Blu-rays are 8 years old and DVDs still cling to them like a cancerous tumor. Why?

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

And yet after all these years it remains the format of choice for most consumers. It must be doing something right.

There are obvious reasons as to why this is though. Dvd has been around for almost a decade longer than Blu-ray, where a large majority of homes have multiple dvd players in them, many of which were bought before the existence of Blu-ray. What keeps DVD relevant is the amount of players that are out there in comparison to Blu-ray players. Hypothetically speaking, if everyone was given the option to upgrade all existing dvd players in their home to Blu-ray players for free, then a large percentage of people would likely start buying Blu-ray's over the dvd counterpart, and Blu-ray would become the dominate format just like that.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by coljohnmatrix

DVD pales in every measurable way to blu-ray in quality and reliability,but it's cheaper and simpler (its ONLY positives).

DVD has other advantages as well. Loading times are quicker and far more movies are viable to release on the format (which is why DVD still releases five times as many titles per year). Plus you have the back library of over 100k releases.

DVD is also able to release on DVD-r, making virtually any release viable. Warner Fox and Universal DVD archive programs release hundreds of new-to-DVD every year, that otherwise would not be possible with pressed discs. They can't do it on Blu-ray because there are too many incompatible players out there. So that limitation really throttles what's viable, not to mention that the more exacting standards of Blu-ray means that they need to be remastered and cleaned up more as 1080p brings out the flaws more.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Cevolution

There are obvious reasons as to why this is though. Dvd has been around for almost a decade longer than Blu-ray, where a large majority of homes have multiple dvd players in them, many of which were bought before the existence of Blu-ray. What keeps DVD relevant is the amount of players that are out there in comparison to Blu-ray players. Hypothetically speaking, if everyone was given the option to upgrade all existing dvd players in their home to Blu-ray players for free, then a large percentage of people would likely start buying Blu-ray's over the dvd counterpart, and Blu-ray would become the dominate format just like that.

I think anybody interested in Blu-ray and willing to pay more for their movies, would not let having to buy a $50 player hold them back. Even if every player were a Blu-ray player, DVD would still be around because it releases so much of what is not viable to release on Blu-ray. That is a limitation of Blu-ray and is why I said that both formats will be around and will always complement each other as long as they are around.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by coljohnmatrix

DVD is at least partially responsible for the downfall of the videostore, in my opinion. We had to re-shape our entire business strategy around damaged discs. Kids movies? Forget it. Parents apparently couldn't be bothered to make sure their kids didn't use DVDs as toys, dinner plates or chew toys for their dog. If we got 20 copies of say, Wall-E, by the end of the first month, we'd lose 15-20% of those discs to damage. AT LEAST. Not light scratches - cracks, discs broken in half, deep scratches everywhere. And those are just ones we noticed. On average, 5-6 times per day customers would bring back damaged DVDs they rented and demand a refund. So they paid roughly $4 and had to make 2 trips to a store that could conceivably be 10-15 minutes away, just to rent a movie they couldn't watch, or got halfway through and had to stop and explain to their kids why they couldn't finish it. Yeah, what a wonderful technology and sustainable business model!

Very interesting perspective on having DVD do in the video rental stores. I agree it was partially that and the fact that sell through became so popular that people didn't have as much need to rent. Going in the video stores I could tell they were having trouble adapting to the new format as it seemed like VHS was really lingering there longer than it should have. I also agree that DVD is not a very good rental format, especially for children, because of the more fragile and exposed nature of the media.

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I think anybody interested in Blu-ray and willing to pay more for their movies, would not let having to buy a $50 player hold them back. Even if every player were a Blu-ray player, DVD would still be around because it releases so much of what is not viable to release on Blu-ray. That is a limitation of Blu-ray and is why I said that both formats will be around and will always complement each other as long as they are around.

In my hypothetical example, I did state "people would likely start buying Blu-ray's over the dvd counterpart", meaning, when said title is available on both formats, I think this was quite clear. Obviously this doesn't apply to titles that are only released on one of the formats, therefore clearly dvd would still be around for less popular titles and tv series, I never stated otherwise. Just that overall Blu-ray would become the dominate format if this were to occur, for new releases as well many catalogue titles, as the majority of the most popular catalogue titles amongst the masses have already been released on Blu-ray (and many of which are cheaper on Blu-ray than they are on DVD, at least where I am from). In reality, people are not going to be given Blu-ray players for free, so of course the cost involved to upgrade players is what is going to discourage a lot of people (particularly if families were to upgrade all of the dvd players in their homes, this simply wouldn't be a $50 exercise like you stated).

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Cevolution

In my hypothetical example, I did state "people would likely start buying Blu-ray's over the dvd counterpart", meaning, when said title is available on both formats, I think this was quite clear. Obviously this doesn't apply to titles that are only released on one of the formats, therefore clearly dvd would still be around for less popular titles and tv series, I never stated otherwise. Just that overall Blu-ray would become the dominate format if this were to occur, for new releases as well many catalogue titles, as the majority of the most popular catalogue titles amongst the masses have already been released on Blu-ray (and many of which are cheaper on Blu-ray than they are on DVD, at least where I am from). In reality, people are not going to be given Blu-ray players for free, so of course the cost involved to upgrade players is what is going to discourage a lot of people (particularly if families were to upgrade all of the dvd players in their homes, this simply wouldn't be a $50 exercise like you stated).

Yes of course for new popular releases if everyone had a Blu-ray player, then most of the sales on those would definitely be on Blu-ray. That already happens now on regular basis on certain genres. How much more it would be though is anyone's guess.

But I don't think the studios care much at all about which format people buy, as long as they buy something. If they did, then they would have been far more aggressive in phasing out DVD.

[Gendo Ikari]

I think I would have used the analogy "Blu-rays are 8 years old and DVDs still cling to them like fat to a Mother-in-law. Why?", but that's just me...

[Josh B]

Originally Posted by coljohnmatrix

Most consumers aren't tech savvy enough to understand how to do things like upgrade the firmware to their blu-ray player, or even know what firmware is.

They just want to pop in a movie and watch it. They don't care about AV quality or blu-ray live or lossless audio or special features. When I worked at Blockbuster, I had numerous customers who were renting PS3 games ask for a blu-ray player recommendation, and I had to explain to them that they already had one. See also: people not understanding that blu-ray players play DVDs, not understanding that they won't get 1080p picture on an old CRT television, not understanding that HDMI sends video and audio, etc. etc.

I understand consumer ignorance towards new technology, but reading is easy and information is free.

DVD pales in every measurable way to blu-ray in quality and reliability,but it's cheaper and simpler (its ONLY positives). Why do you think people spend $100s of extra dollars on poorly-integrated SMART tvs instead of hooking up a $49 Roku?

What the hell is firmware? </sar>

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Josh B

What the hell is firmware? </sar>

You don't know what firmware is? Firmware are software updates for hardware which fix bugs or other known issues. Before firmware you either had to send your hardware in for repair or you had to purchase a new piece of hardware to fix said issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmware

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by Josh B

What the hell is firmware? </sar>

Originally Posted by rdodolak

You don't know what firmware is? Firmware are software updates for hardware which fix bugs or other known issues. Before firmware you either had to send your hardware in for repair or you had to purchase a new piece of hardware to fix said issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmware

I think the </sar> means he's being sarcastic. But I could be wrong.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

I think the </sar> means he's being sarcastic. But I could be wrong.

Maybe I'm missing it but what "</sar>" as I'm not seeing it on my end.

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Maybe I'm missing it but what "</sar>" as I'm not seeing it on my end.

Either turn up the brightness on your monitor, or adjust the colors. It's in Turquoise.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Either turn up the brightness on your monitor, or adjust the colors. It's in Turquoise.

I see where it is now on my tablet. Either way it was an poor choice of color since it blends in with the light gray color but something tells me that was intentional.

[Krelldog1977]

Originally Posted by Funcha

So if 4K releases have DTS-MA, the format will be a failure to audiophiles? Explain please.

If 4k releases have no IMPROVEMENT in audio fidelity over Blu-ray then why upgrade? How would that be enticing to an audiophile?

Blu-ray has become so successful because the new lossless codecs are far better than the old standard on DVDs ( Dolby Digital. )

The jump from 1080i to 1080p was also nice, but the main attraction was the lossless audio. And that's why Blu-ray will endure for many years.

[Funcha]

How do you improve audio fidelity beyond lossless though? I could see pushing for 96 or 192 kHz as a possibility but anything recorded previously in 48 kHz it may or may not be worthwhile to uprezz.

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

The jump from 1080i to 1080p was also nice, but the main attraction was the lossless audio. And that's why Blu-ray will endure for many years.

Are you implying that DVD had 1080i? Because the resolution ranged from 480i to 480p, depending on the capabilities of the DVD player and which cables you use (composite or component).

[Krelldog1977]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Are you implying that DVD had 1080i? Because the resolution ranged from 480i to 480p, depending on the capabilities of the DVD player and which cables you use (composite or component).

DVD does have 1080i up scaling and it performs quite well depending on your TV and setup. Who would use composite in todays market? HDMI is the only way to go.

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

DVD does have 1080i up scaling and it performs quite well depending on your TV and setup. Who would use composite in todays market? HDMI is the only way to go.

Upscalng by putting a DVD in a Blu-ray Disc player doesn't count as "true DVD resolution" — if you meant up scaling, you should have said so to avoid confusion. And since DVD players don't typically have HDMI connections, you can understand why I said what I said in choice of cables.

If you don't say things correctly, how do you expect people to give correct feedback on your comments.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Funcha

How do you improve audio fidelity beyond lossless though? I could see pushing for 96 or 192 kHz as a possibility but anything recorded previously in 48 kHz it may or may not be worthwhile to uprezz.

For analog sourced soundtracks, you can get a great improvement going from 48 KHz to 192 KHz, but you are right when you say that almost every current release is stuck at 48 KHz. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to upsample it, though.

If they wanted to, they could go to 32-bit sampling or use DSD or something like that, but in reality I don't see any improvement on the audio end for 4KBD. Maybe at the least they could mandate 24-bit sample rates as a minimum standard?

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

DVD does have 1080i up scaling and it performs quite well depending on your TV and setup. Who would use composite in todays market? HDMI is the only way to go.

Gotta say, you are the 1st I ever heard say that the best improvement with BD is sound, video being a small plus for you. In no way can even the best and expensive upconverters dish out anything close to BD. As for the sound, while not trivial, many do play their BDs over their TV or a little sound bar, etc.

And, to answer your comment on audio, better is on its way. Nothing clear yet but real time object-based sound is in the works. If your curious about it just Google it, but the way the sound is mixed and processed will adapt to your specific setup as the aim is to place the "objects" in the sound field. If you have 5.1 it will use that to situate that sound. Go to 11.4 and it will just be more precise.

I do have to say, you are very affirmative for someone who seems to not know that much. I really don't mean to be rude, really, but do some more research and reading before you claim things, it's a great world to navigate through.