Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DVD vs BR-DVD -- live together 4 how long?

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Community » The Afterlife » DVD vs BR-DVD -- live together 4 how long? (Page 9)

This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Author

Topic: DVD vs BR-DVD -- live together 4 how long?

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-09-2011 12:50 PM

I agree, that article from Andrew Merey is flawed on a number of the points it claims to make against Blu-ray and totally misses other points on why DVD is already doomed. And how exactly is durhamregion.com an authority source on movie-related news and opinion?

On point #1: there is massive difference between the native resolution of Blu-ray and DVD. The 1080p level literally has 6 times the number of native pixels as 480p. That's 600% improvement. DVD only doubled resolution above what VHS could show.

Movies made half a century ago can look EXCELLENT on Blu-ray and far better than any DVD or VHS counterpart. The studio must do a proper job acquiring the film image into the digital realm and mastering it. They can't just reuse some old wobbly HD telecine master used for creating DVDs.

On point #2: Yes, Blu-ray players can play both DVDs and Blu-ray movies (as well as CDs and even other kinds of multimedia from attached hard discs or flash drives). Customers don't have to get rid of old DVDs and replace them with new copies on Blu-ray (although they will end up doing that with their favorites).

Unfortunately Blu-ray and DVD can't coexist so easy in stores. DVD is the odd-man out here. There's little if any profit in DVD players and DVD movies anymore. Blu-ray player prices have dropped to extremely affordable levels; many players are available under the $100 price point now. Lots of stores are increasing the foot print they give to Blu-ray hardware and shrinking space available to DVD-only players. Blu-ray movies are holding onto retail space in stores like Wal-Mart much longer than their counterparts on DVD. A not so new movie on Blu-ray might stick around in the $10 discount shelves for a long time while a few copies of its DVD version are lost within a pile of DVDs in a $5 bin.

On point #3: Sure, lots of people are satisfied with their DVDs and keep getting along with that old DVD player until it breaks. Walk into most electronics stores now, even the electronics section in Wal-Mart, and you'll find more Blu-ray players than ones that do DVD only. And as cheap as the last remaining DVD players are priced, it gives at least some customers a bit of pause on how crappy a DVD player it might be. For another $20-$50 they can at least move up to an entry level Blu-ray player. Many of these DVD only users already have a flat screen TV capable of showing HD content.

In addition to declining profitability for retailers I think DVD is under a growing threat from video on demand. The old format is under a far greater threat from this than Blu-ray.

No VOD movie streaming service or any other cable/broadcast service really matches the audio-video quality levels of Blu-ray. But they can match or out do the audio-video quality levels offered by DVD.

If DVD quality is "good enough" for lots of people, why bother going to the video store to get it? Sign up for an "all that you can eat" Netflix account and stream movies to your heart's content.

With rising gasoline prices as well as cable/satellite companies raising their fees I think streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus are going to get a lot more popular. Their popularity and popularity of other upstarts will grow as Internet bandwidth and speed improves.

Serious movie collectors are or already have moved up to Blu-ray. Those who don't want to upgrade aren't necessarily so loyal to DVD either. Many of those customers will leave for PPV and VOD alternatives out of instant convenience and not having to burn up fuel driving to the store.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.