the prices arent miles ahead of DVD, and easily the same price as DVD were when it was first becoming popular.

The exact same arguments were leveled at DVD when it it arrived, too expensive discs & hardware, people love their VHS collection too much to buy, VHS better value - what they didnt count on new consumers entering the market everyday who dont have any of the above reasons to hold them back from buying the latest tech.

Domination of WHAT? It's the only HD format, and it's getting royally punked by dvd?

BTW, I see brd doing as well to dvd as ps3 is doing to wii.

If a PS3 title, that was anticipated to be "best ever and so, opened with
281,000 sales, there would be discussion of it not doing well.

Like let's say that Killzone 2 opens with 281,000 in its first week. The entire hype on here will result in people being VERY disappointed with its sales and people saying it is another Resistance 2.

If you want to compare DVDs to Blu-Rays, you have to do it the right way: Comparing DVD when it first launched vs Blu-Ray when it first launched...

-And also, remember that DVD is a unified format that launched without any competition just to replace VHS, Blu-Ray had to fight a format war with HD-DVD before being the accepted format and start climbing...

@heruamon: The comparison is: "I see brd doing as well to dvd as ps3 is doing to ps2" Wii is a 7th gen console just as PS3...