Remember how well DVD was doing back in 1999? *GREAT READ*

[jj5206]

i got my first DVD player for christmas in 2001. It was a KLH, and it still works great! I have it upstairs. I remember i wanted one so bad and my dad got one for 200 bucks and got me Mission Impossible 2 and Shanghai Noon. Then later that day my grandma got me The Perfect Storm. Now i am up to around 200 something. But i have stopped and probably wont buy much more. I am actually selling a few off now.

[Ernest Rister]

I remember how huge the Disney news was at the time in 99.

Yeah -- and then the guy who was responsible for the DVD releases got fired 9 months later when the Disney discs failed to move a lot of units. The "limited edition" releases dumped several of Disney's biggest all-time hits on the DVD market within 3-4 months, using old masters previously created for VHS/laserdisc, with no enhancements for wide-screen tvs with their "letterbox" titles, plus they had very high price points, and little to no features. My wife still makes fun of the phrase "full color artwork printed on the disc" that Disney tried to use as a bonus feature.

[PS3FAN]

My dad got us dvd player around 1999 - 2000 (can't remember). It was a Toshiba And our first dvd was the matrix. We bought the dvd before the player. LOL. It going to be fun looking back at bluray years from now.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

I remember the early days of DVD. I got my first player when I graduated high school in 1998, using the graduation gift money that I got. I think I payed just under $400 for a floor model, it was a Panasonic. It actually still works and it's currently at my parents' house in their basement.

It definately seems that Blu-Ray as a whole is already ahead of the game compared to where DVD was at the same point in it's life-span. Disc sales alone seem to be higher now than they were with DVD at the same point.

But, there are a couple of things that I need to point out/question...

Originally Posted by SBrooks1

Notable comparisions...

~ DVD putting Divx out of business like Blu-ray did with HD DVD

I personally think the Blu-Ray victory is a bigger deal than the DVD victory for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, as bad of an idea as HD-DVD may have been and while many around here feel that it never had a chance to defeating Blu-Ray, I do feel that HD-DVD was a much bigger threat to Blu-Ray than Divx EVER was to DVD.

For one thing, Divx was about 100 times as stupid of an idea as HD-DVD was on it's worst day (and it's not that I am defeding HD-DVD, but I'm just really pointing out how TERRIBLE the whole concept behind Divx was). The idea that you go into a store, 'buy' a disc for a low price, but than have to pay to rewatch it after the first day or two of use, was just moronic and had no chance of lasting in the long run.

Plus, the Divx players weren't a completely separate entity from DVD. They played both DVD discs and Divx discs. So regardless of whether or not someone would even choose to give Divx a chance, they were still buying a DVD player anyway, and it would therefore really not prove to be that much of a threat to DVD anyway, even if by some miracle it had become more successful than it actually did.

~ Blu-ray is predicted to have 10 million player sales in it's 3rd year - By contrast, just 1.58 million DVD players were sold in that format's third year on the market in 1999[/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, does this statistic include all PS3's out there being counted as a Blu-Ray player? I don't deny that Blu-Ray is doing better than DVD was at the same point in it's life, but if this number includes ALL PS3's, then I don't feel it is very accurate.

While the PS3 has done A LOT for Blu-Ray's success, not everyone who owns one is using it for that purpose, so counting them in the overall total of Blu-Ray players sold just doesn't seem like a fair and accurate way of crunching the numbers.

[crxvtec]

My first DVD player was the PS2 about 2 month after it launched. First movies were Aliens and Heat( cant wait for those on Blu). My 9 year old son loves the predator and alien movies, any of them.

[Frumious Boojum]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

My wife still makes fun of the phrase "full color artwork printed on the disc" that Disney tried to use as a bonus feature.

Just slightly worse than "Interactive Menus," which is still used as a special feature.

The worst thing about the Disney animated releases is that the VHS of Pinocchio had a making-of featurette, the DVD didn't. I remember Leonard Maltin remarking how odd that was in his review of the discs.



Speaking of the PS2 helping boost DVD into popularity.... PS2 is basically suffering in the same way that PS3 did. PS2 may have sold a bit better than the PS3 did, but as for games -- we're seeing all of the same complaints about PS3 that we did for the PS2. We got the PS2 -- then people played mostly PS1 games for a couple years after because of the lack of great games. We'll get more eventually. PS3 could still pass the success of the PS2 is we give that a chance, too.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Frumious Boojum

Just slightly worse than "Interactive Menus," which is still used as a special feature.

The worst thing about the Disney animated releases is that the VHS of Pinocchio had a making-of featurette, the DVD didn't. I remember Leonard Maltin remarking how odd that was in his review of the discs.



Speaking of the PS2 helping boost DVD into popularity.... PS2 is basically suffering in the same way that PS3 did. PS2 may have sold a bit better than the PS3 did, but as for games -- we're seeing all of the same complaints about PS3 that we did for the PS2. We got the PS2 -- then people played mostly PS1 games for a couple years after because of the lack of great games. We'll get more eventually. PS3 could still pass the success of the PS2 is we give that a chance, too.

Well, the PS3 was a large factor in the death of HD-DVD. For that, I'll always be grateful to the PS3.