The future of regular DVDs
You may be among those out there who are perfectly content with watching regular DVDs on your standard DVD player.
You have no urge to blow hundreds of dollars on one of those Blu-Ray high definition players you've been hearing a lot about lately. Besides, you don't have high definition TV, so what's the point? And you might be a wee bit suspicous: are manufacturers forcing new products upon us by making our existing ones obsolete for no good reason so they can make money? That's just the thing a co-worker wondered. OK, he's still angry he bought an HD DVD player, muttering something about using it as a doorstop. But it's a good question.
It will be at least five years, give or take, before manufacturers will stop making regular DVDs, one industry expert assured me. But hopefully by then, you'll be spending $50 on that hi-def. player, not $500.
What he says makes sense when you look at recent history. The VHS player's days were numbered as soon as DVD players started hitting store shelves in America in 1997. But both formats happily co-existed for years afterward.
It wasn't until 2001, four years after the DVD player was launched in the U.S., that dollar sales of DVDs surpassed that of VHS.
It just so happens I'm writing a story about this that will be in the News & Record newspaper (there will also be an online component) that focuses on Blu-Ray but also the growing number of choices you have when it comes to watching high definition content (streaming, downloading, recording, etc.).
And I also want to answer this question: are predictions consumers will buy Blu-Ray players now that the format war has been settled coming true? Will you be spending that rebate check on one? Or, nah, you're happy with your current DVD player.
Plus what industry experts say will be the best time to buy a Blu-Ray player.
Interested in being quoted in the story? Give me a call at 373-3465 or shoot me an e-mail.
Comments (2)
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You know, the wife and I just ridded ourself of our VCRs after not taping or watch anything on them in over a year. We have a $40 DVD player that mainly spins kids shows and movies onto an analoge set we bought in 2000 and works just fine thank you.
Blueray players are going to have to dip below $100 before I even bother to look at one, because franky Tigger and Pooh don't look all that much better in hi def.
Posted on March 21, 2008 10:41 AM
Here's something you need to realize - High Definition has only been around for a few years. Standard Definition has been with us for over half a century. It takes time and lots of money to transfer film and video recorded in standard definition to high definition, HD Guru Mark Cuban once said it was nearly $100,000 per half hour to do a real conversion.
As long as people have cable and satellite that naturally feeds the standard definition television sets, there is no reason to worry about DTV or HDTV for now. (Forget the analog turn-off - it only affects people still getting TV over the air - less than 20% of our area.)
Regarding HD-DVD players, most do much better playing back and up-converting standard DVDs to HD monitors. Plus you can always watch the standard DVD in the car, on the road, in your PC, whereever weithout having to lug around that 50 inch TV set.
Posted on March 21, 2008 3:42 PM