How long do you guys think DVDs will be the top video media?

[Mears]

Title sums it up.

 

[JellyBaby]

Probably until DVD-Rs and DVD-RAMs are as abundant as CD-Rs/RWs are now. Then the MPAA will cry piracy again and corporate greed will resurface and then the Man will demand another, protected standard.

Hell, where are the DVD games? I currently own a whopping *NONE* and have no option to buy any right now either. Monday I ordered by first DVD video (X-Men) simply because I want to see how well my PC does playing a movie. I have no intention of switching over to DVD movies.

DVD's capacity gives it a lot of legs. It will likely be around for years and years. And the subsequent standard will probably be backward compatible. No fear.

 

[Killbat]

DVD will be around for quite a while, especially if cheap DVD video recorders come about. Don't worry about the MPAA, there will be plenty of copy protection to go around (and it will be much tougher than *snicker* Macrovision). DVDs are very, very cool. They're as portable as CDs, store at least one digitally beautiful 2hr movie with a gazzilion sound tracks (5.1 DTS included) on one side, have the neat menu function customizable to each disc, etc. etc. etc. They're just plain better in all respects.

 

[syf3r]

yeah i think the main reason my dvd collection isn't growing very quickly is the price... where have all the good dvd deals gone..? i still remember getting the matrix for $4 the week it came out, but $20-25 a movie is not very attractive at all.

-syf3r.

 

[RichieZ]

DVD will only be along until people start adopting HDTV's which are capable of 1080lines, my friend has one of these and boy is it sweet !

 

[BoberFett]

<< DVD will only be along until people start adopting HDTV >>

Uhhh, then what? Hopefully the entertainment industry thought further than a couple years. VHS has been around for a couple decades. If they expect people to buy new hardware every few years from here on out, they're sadly mistaken. I expect DVD to be around for at least the next 10 years.

 

[Tominator]

I've been told by everyone I know that sells video components that by law we will be switching to HDTV within 5 years. You will need a decoder to use older equipment. Seems the Government wants to auction off the band width...

Until more space is needed, the current DVD format is it!

 

[goldboyd]

why would hdtv's have anything to do with killing the dvd format? thats what progressive scan is for

 

[loup garou]

Hehe...HD-DVD is the next step. Personally, I wouldn't mind stepping up, as long as the hardware is backward compatible with current DVDs. Who's complaining about DVD prices?!? Obviously you weren't around when VHS first became the standard. I remember when movies first came to VHS they were $70-100 a pop. Stop complaining! Oh, and where are you paying over $20 for DVD's? 800.com, buy.com, amazon.com <-- You can get pretty much any DVD for under $20, with the exception of Criterions and those that are older and have just been transferred to DVD. Pretty much all new releases are under $20.

 

[vi edit]

Somebody mentioned price. Well, to me, it's just hit or miss anymore. I nabbed X-Men for 15.99 and Gladiator for 14.99. I guess you just really need to hit the right sales.

I also shop at a lot of second hand stores and nab $6 and $10 DVDs. Heck, I just nabbed 3 movies from Blockbuster a week ago for $7 a piece.

You just have to look around. I can often find DVD prices as cheap, if not cheaper than the VHS price.

 

[loup garou]

ditto, vi! I've yet to pay as much for DVDs as I used to for VHS.

 

[jacobnero6918]

There's a new disk which can hold 100 gigabytes and has 1 gigabits per second of bandwith.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< I can often find DVD prices as cheap, if not cheaper than the VHS price. >>

I sure hope so they're loads cheaper to produce! (yeah yeah but so much bedda...not that much bedda)

 

[AndrewR]

The &quot;mandated&quot; switch to HDTV is a farce. Everyone in the industry knows that it won't happen because the broadcast stations have NOT and will NOT upgrade their signals to all-digital in the next five years. It was far too optimistic of a timeline when it was introduced and is all but dead at this point. I just read an article in Popular Mechanics which addressed the issue.

Besides, those TVs are DAMN expensive. I worried about dropping $300 on my current set, but $3000??? You have to be kidding me. They aren't exactly selling like mad, either and not just for price considerations (why buy a TV when there's no signal for it?).

DVDs are wonderful (just set up my player and receiver tonight -- woohoo!!!!), and I agree with BoberFett -- they have at least ten years in them. Perhaps after another five or so, when some form of HDTV is being adopted, another format will arrive to enable greater utilization of the higher resolution (probably similar technology [optical], just higher storage capacity). As it is, new players come out all the time with newer features that make the old ones obsolete. That's why I only spent the bare minimum on a decent player (Panasonic DVDRV30, after rebate $100 with various discounts) rather than dropping $500+ on something with a digital decoder and progressive scan (useless for my TV), etc. Next year there will something else out even more expensive than the progressive scan ones.

As for DVD-R, don't underestimate the power of the media industry to kill a technology. Anyone have a digital tape deck at home?

 

[BigToque]

With HDTV comming out, and DVD not being able to run full screen on a HDTV (I think it would need to be stretched to fit correctly and end up blurring the image), I dont think standard DVD will remain for very long.

Is there not a HD-DVD (High Definition Digital Versatile Disk) format being worked on, that will correctly display on an HDTV?

 

[JellyBaby]

<< Anyone have a digital tape deck at home? >>

Andrew,

Good point. But my amp does have DAT outputs. In fact, I'm using them to interface my receiver/cd deck/tape deck/vcr/tv to my PC via my Live! 5.1 LiveDrive IR's twin RCA inputs. Works damn spiffy and I now have sound from any source while working on the PC here.

 

[adazam10]

You need to stretch plain letterbox movies to fit widescreen HDTVs, but not the anamorphic ones. Almost all of the movies that have been released recently are anamorphic. They fill the screen of a widescreen HDTV. If you look on the back of most new DVDs they say &quot;enhanced for widescreen TVs&quot; or something like that.

Anamorphic DVDs with a widescreen HDTV and a progressive scan DVD player look unbelievable.

 

[StageLeft]

With Boberfett and others I think DVD has at least a solid 10 years. Technology changes when A) it is affordable, and B) promises to be widespread and a reasonable buy.

Betamax failed because not enough people used it. Laserdiscs failed because they were too expensive and unwieldly and the general public had no compelling reason to switch from VHS to laserdisc (we have one at home a player bought some years ago, its seen about 10-15 movies in that time).

DVD will succeed because it is fairly inexpensive and dropping all the time, offers great picture/sound, is at least as convenient (in fact more so) than VHS, and has extra features. It IS succeeding, and just as CDs have still to totally fade out tapes (damn, most cars still come standard with only tape players and CDs have been out a touch shy of 2 decades), DVD is going to be around a long long time.