DVDs Are on Their Way Out

[grieve]

no kidding DVD's are on there way out!
Unless you have been living in the forest you should have known this two/three years ago when the HD-DVD/B-Ray battle began.

Blue-ray will replace DVD eventualy, it is inevitable. Blockbuster WILL NOT have stores to rent movies from anymore. You will download movies.

The question is WHEN? 1yr? 2yr? 3yr?

My guess is 3 years.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Here we go go again. Another major change coming and I don't even have a blue ray player.

 

[climber]

Netflix may offer unlimited streaming, but your ISP will nail you to the wall when your data usage goes over your allocation for the month. I'd rather have content that I can watch infinitely with no additional charge to me and streaming content sucks for picture quality, let alone when MS comes out with a fix, patch, update, whatever that makes your decoding of videos so glitchy and shaky that you want to throw your PC out the window. I'll take physical media any day.

 

[redgarl]

I have nothing against streaming, but the ISPs are already giving bandwith limits for downloads. So, someone streaming 13 movies will have more than 100GB of downloads which easily break almost any ISP download limit.

 

[steiner666]

whats a... DVD?

haven't had or wanted an optical drive of any sort in my rig for a good 4 years now

 

[agentjon]

Climber you hit this exactly.

 

[TunaSoda]

I myself stream movies & shows but if I really like a movie/show I want the hardcopy everytime.

Netflix streaming is way better if you don't make the mistake of "upgrading" the player to the silverlight version, once it's upgraded, you cannot go back 🙁

 

[LATTEH]

now only if we could rent Games digitaly

 

[jestern]

What was the purpose of this 'news tidbit?' A bit of free market research for someone or what? Sure, some of the people who have and can afford unlimited broadband have a new option where it comes to viewing movies online. I don't think this in anyway poses a threat to the dominance of DVD rentals anytime soon. And Blu-Ray was always a videophile format IMO and offers little more compared to DVDs.

I'm agreeing with D_Kuhn. A physical medium for rentals will be around for awhile to come. Not everyone has or can afford broadband and streaming has a number of drawbacks: You can't easily view the movie whenever or whereever you might want, You don't get access to other features that are on a DVD (alternate scenes, commentaries, etc.), the quality of the decoding and hence the viewing is bound to be varied depending on the equipment used and how its setup and its just too 'iffy'...too many things can go wrong to interrupt your movie experience; whether it be net-congestion, a virus, some miscellaneous or hard to disagnose computer hiccup, etc.

Of course, if you could download a movie or movies ahead of time to your HD and view them at your whim that might work, (Maybe queueing a number of selections to download while you're web surfing, AFK, etc.) though everyone would balk at the DRM such a scheme would inevitably require.

And just admit it, its a minor pain to leave the house to pick up a movie, but it gives you a *perfect* excuse to drop by the store for whatever snackies you might feel like. And you probably need the exercise anyway you loafer.

 

[pharge]

Is streaming a nice idea or not is all dependent on the user groups. Streamin download is a good replacement for renting movies if the person has good enough internet access.

However for people who like to own the movies, a BD + digital copy is a much better choice. If people know when to buy a new movie, a BD+digital copy is ~$20-25 for new release movies and $9-$14 for an older movie. For this price, it comes with 1080p, DoblyTrueHD, extras, freedom to watch it on the go on your ipod/zune, freedom to play in any BD eq player/computer/PS3, nobody will tell you how many devices are you allowed to play on this movie, you will actually "own" the movie, no backup required, with "right" software it is also possible for us to back it up. When you are tired of the movie, you can even sale it to your friends, on eBay, or other placers, on some extreme condition you can actually use it for decoing your room, frisby, ninja weapons, or making it in to a clock..lol

Anyway... if people likes to rent their movies, streaming can be great... but if people like to own the movies and have a 1080p HDTV/monitor (and of course a BD playing device)... then BD+digital copy will be the way to go. In the mean time... DVDs will still be on the market for a while.

By the way, I know we can upscale DVD on HDTV very well these days... but how about the downloaded SD movies? I believe they stay SD no matter what.. correct?

 

[pharge]

By the way, for the people who get their own movies from teh "alternative" routes (which is usually..."free"), you can forget my comments above. Since with a nice "bay", neighter streaming service, DVDs, or BD, or digital copy, will mean anything to you.

No matter who wins.. it will never be "free" of charge.

 

[Guest]

I watch old movies on Hulu in 480p, and they don't look too shabby on my 32" TV. Streams using Move Networks (e.g. Fox's website) look almost as good as the 720p broadcasts. If they could offer the same service for new movies, I would definitely be interested. I know you can rent movies from Amazon and the like, but right now their prices are higher than what my local mom-and-pop video store charges.

 

[wiyosaya]

I think that the reader of this article has to consider just who is saying that DVDs are on their way out and that Blu-ray is not the replacement. Streaming is something that I could see that Netflix would want to have as their costs are likely substantially lower to stream than to buy and send any "hard media" to a customer. In theory, Netflix can charge just as much for streaming as they did for the hard media model, but since their costs are significantly lower, they make more money.

As I see it, that is what this article is about, a way for Netflix to make more money, and they are hoping that people will listen to the whisper that DVDs are on their way out which would then hasten the "chase" to streaming media and more money for Netflix.

 

[hakesterman]

This artical is just plain stupid. Dvd's aren't going anywhere anytime soon, probably another 5 years. Bluray sales continue to climb, Bluray increased 105 percent from last year, and analists say it will increase over 225 percent by next year. Streaming Video is not a great service, yes it handy for those who don't want to go get a movie. But the Video Quality stinks compared to Bluray and you can only watch your streaming video once on a rental. Bluray is sweet cause it's always there for you at top end quality and it never pauses or skips like streaming Video. Those who can't afford Bluray yet, don't worry your DVD's aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Dave_69]

Anybody care to comment on a Roku or Vudu box? I'm undecided which one I want.

 

[gorehound]

I buy DVD's and watch them and I have no intention of ever buying movies or TV shows in a digital DRM FRAKKEN FILE !!! I would rather ripoff that industry and pirate away.And that is not where I want to go.I refuse to buy ebooks either.When I purchase a product I want it to be mine not some company somewhere like amazon deleting 1984 or a DRM server that wont work.
i WANT PHYSICAL MEDIA THINGS.
and not sony blu-ray expensive krap that doesnot look much better than my OPPO 1080P on a plasma tv.

 

[plm999]

Net Flix "on demand" is only good for the most hard up of situations, like if you're stuck in a hotel room in Japan with CNN World as the only English channel. The video quality is poor the audio isn't any better, and the selection of content is pretty limited.

Hulu has decent enough video for catching up on cartoons and sit-coms, but still, the audio sub-par, and only stereo.

I don't know of a single online service doing multichannel audio, or even very good stereo. Maybe OK for the speakers on my laptop, but not nearly good enough for my living room.

After getting used to the lossless audio on Blu-ray, even the broadcast audio on cable is getting hard to take.

Streaming can get there, (and will), eventually, especially with DOCSIS 3 rolling out, but until service prices drop, QOS improves, and the quality of the delivered product goes up, it's not gonna replace DVD or Blu-ray.

I don't see how anyone can be bagging on Blu-ray growth. In the current (read CRAP) economy, Blu-ray has still grown over 80% year on year.

(And yes, I have 20 Mbps download Internet, and NO it isn't good enough to even replace SD cable, much less DVD, and certainly not Blu-ray).

 

[CoryInJapan]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]why would streaming be popular now? cable and sat companies offered pay per view movies and also on demand for years now and people still go out and get the DVD copy of the movie.[/citation]

That sucks man I get 16mb cable For 45 bucks a month. 55 if you dont have they're Cable tv service

 

[Guest]

Western digital has that box for $100 that you can hook up to regular tv or HDtv or HDMI etc and it has a remote and you can just rip your dvd to it and plug in other hdd with usb ports... why own bluray? things like this make it much better and you don't even have to get up and change the disc. This is the future, files that meet resultion standards and good audio support. Although I think I read somewhere that bluray capacity will be expanding to something really big next year so it may still live on as a long term storage medium.

 

[ottozero]

Streaming is the future, but it will share that future with Blu-Ray the Last Optical Physical Format people will need (25-100gb). As for netflix not looking good, it depends on you Internet Connection speed, I got 20mb and it Looks great, even while playing WOW.