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DVD Player Ownership Surpasses VCR Ownership

Posted by Zonk on Tue Dec 26, 2006 12:04 PM
from the just-in-time-for-a-new-format dept.
Media Movies
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an Ars Technica post stating that, for the first time, more U.S. consumers own a DVD player than own a VCR. The DVD player dropped below $100 quite some time ago, but the third quarter of this year saw the percentage of DVD player ownership reach 81.2. Only 79.2% of consumers now own VCR players, reports Nielsen. From the article: "For all of the talk about the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray, both technologies are far, far away from most family rooms. Yes, the two are just now beginning what could be a long battle for entertainment-center supremacy, but keep in mind that the technology that they are vying to replace has only recently gained the upper hand against the previous-generation technology--a decade after first being introduced. Even if Blu-ray or HD DVD unexpectedly routs its opponent from the market in the next two or three years, it will still be several more years before the victorious format supplants the DVD."
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  • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by priestx (822223) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:11PM (#17367900) Homepage
    Does this count dual-players, such as a DVD-VCR combos? That's all I really use, anyways.
    I'm sure if they were to count that, it wouldn't be important, as it would just even off things, but a large percentage of households actually uses both I would suspect.

  • DVD will be the winner in the HiDef War (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vertinox (846076) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:12PM (#17367918)
    Since VHS is out. They win by default.

    Seriously, BluRay and HD won't be common place until 2012 at this rate.

    By then, we'll have iPod like devices that could hold more video than a Station wagon full of BlueRay discs.

    • Re:DVD will be the winner in the HiDef War (Score:5, Funny)

      by CDMA_Demo (841347) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:17PM (#17367952) Homepage
      No one will ever use the full capacity of BluRay station wagon.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by troll -1 (956834)
      Seriously, BluRay and HD won't be common place until 2012 at this rate.

      And by that time everything will be streamed. Moving data around on funny plastic disks just doesn't make much sense when you have an Internet. The only reason for these formats is 1) There currently isn't enough bandwidth for everyone to stream hi-def content on-demand. 2) Content owners don't want their stuff streamed because of copyright concerns. But as hi-speed Internet access becomes as ubiquitous as DRM becomes unpopular, BluRa

    • Seriously, BluRay and HD won't be common place until 2012 at this rate.

      At what rate? Any predictive analysis of future BD or HD-DVD penetration based on less than a year of data is pointless at best and dishonest at worst. DVD grew faster than any other similar technology (CD and VHS being two significant examples) and it still took 8 years to pass VHS. This, despite the last few years when DVD players have been virtually an impulse buy at under $100.

      I picked up a DVD player in its second year of ava

  • Maybe there are others like me... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wikthemighty (524325) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:18PM (#17367970)
    ...their VCR has died recently, and they haven't bothered to replace it!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Shivetya (243324)
      I haven't had a VCR hooked up to my entertainment system for years. When my parents recently asked if I had one they could use in the RV I had to dig it out. I never really did the rental routine and as such I found myself using one less and less, until one day I put in a new rack for my entertainment system and never migrated the VCR to it.

      I long ago switched to only DVDs. I have 300+ in my collection, finally surpassing my CD collection. Now with a DVR provided by my satellite service I have no need.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by powerlord (28156)

        Plus, nothing looks worse on my HD than a VCR'd movie, 'cept maybe CD based movies

        I thought I would agree with you, but I'm not so sure.

        We (my wife and I) recently upgraded to a 720p 32" TV. We've got HD feeds via cable, and an Series 3 TiVo.

        The signal looks great, and we got rid of a whole mess of VCR tapes that were just cluttering up room, but we hung on to a couple that we wanted to watch. I finally got around to hooking up the VCR via a set RCA cables and, while the picture quality certainly ain't gr

        • VHS simple doesn't have the recording resolution. That's one of the big advantages of DVD. You got the image quality you maybe could have gotten with beta if not for the fact that it didn't win the format wars. Progressive DVDs take the most of what you could have gotten with vhs/beta and then doubles that.

          Progressive DVD's on a large 720p set can look quite respectable.

          If you have a tiny screen, I really can't see you percieving much benefit of HD though...
    • After my VCR suffered a crayon-related fatality, I simply replaced it with a DVD/VCR combo. These days, you can get one of those for maybe 10 bucks more than a standalone VCR.

    • Re:Maybe there are others like me... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dattaway (3088) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @01:00PM (#17368412) Homepage
      I used to fix VCR's for the tune of half their value (hey, its business!) and quickly discovered the design is a time bomb. The rubber parts rot, the heads clog, and has a loading mechanism that's a magnet for kids to store stuff in there. Its a matter of time before the population of VCR's drop to zero. It will happen faster than the life of a lithium battery or the charges on an EPROM die out.

      10 years from now, 90% of all VCR's will be out of commission. Transfer your tapes to other storage now!
  • But then.. who can blame them?

    Anyone want to take a ballpark guess what kind of ROI they land if every movie studio had to license Blu-Ray on every movie they released to disc?

    I'm guessing (purely from the posterior region) it'd land in the Billions over the life of the product.

    -GiH

  • I will "upgrade" when... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pla (258480) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:25PM (#17368024) Journal
    it will still be several more years before the victorious format supplants the DVD.

    I will "upgrade" to the best HD format only when it counts as an actual upgrade - Meaning I can play it, in full resolution, on a Linux box.

    Note that I don't include the word "legally" in that condition... A broken-feature-reenabling ripper (like DVD Decrypter used to do for region coding, macrovision, and button lockout) will work just as well as an authorized player.

    So, which group will give me what I want first? Sony, Toshiba, or DVD-Jon? The winner takes all.

  • But the DVD has is own issues... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bogaboga (793279) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:26PM (#17368034)
    Much as I love the features of the DVD if paired with an equally capable player, the DVD has its own [ugly] issues. Despite the fact that it's a modern invention, nobody can even come close to guaranteeing that the DVD medium (the disc) can withstand storage for long times.

    Can any slashdotter convince me that if I had properly stored important video media on a disc in say 20 years ago, this disc would still be readable now? With proper storage, the video cartridge would still be readable now after that long. This is my beef with DVDs.

      • 20 years? Sure thing. Rip it to a hard drive. Embrace the digital nature olf the DVD!

        Oh, rip to a hard drive! What a suggestion! So that if I have to demo something to a remote community, I have to make sure they have a working computer I can open up in order to install the HD? Think about it, is this really practical in the modern world?

        • Ever hear of a portable drive? Ipod? Laptop with Wireless?

          In any case, I have a feeling the days when you can whip out a chunky old videocassette to demo anything are seriously numbered. In many trades already, doing so could get you laughed out of the room as if you brought a can of Super-8 film.

          • Re:But the DVD has is own issues... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by plover (150551) * on Tuesday December 26 2006, @02:03PM (#17368962) Homepage Journal
            The G.P. was talking about storing material today and retrieving it 20 years from now. A hard drive is actually a very poor solution for archival of material. First, drive technology has advanced dramatically in the last 20 years. It continues to advance dramatically -- compare the commonly produced sizes now to those made just 5 years ago, let alone 20 years.

            Electrically, the interfaces have changed, too. You'd be very hard-pressed to find a modern machine that's capable of reading from an old Winchester drive -- the ST-506 interface is dead and buried, and the adapter cards that spoke ST-506 were made only in the era of 8-bit ISA bus machines; you won't find a PCI card that supports them. ATA came along, and has advanced to ATA-6. Now we have SATA, which begs the question of how long PATA will live. Do you want to bet your future retrieval of the data to finding an ancient machine that can read SATA on the 2026 equivalent of eBay?

            There are plenty of physical reasons not to use hard drives as an archival medium, too. You'd probably be hard-pressed to find an old Winchester drive that could spin up today after sitting idle for 20 years. Drives manufactured back then suffered from stiction, which was caused by lubricants that sat idle for too long. Do you know what's wrong with the longevity of data on drives manufactured today? I don't. Will today's lubricants still flow freely in 2026? Will the platters, heads and mechanics survive the years uncorroded? Will the electrolytic capacitors still hold a charge? Will the connectors have shifted due to thermal expansion and contraction? Will the magnetic fields of some bits have dissipated due to their proximity to other bits? Will the adhesive holding the media to the platters have broken down?

            And Google for "maxtor sucks" if you want to read horror stories of people losing data due to the death of a hard drive.

            I'm not saying Super-8 is the way to go, but it's still possible to get the data from it. Will the same be true of floppy discs, ZIP disks, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and all the burnable variants of DVDs including +/-, DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM?

        • So that if I have to demo something to a remote community
          ...
          is this really practical in the modern world?

          "Remote community" and "modern world" contradict one another here.

          You've hypothesized the existance of someplace that has the technological resources to run a TV and DVD player, but where your laptop (with far more flexible power requirements) won't work?

          Furthermore, you can always re-burn the content if you absolutely need a physical DVD, at a cost of less than 25 cents (USD) per disc.



          That

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by bogaboga (793279)

            "Remote community" and "modern world" contradict one another here.

            I beg to disagree with you here and say "Not necessarily."

            There is a remote community in Namibia that I visited. These folks live in canyons in a very arid and cold part of the desert. I can assure you that they had every modern amenity known to the western world, everything powered by the sun. I was surprised myself and loved it. The question is, if I found that they did not have a computer ready to be opened up, this would mean 18 hours to get to the nearest town.

            • Re:But the DVD has is own issues... (Score:4, Funny)

              by eln (21727) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @01:20PM (#17368572) Homepage
              If only there were some sort of portable computer that could fit on one's lap...a "laptop" if you will...that could be carried to remote locations like this. Or perhaps someone could come up with some way to attach an internal device like a hard drive to an external port on a standard PC. Perhaps some sort of enclosure with an external connector. Sort of like what the GP mentioned.

              Oh hell, that's all just fantasy anyway. The very idea of such useful technology is absurd.
        • Or you could just bring your own...

          Lan Party PC, Laptop, suitable portable DVD player, suitable media player, bus powered USB drive.

          It's not like it's 1995.

          If it's really the sort of backwater you're implying, your best off
          bringing your own hardware anyways. They might not even have a DVD
          player.

  • Bad comparison, perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junior J. Junior III (192702) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:27PM (#17368040) Homepage
    DVDs beat the pants off of VCRs in the following areas:

    Image quality.
    Random access.
    Extra features on-media.

    VCRs still cling to live mainly because it doesn't cost anything to not throw them away, and because of recording.

    Let me know when the number of PVRs outnumbers the number of VCRs. That's when the transition will truly be complete.

    Of couse p2p Video on Demand services (as represented by YouTube and BitTorrent piracy networks) probably blows both away in the middle to long run.

  • backwards compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gad_zuki! (70830) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:30PM (#17368068)
    I dont think the old metric will make much sense with these new HD players. When released they'll probably be able to play both HD (bluray, hddvd, whahever) and standard DVDs. There will be no reason to keep a stand-alone DVD player. They'll just end up as hand me downs to the kids or collect dust.

      After a while the HD players will be cheap enough that it will be smart futureproofing to buy a HD player without a HDtv, in the hopes that your next tv will be HD. Hell, there's no shortage of component out dvd players plugged in with composite cables or through RF converter boxes.

  • It's not just the player (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Its the pressed media price and everything else. Thats what finally got me. I found VHS/DVD combos just under $100 and my Best Buy offered almost anything I wanted in my library for $10 (simply watching weekly specials) and around $20 for special things or multi-part stuff. I finally said why not. With blank media prices around a quarter or less and burner prices under $50, I finally made the leap. A perfect DVD storm had approached and it only happened to me last spring. And normally I am not a luddite, my

  • Blue Ray this, HD-DVD that... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RiotXIX (230569) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @12:37PM (#17368150) Journal
    Jeez, give it a rest. I have money, but do you honestly think I'm going to subscribe to another new format for at least 10 years? We aren't all tech-writers. I might just skip this technology fasion trend and go for the one in one or two generations, just like I will with consoles. And even then I'll be content with my DVD library. Just like I am with CD-audio quality and good speakers. And I'm speaking as a tech nerd as well. Uprgrading would simply be burning money, which I don't feel, whether I had the money or not, would be a good idea.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bigpat (158134)
      There are people who are desperate to get as many articles on Blue Ray and HD-DVD written in order to push both the format of the media and HD technology in general. There are 10s, if not 100s, of billions of dollars at stake and plenty of marketing money to grease tech writers and publishers wheels. The government too has a horse in this race as digital television must not only succeed but at least appear to be popular in the market to justify the forced change over to HD that is taking place. Eventuall
  • I thought this had already happened a while ago. I remember walking through WalMart they other day and seeing a DVD player for around $70 and thinking of how affordable they have gotten. They technology is more reliable, I'd even say that for VCRs made recently. I still can't believe my PS2 still plays DVDs after 4 years. And it's been shipped halfway around the world, been left on for days, manhandled by my children, etc. I guess while "they don't make them like they used to" is true for cars, it does

    • I guess it's all luck of the draw. My PS2, not manhandled by kids, only occasionally used, and never left on didn't last two years. Maybe it died of loneliness.

  • As there are combo DVD and VCR's as well as TV, DVD, and VCR Combos.
  • these stats do not include the half dozen dead cheap dvd players I have sitting in the garage.

    I don't care if it is a brand name of not, the cheap crap or the expensive dvd recorder/tuner, they all lasted just a few days longer than the warranty.

    I use the computer to play dvds. At least the internal drives are cheap enough to replace when they die.

  • I'm going to assume they're not counting computers or laptops (heck even throw in those portable DVD players) since those alone should outnumber VCR's. Given that more people are watching DVD's through different technologies I question if the standalone DVD player is a useful metric.
  • The usage of said VCR. My parents are one of those that own a VCR, but it does not get any usage. They were just talking about that this last weekend that they would probably get rid of it by donating it to Good Will or something like that because it has more usefulness as a tax write off that playing a video.

    So, this study begs the question, of those that do own the VCR, how many actually still use it? I would dare say that it would be pretty scant because of the ubiquitousness and superiority of the DV
  • Even if Blu-ray or HD DVD unexpectedly routs its opponent from the market in the next two or three years, it will still be several more years before the victorious format supplants the DVD.

    Which is exactly why I'm going to be waiting "several more years" before I bother getting a "next-gen" DVD player.
  • The percentage would probably be even less if you discounted those who have VCRs on their equipment shelf just because they're too lazy to remove them.
    I have one on my rack, and the only reason I've put a tape in it for the last couple of years was to convert some VHS tapes to DVD for a friend. If there are still tapes around the house, they're in a box in the basement just waiting to be thrown out.

    The last possible reason for using it went away when I put the DVR box in place. I'm happy not to be screwin
  • ...the DVD player was no substitute for a VCR, but the DVR they bought is. Just because you don't use the recording capability doesn't mean that others do. Personally, I don't watch much broadcast TV because it comes way too late. Did it air in the US/UK yesterday? Do the people I know online talk about it? Yes. Do I want to be left out "Yeah I'll comment on that in a year... maybe"? No. That means I'm going to get it, your only choice is how. Movie theaters have already figured this out, TV stations must b

  • $150 hd-dvd player (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jmichaelg (148257) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @01:56PM (#17368900)
    I was in Best Buy a couple of days ago and saw Microsoft's 360 HD-DVD player for $150. Anandtech had given it a favorable review [anandtech.com] and noted that the player could just as easily be hooked up to PC as an xbox. If you already have a hi def screen with an xbox it seems to be a slam dunk purchase. If you don't have the xbox but you have a sufficiently robust pc, you can either watch hi def on your computer monitor or, if your setup allows it, on your HD screen via your PC.

    Lots of folks are hedging as to which format will win out but my impression is that if you can buy a player for $150 that gives you an image that's equivalent to a solution that costs 4 times as much and is unavailable, that gives a huge boost to HD-DVD. I say "equivalent" because the initial side by side reviews don't give either format an edge. Another factor is Netflix - you can rent either format from them so your exposure to risking committing to a dead end format is substantially reduced. When the first players came out at $1,000 not many people bit. Now that you can get one player at $150, it strikes me a lot more people will make the jump and it isn't going to be to Blu-Ray.

  • Will it really? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ScrewMaster (602015) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @02:14PM (#17369042)
    it will still be several more years before the victorious format supplants the DVD.

    If ever. This particular format war isn't being handled very well, it seems to me. Such conflicts are invariably bad for the consumer in the short run since we have to guess which tech will come out on top and whoever guesses wrong gets his fingers burnt. Why can't they all just get along? PICK ONE! I don't really care which at this point. Is it just that Sony is still smarting from the Betamax fiasco? If it turns out after all this hate and discontent that the consumer doesn't find a use for the next-generation of shiny plastic discs it'll be just too bad. Worse for them, sooner or later China is going to be able to foist their version of a next-gen SPD (Shiny Plastic Disc) on the world. They'd better just get with the program and give the consumer what he and she wants now. Period. Or they may find their own technologies irrelevant.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mrcaseyj (902945)
      I just realized the other day that this Bluray vs HD-DVD competition isn't a bad thing for consumers. It's actually a great thing. With the Beta/VHS competition consumers suffered because there was no cheap way to make a player that could play both formats. But the Bluray and HD-DVD discs are physically identical in shape (I think) and could probably both be easily read by a single player. What this means is that there will be real competition and therefore lower prices. As soon as one format starts to show

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Have Blue (616)
      Neither format is going to win. They're both going to be killed by electronic distribution.
    • Hey, I'm just now getting my techno-friends converted to DVR believers. And it's hard -- nobody understands how great they are until they spend an evening watching TV through one. A two-minute demo is just not impressive. It always starts with "Pause and rewind? BFD, I could do that with my VCR." But pause live TV while you answer the phone or go pick up another six-pack, and it becomes much cooler. Then when you play it back after you return and skip the commercials, they suddenly recognize it's the
      • Exactly. I used to be one of those people who refused to get a DVR, because I didn't see the purpose of it. I could record shows on my VCR, after all. Seeing them in use did not convince me. It was only after actually getting one (as part of a deal when we switched from cable to DirecTV) and actually starting to use it in my own home that I saw how cool it was. Now, I can't stand watching TV without one. I have a DVR in the living room, but the TV in the bedroom just has the normal non-DVR receiver, a
    • I don't have a DVR for a very simple reason: there's barely anything worth watching on TV. The only show I watch regularly is on at a good time (The Daily Show at 11pm). Most of the people I talk to about it find that almost everything broadcast today is crap. And there's no point in timeshifting crap.
    • There's no need for one once you cancel cable. 90% of my TV viewing comes from Netflix, which is more than paid for by the $45 a month (which seemed to be increasing by a buck every couple month, but hey, 12 more channels of women's entertainment and how to remodel your house) that I'm not giving to Time Warner. The other 10% of my viewing is filled with broadcast episodes of the Simpsons.
    • People who don't have DVR's don't notice that they're missing anything. You only had to see one DVD to say "Wow, it looks a zillion times better and I don't have to rewind." Not to mention that people easily slotted it into their minds as a video version of a CD - with which they were quite familiar.

      OTOH, the non-technical response to DVR is - based on the anecdotes I've heard - something like my wife's:

      • Week 1 with the ReplayTV: "I hate this complicated thing. I just want to watch my shows. Why do I ha

    • Re:where is the DVR adoption? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MojoStan (776183) on Tuesday December 26 2006, @01:29PM (#17368658)
      I'm still perplexed that there's not been faster and more widespread adoption of DVRs. As a technologist, I tend to be friends with the kinds of people who have DVRs, but I still have a hard time impressing on "regular people" how damn wonderful they are.
      I'm just speculating, but I think "regular people" might be turned off by the monthly fees/subscriptions required by the most popular DVR solutions. They might be thinking: "I never had to pay $20 per month (with a 1-year commitment) [tivo.com] to use a VCR." (Yes, there are cheaper options for longer commitments. This is just an example. But "regular people" have to be convinced of its value first.)

      I also think most "regular people" underestimate how much television is a part of their life. Many people like to think that television is "not important" enough to pay extra money for what they think is a slightly advanced VCR. In reality, people watch way more television than they think they do. They would probably save lots of time and enjoy their time watching television a heck of a lot more if they used a DVR.

      I continually explain that having a good DVR is like having refridgeration -- once you've had it, you don't see how anyone made it this far without it. To that end, my wife and I find it diffucult to watch tv away from home.
      It's not cool to admit tv is this important in our lives (I'm kidding). We should all be getting out and reading more, right?

      Convincing people to pay an additional subscription to put an extra box near their television, with no new content, is a difficult task. I think free trials might do it. 30-day money-back guarantees (like the one offered by TiVo) still seem like a hassle to the unconvinced. Better competition and lower prices are also needed. The leader, TiVo, is darned expensive unless you commit to a long-term subscription. Windows XP Media Center does not require subscriptions, but not many people hook up PCs to their televisions. Cable/satellite companies can probably push free DVR trials on their customers (integrated into the set top box), but their DVRs are not nearly as usable as TiVo and ReplayTV (last time I checked).

    • Re:Not too surprising (Score:4, Funny)

      by dosius (230542) <lyricalnanoha@dosius.ath.cx> on Tuesday December 26 2006, @01:36PM (#17368720) Journal
      Then what do I do on my DVD recorder with DVD-RW discs?

      -uso.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo (153816)
      Not only are you apparently smoking crack WRT the issue of recording on DVD overall, but there are actually several consumer-level camcorders that record video directly to a mini DVD. In other words, the total steps to get DVD content from the camcorder to a normal DVD player is to record some video, yank out the disc, and slap it into the player. Nice try though. Are you a troll, or are you just living under a rock? You apparently have internet access yet are completely uninformed, that's pretty amazing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NoMaster (142776)

      And note that this is all despite heavy DRM on nearly every commercial DVD disc and player ever made.

      As I mentioned earlier, in other parts of the world DVD ownership outstripped VCR ownership a while ago. The reason why it's taken longer in the US may actually be due to the "heavy DRM" you mention (well, the region coding anyway) - in the rest of the world region free players from the name-brand manufacturers are the norm, whilst I gather they're not quite as common in the US (and mostly Chinese/Taiwanes

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