The looming death of DVD?
August 8th, 2008 at 11:14am Will Pfeifer
There’s an interesting Crosstalk feature over at the Onion AV Club examining the future of the DVD format – specifically, is there a future for it at all? The general consensus? Don’t toss out your player just yet, though with Blu-Ray, Video on Demand and all sorts of other crazy technology lurking aroud the corner, it might not be long before its obsolete.
Writer Scott Tobias sums up my fears over the Great Format Switchover so perfectly, I could’ve written this sentence myself:
“These days, I gaze up at the towering wall of DVDs in my home … and it’s like a looming existential crisis. Why oh why did I invest so much time and energy (and money, though far less than non-professional critic might have spent) accumulating hundreds upon hundreds of DVDs that are going to look eight-track tapes to my infant daughter one day?”
Why indeed? Probably because, nearly obsolete or not, I still love those damn discs!
Any thoughts?
Entry Filed under: home video
3 Comments Add your own
1. Jerry | August 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
As for new titles, I will only buy them on Blu-Ray. I’ve also already sold off over half of my 1200 DVD’s and replaced a bunch of my favorites with their Blu-Ray couterparts. BUT only if they have comparable extras/supplements. I realize most of the extras on Blu-rays aren’t in HD yet, but I still like watching all the “making of’s” and it seems most of the Blu-Rays are a bit lacking in that department.
We did a home side-by-side comparison of 2001:ASO (one of my first Blu-Ray purchases) between the regular DVD and Blu-Ray and it really woke me up to how much clearer and rich the Blu-Ray disc was. I saw a new transfer, 70mm 2001 print on an IMAX screen a few years ago and it looked better on Blu-Ray than it did there.
Except much, much smaller of course.
2. Brian M | August 8th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
DVD ain’t go anywhere anytime soon.
Video on Demand/downloading/electronic files/whatever you wanna call it - the fact is people want to have something in their hands. They want to knw they physically own something and it can’t just disappear in a computer crash or a corrupted file. Plus they jsut like being able to look and browse at a collection as opposed to a list on a screen. So while to some extent people may use downloading, it’s not gonna be a DVD killer.
Blu-Ray is the newest, hottest format the studios want to sell us on. Of course they do. People have bought the majority of movies they’re ever gonna buy except for newly released stuff. So how do we get them to buy it all AGAIN? A new format! Sure it’s prettier, crisper, cleaner… but the difference in quality and content from DVD to Blu-Ray is DRASTICALLY smaller than the leap from VHS to DVD. People had a reason to upgrade then. Now, it’s not a necessary leap. Standard DVD offers great picture and sound and is plenty good enough for most people.
What made DVD catch on was the quality and the price. So until the price drops dramatically on both the hardware and software sides, DVD is here for a long time to come.
3. hokumboy | August 10th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
DVD is more than good enough for this old tri-spectacled coot. But, I’m from the generation that watched “Soldiers of Fortune” and “Roustabouts” on a 13in B/W and someone had to stand at a specific spot in the room to get decent reception.
I can’t quite fathom the idea of dumping my DVD’s for Blu-Ray. Or, even the paying double the cost for a Blu-Ray edition of a new release seems a bit foolish. In fact, my 32in analog set will do just fine until it bites the dust. But, that’s me.
I’ve always had the idea that, to save the market for the physical copy of films, the film companies should offer DVD copies for sale to ticket holders in the lobby AFTER the film was shown. I’m willing to bet the sales of the DVD would increase greatly and the loss in attendance would be negligible.
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