If DVD Is Dead, What's Next? 652
uglysad writes "The Age has a piece discussing the fact that, from the home entertainment industry's standpoint, the DVD is dead. So what is next? From the article 'It will come as a shock to film fans who have spent their Christmases stocking up on their movie collections, but the technology industry is in agreement: the DVD is dead. Consumer electronics companies have begun to show off what they believe will be the next generation of home video technologies. But despite the common belief that the DVD is history, the industry is split over what the next step should be.'"
Unlikely (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think so (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I think the "industry" is in for quite a shocker this year, as bluray and hddvd barely make a blip on the radar. Same with next year.
Not Dead Yet (Score:4, Interesting)
It took many years for DVD catalogs to reach their current levels, and there are a number of titles that are still not available in DVD format. Plus a good DVD player looks pretty decent on a HDTV. So there isn't a huge incentive for customers to buy any new HD format. With all this there is little or no incentive for consumers to buy into a new technology - especially if it comes with a price premium.
There is a good chance that a format war will delay the acceptance of HD resolution disks for years. It might even fatally wound the the new formats - like it did with SACD and DVD-AUDIO.
In the meantime people like me are using Netfix instead of buying DVD's - why own something that will eventually become obsolete anyway.
Outmoded tech (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that we are all investing in media which we will most likely not be able to view in a view years. I had to buy a new DVD player this year because several of my new DVDs would not play on my older player. Presumably because of slight changes in the software.
DVDs for the most part can be hacked and backed up. But what about new technologies. Will this be possible with DVD-HD or will all of the media purchaced turn into an expensive and ineffective paper weight in 10 years when our players break and the tech is outmoded?
Re:1. Exaggeration 2. ??? 3. Profit! (Score:4, Interesting)
Unreliable storage mediums (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:1. Exaggeration 2. ??? 3. Profit! (Score:2, Interesting)
You could very well be right. It's probably only a few more years that fixed media will be relevant.
i say, were can i find the buggy whip shop?
Re:Fine. (Score:4, Interesting)
They've been pushing the 'imminent' hidef stuff for a year now. So I made the decision to stop buying DVDs.
Unfortunately there's no HD broadcast here and no HD media, so the only way to get it is off usenet... They really shot themselves in the foot - pushing HD like it was the second coming then making it so the only way to get any was do download ripped copies - and that situation isn't likely to change for a good 6 months too...
Re:whatever (Score:3, Interesting)
Audio:
Wax cylinder
Wire recording
Various sizes and speeds of vynil record that even scratch devices dissavow
Audio-related:
Player piano scrolls
Video:
Super 8 film (used by a very limited group of artists today)
Beta (not the pro format that some TV stations still use, but the home format)
VHS (it's not "dead", but it's certainly deader than DVD)
Still images:
Almost any format you mention is "only mostly dead", as artists tend to be overly nostalgic. However, the Disc Camera format is pretty well gone, as are most of the non-35mm roll formats until you get up into poster format range.
Data:
This one's very sticky. It's hard to ever say that data formats are dead, since some archive somewhere will need to keep buying it. However, it's very hard to actually get new TK cartridges, data-quality cassette tapes, 8-inch floppies, paper tape, optical tape, drum drives, core memory or any other non-PC, non-mainframe memory format of 25 or more years ago.
Re:whatever (Score:3, Interesting)
No, just moribund. It's two and a half years since I recorded anything to VHS. As a major university we have to support a lot of obsolete formats, but it's a difficult job telling some academics that backwards compatability doesn't mean business as usual.
However I confess I have never been a fan of the DVD format. Every hour or program, whether from DV tape, or direct to hard disk, takes ~2 hours to compress mp2, and then there's the obtuse but compulsory menu structure. I have found it quicker and easier to compress mp4 and store on hard disk, or as
Re:DVD is going to stick around (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DVD is going to stick around (Score:2, Interesting)
DVD is not dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember that Laserdisc system and how VHS and video tapes were dead? Laserdisc is the superior product with a superior quality picture and sound than VHS had.
Guess which format people supported and used the most?
The DVD is not dead, do I need to invoke Monty Python here "I'm not dead yet!"
HDTV formats are way too expensive for the average person to use and own. Ever tried to price HDTV cable and satellite boxes lately as well as the monthly fees for them? Ever priced an HDTV TV set lately? Wonder why those TV sets under 35 inches do not support HDTV? Only the wealthy can afford them.
I know a lot of people who don't even own a DVD player and still use VHS players and recorders. Most of them have older TV sets that cannot take the DVD digital input and need an adapter just to use one. Now try to convince them to spend thousands of dollars on an HDTV system to play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disks instead of their 20 Inch Analog TV set with the VHS video tape device? The most they can spend is like $50 to $100 for new equipment if they go without certain things for a while and cut their budgets.
DVD Players sell for as low as $35 each with $15 for the Analog to Digital adapter to use them on that 20 inch Analog TV set. A $50 minimum investment just to upgrade to a DVD playing system. $100 for a good one that won't shoot craps in the next few years or so.
The way I see it, as far as HDTV DVDs go, Blu Ray is BetaMax and HD-DVD is VHS as far as formats and pricing and marketing goes. My money is on HD-DVD, because it seems only handful of suppliers will support Blu Ray like Sony (who invented it). This is the BetaMax vs. VHS wars all over again.
Re:Industry is in for a surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Viva La VCR! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:i love this (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it's time is up? Do the math: 78rpm phenol discs 60 yrs; vinyl 30 yrs; CD 20yrs; mp3 ??. 16mm film 60yrs; VHS 30yrs; DVD 10yrs; ???
[Flag Paranoid Conspiracy] Notice the logarithmic scales in a number of technologies all seem to hit the wall at the Singularity, 2012. You won't be needing your DVDs after that...
Not Dead. Not Dying. (Score:3, Interesting)
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - Dead on arrival.
I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in ANY medium until the DRM is cracked, and if it's really as strong as they say it is in those, I'm never going to be interested.
3.5 inch blue dvds (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
No, its not dead at all. The HD/Blu-ray thing is a furphy for people who want to watch movies. Why?
1. Most people don't know what is high definition anyway. Plasma TV's are 488 lines, which is less than standard definition that you get with a DVD. Most people (consumers) think they are fantastic. Technophiles might notice, but considering that the electronics industry got many people to DROP the viewing resolution by going from TV to Plasma says something important about how much punters care about resolution.
2. Even if you want high definition, you don't need more storage space for it. Processing power is going up alot, and that means that more efficient codec's than MPEG-2 that DVD's use will easily do high definition in the 8.5 GB available on a standard DVD for a nice long movie.
3. So why do they want to get rid of DVD? Hardware manufacturers want more sales, and can't think of a way to get consumers to buy another (more expensive) player. They could just go for a player that does a better codec (MPEG-4 or H.264), but that needs content. And the people who provide content - who mostly don't care about hardware sales except for Sony which does both - want a new DRM/encryption as DVD's are cracked.
So, in essence, this isn't really a consumer oriented move. But this shouldn't be a surprise - how many people want DVD audio? Brought in by the content producers as there was not protection on a music CD; that hasn't killed off the music cd.
Of course, Apple actually managed to get people to get people to give up unencrypted music for the iTunes music store, but that wasn't about quality - they offered something genuinely new, which was the iPod. Your entire music collection in a tiny package (or a good subset of it on an even smaller one).
I don't see this coming with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Sure, I'd love the extra storage for hard drive backups. But for video - not the way that the content industry wants to package it - as a huge (20-30 GB) movie file that's heavily DRM'ed. No thank you. All my music comes off a hard drive now, and my videos will soon too.
I can promise you that I won't be wasting 20 GB on each movie, and that I won't be unhappy with the quality of a MPEG-4 serial episode that weighs in at 0.35 GB for a 40 minute episode.
The next real innovation won't be in larger, uncompressed storage - it will be in legal down loads of videos, at relatively modest quality, which will almostly certainly be compressed heavily to keep the traffic down. Until then, I'll keep on ripping my DVD's and digitising broadcasts
My 2c worth.
Michael
Wow, exageration for a story! SHOCK! (Score:3, Interesting)
Boy, those high density floppies really killed floppies... wtf? And if I recall high density 3.5" media lived alot longer than the low density 3.5", granted ED disks didn't catch on but that's because better alternatives were available RIGHT THEN. (zip disk, cd-rom)
The DVD will last a very long time, at least another 10 years before something not backwards compatible replaces it.
I dont get why would anyone buy into either one (Score:3, Interesting)
Who the hell wants the media, new TV, new player? -- My monitor is capable of displaying 1600x1200 and is using DVI. All this shit makes no sense. I get BETTER quality on this cheap monitor than I get if I spend $10k and for what? - What improvement do I get?
Fucking makes me mad, I'll carry on pirating the HD content popping up all over the web...
Re:Only to those who can't get enough $$$ out if i (Score:2, Interesting)
I am currently watching TV and recording on my Mac mini right now!
Re:whatever (Score:2, Interesting)
And you definitely can't rent anything reasonably new on DVD either - most Japanese movies for rent ONLY exist on VHS. Typical Japanese rental store = 1 shelf of DVDs/new releases + 20 shelves of VHS
Not in this household (Score:4, Interesting)
It's still working. In fact it works great, and the picture is a lot better than most of the newer plasma sets out on the market today. Although not as good as the DLP or LCD rear projection... sniff
But the new HD DVD standards don't work with my system. Oh, sure it's more than capable of displaying high quality, but it only has component video input and you need HDMI inputs. And guess what? I'm not buying a new television. Sorry charlie, just ain't gonna happen. I might buy a new computer, but I'll be damned if I buy a new TV.
So good luck selling me something to replace my existing system.
Maybe in 5 years, perhaps 10. When this thing is old and outdated and doesn't work. But not today. Cause the way I figure it, any decent improvement is giong to involve a new TV, a new receiver, and a new DVD player. We're talking about $4k there, and that's not chump change.
I need to know I can burn my own ISO image (Score:1, Interesting)
And so I thought about it a lot as you can imagine. And after all of that heavy thinking, remembering how I didn't buy into the DVD format until I could record my own on a Linux box (it never worked for me in that other operating system, strange?).
And so I will buy a 50 Gig DVD next whatever it is when I read a review here or in Linux Journal or somewhere in the open source world that the drivers work with the current kernal and I can burn and ISO image of my own choosing onto this new drive.
It is a simple test for a storage format that it ought to be work in many worlds. Otherwise it is a playback device and not useful for computing at all but only for playing back the owned content of someone else.
It seems to me that the harddrive is the only real large format storage that the masses can still have an used in a way that is just for our own purposes and not for the purposes of the great hordes of money mongering consumer baiting corporate trolls out there at their trade shows and telling the world how they invented video, audio, the word urge, what ever.
Anyone who cares what the corporate money launderers for the venture money whores thinks is wasting their time. Bill Gates, you can kiss my ass.
Re:Indeed (Score:4, Interesting)
But for hardware companies, it's a totally different story. Where do you go with a product that has hundreds of parts yet sells for $29 at WalMart? There can't be any profit in it. Worse yet, the expensive DVD players hardly work any better than the cheapies. So for the hardware comapanies, I'd say the DVD player is "done", or "dead," or whatever you want to call it. They must be itching for the next big thing.
Re:DVD is going to stick around (Score:2, Interesting)
in the coming months and years, this is going to be a new challange for the consumer electronics market: what happens when your products are already so good, that when you make them better, it is humanly impossilbe to notice? dvds are relatively new, but the industry is already calling them dead. cds have been around since the 80's, and though the industry has introduced two competeing formats, sacd and dvd audio, no one is buying either for the same reason. I have excellent hearing, and I have one dvd audio disc, with which I'm pretty sure (not certain) that I can hear a difference in sound quality. it's so slight however, that I wouldn't even consider spending extra money. indeed I rip cds into a lossy format anyway usually mp3's at 192kbps. 128 is crap, but 192 gets into that same range where I'm not even certain I can hear a difference.
who's going to pay extra for high quality media when the "low" quality media already breaks the limit of many people's senses?
so of course it has to be all marketing from here, since they have to manage to sell a product that for all intensive purposes the consumer already has, and has no need for a spare.
when I set up the aformentioned sound system, I found I had failed to get all of the cables nessicary, I need another component video if I wanted to be able to switch video and audio sources just by pressing one button. at this point I have five remote controlls to keep track of already, so I figured I would spend the money to consolidate one more feature. I also needed an audio cable for my hi-def cable box. it already sounded sweet with analog, but not quite at the level of dvds (which if the programming supports it, it now is), so I dropped by circut city to pick one up. at cambridge soundworks, they just handed me a coaxil cable to use with my dvd player. it was just one cable, they didn't give me options, and this didn't suprise me for a digtial cable; if you were getting cable loss on a usb cord, would you accept it as a trade off for not paying extra for higher quality cables? so when I went into circut city looking for optical audio cables (my cable box doesn't support coaxil), I assumed the only varations would be the lengths. they weren't, some were supposedly higher quality in some way, which might have made sense if they were analog, but even rock bottom quality digital cables should have perfect signal reproduction. I bought the cheapo, which being fiber optic cable, was still not so cheap. it sounds as good as it did in the store. monstercable, which was the only brand circut city carried, must not think much of consumers.