Doesn't it make sense to begin quietly killing off DVD?

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

Dude, even from a biological perspective, that isn't correct. Stop dicking around and own up to your own statements.

I'm at a complete loss. Wow... So death is not final?

Awesome. Now you're stooping to insulting my responses for being thorough.

No, for being so thouroughly wrong.

Again, you're beating up a single example in representation of an argument based on an industry-wide trend. If that isn't cherrypicking, I don't know what is.

Now this is just idiotic now. I showed where you were not only wrong, I even showed where I wasn't "cherry-picking" prices. You choose to continue bringing this up. Just admit your assertion about Criterion was wrong and move on. I am, I've more than proven my point. If only because you had to resort to "cherry-picking" an OOP title to make your point.

Are you capable of punctuating a sentence without the rude use of a smiley?

Yes.

What does the length of my response have to do with its validity?

Nothing. You could have been just as wrong without being so long-winded.

Tell me where I've intentionally "misinterpreted" your argument.

I believe I already have.

As far as I can tell, it's very black-and-white: you believe DVD will be gone in 3 or 4 years, and your only evidence for this is the success of blu-ray.

No, I believe it's viability as the mainstream format may be over by then. I never said it would be gone. You seem to be the one dealing in absolutes. Hell, Hong Kong still has VCD, I'd imagine in some areas DVD will hang around indefinitely. But as far as Hollywood goes I don't see it.

I think you are very wrong, and I don't need to distort anything to present my disagreement.

Then stop doing it.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

They will if that's the only option.

Just like with the hardware. If eventually the only hardware available is BD players, consumers will unwittingly be "forced" into upgrading.


If there is only one edition available, there is no concept of "paying more". When Disney puts out their Diamond edition of their classic animated canon and don't make the DVD-only edition available to begin with, TONS of people buy the BD combo pack instead, not realizing they're "paying more", and probably not even realizing the Trojan horse Disney has gotten into their homes.

And for example, Amazon has the following up for pre-order:

Beauty and the Beast Blu-ray combo in Blu-ray packaging: 25.99
Beauty and the Beast Blu-ray combo in DVD packaging:26.49
Beauty and the Beast 2 disc DVD: 19.49

The trick? The DVD-only edition isn't available until over a month later. And Disney films have a longstanding history for being expensive, so when the typical consumer walks into Best Buy and sees Beauty and the Beast on "DVD" for ~25 bucks, they'll buy it, not realizing that what they've really bought is a BD combo package and that if they waited 6 weeks, they could save 5 dollars and avoid getting the Blu-ray. It's only a matter of time before Disney drops the DVD-only edition though and makes it so that if a person wants to buy these classic films, they need to buy a BD edition to do so.

Perhaps the most hilarious thing of all is that the BD in BD packaging is less expensive than the BD in DVD packaging, which can give the illusion that BD is a cheaper product than DVD.

agree, sorry if I was not more precise. Since the discussion was about Avatar and blu2 brought up combos, I thought he might have been insinuating that the 50% was reached because DVD owners bought the combo packs.

You are right tht when there is only the combo people that want the DVD would get it. But on the other hand no one would look at the 100% and say wow look how well BD is doing.

It kind of does. A person who is going to buy a movie is going to pick either Blu-ray or DVD. They won't buy both. As support for BD grows, support for DVD shrinks. Each sale for BD is a sale that won't go to DVD that might other have. It's true that they can and will live together for quite some time, but with DVD's numbers falling and BD growing, eventually it will be in the major studio's best interest to no longer support producing multiple skus of the same title. Once BD makes up the majority of revenue on new release titles (it's very close in many cases!), studios will start to see dropping support for those releases as a viable choice to cut production costs.

we have been over and over with it with this guy. You can't pass that simple reality because he refuses to admit that DVD is not god

[blu2]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

agree, sorry if I was not more precise. Since the discussion was about Avatar and blu2 brought up combos, I thought he might have been insinuating that the 50% was reached because DVD owners bought the combo packs.

I didn't insinuate that at all.

But since you bring it up on Amazon.com the Avatar Blu-ray + DVD combo is currently selling for exactly the same price as the DVD. I can't imagine why anyone would buy a DVD if the combo is the same price or marginally higher. (The "UP" combo on Amazon is cheaper than the DVD!)

I'm sure some people buy combos if they think they will likely own a blu ray player at some point in the future.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Rob71

I'm at a complete loss. Wow... So death is not final?

No, for being so thouroughly wrong.

Now this is just idiotic now. I showed where you were not only wrong, I even showed where I wasn't "cherry-picking" prices. You choose to continue bringing this up. Just admit your assertion about Criterion was wrong and move on. I am, I've more than proven my point. If only because you had to resort to "cherry-picking" an OOP title to make your point.

I did move on, a long time ago. You're the one that keeps hammering the idea that by "proving me wrong" about the price of a Criterion title, you have by proxy "proven me wrong" about everything else. The price of a Criterion title doesn't have bugger-all to do with the survival of DVD.

Yes.

Nothing. You could have been just as wrong without being so long-winded.

I believe I already have.

No, I believe it's viability as the mainstream format may be over by then. I never said it would be gone. You seem to be the one dealing in absolutes. Hell, Hong Kong still has VCD, I'd imagine in some areas DVD will hang around indefinitely. But as far as Hollywood goes I don't see it.

Then stop doing it.

So, do you actually have a point, then? Or have you just been trolling through the thread looking for insignificant details to bicker with?
Never mind, I know the answer to that already.

Stop parading your insecurity. It's very easy to criticize everything and stand for nothing.

----------------------------------------

Anthony, if I thought DVD was "god", then I wouldn't buy so many blu-rays. Quit the hysterics and get your rabies shot already.

85% market share is a fact, not a fantasy. Blu-ray has been up for four years now; at this pace, in three more years it would only have about 25% market share, (I believe it will do better than that, especially if economic conditions change). 25% market share is not enough to kill off the format that has 75% market share. If you have some secret information about the intentions of the video industry, then great, you win; but based on what is known, you have no basis to attack people if they think DVD will hang on for another decade.

You have no proof that it will be gone in three years, and you haven't "proven me wrong" about anything. Your "prediction" is not iron-clad, stop acting like it is.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by blu2

I didn't insinuate that at all.

But since you bring it up on Amazon.com the Avatar Blu-ray + DVD combo is currently selling for exactly the same price as the DVD. I can't imagine why anyone would buy a DVD if the combo is the same price or marginally higher. (The "UP" combo on Amazon is cheaper than the DVD!)

people don't look for things they don't want. They will see BD and say "it is not for me", plus they where not the same price the first week

I'm sure some people buy combos if they think they will likely own a blu ray player at some point in the future.

agree, I made that point before, but if a guy buys the BD today and a player in Nov/Dec does it really matter?

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

I did move on, a long time ago. You're the one that keeps hammering the idea that by "proving me wrong" about the price of a Criterion title, you have by proxy "proven me wrong" about everything else. The price of a Criterion title doesn't have bugger-all to do with the survival of DVD.

When did you move on? After typing up this post?

There you go again. I never said that Criterion prices had "bugger-all" to do with the survival of DVD. You just have a problem admitting when you're wrong and this is your vain attempt at diverting attention from that fact. So if you have moved on this will thankfully be the last post on the subject. If not carry on, I've made my point and it's plain to see. Have a nice night.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

85% market share is a fact, not a fantasy.

prove it (I know, when you can't you will throw an other hissy fit and then complain about semantics.

Blu-ray has been up for four years now; at this pace, in three more years it would only have about 25% market share

BD has been roughly doubeling every year even if you start with 15% there is no way it won't be well beyond 25% in 3 years. Unless somethinbg majorly bad for BD happens it should be at 25% (using the same method you got 15% today) by this time next year.

25% market share is not enough to kill off the format that has 75% market share.

agree.

If you have some secret information about the intentions of the video industry, then great, you win; but based on what is known, you have no basis to attack people if they think DVD will hang on for another decade.

I never attacked anyone for saying it will take a decade. Does it make any sense what so ever? no, but I never said anyone is wrong for predicting it and I dare to show where I attacked anyone for saying so. You are the only one attacking people. You just hate it when I point out that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Your "prediction" is not iron-clad, stop acting like it is.

I never said it is, that its the thing these are predictions, by d3efinition they can't be iron clad. If in 2012 the world ends obviously BD won't expand its penetration.

The issue you never prove any of your ants, you blasted Rob for showing that there is not a big difference between BD and DVD and then you added that some BDs are 30$ while the DVDs are 12$ and you could not come up with one real example. Afrobean asked you to prove that there are more PS3s then BD players and you could not prove that either, I just asked you to show that DVD is 85% and my guess you won't show that either.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

people don't look for things they don't want. They will see BD and say "it is not for me", plus they where not the same price the first week

I think it was a $5 difference on the release week, but I may be wrong. I don't know about you, but personally I'm always on the lookout for value. And an Avatar combo would have qualified even I only had a DVD player. I'm probably not alone.

agree, I made that point before, but if a guy buys the BD today and a player in Nov/Dec does it really matter?

This is all digression. My point was we can probably expect to see lots more combo offerings in the future, and eventually perhaps only combos for major releases at some point.

(Wouldn't it be great to have one SKU and end these debates on when Blu Ray will triumph and when DVD is done?)

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

85% market share is a fact, not a fantasy.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Look away from the industry at large and you'll see individual day and date titles, especially those that sell VERY well, hitting 30~40% on their first week, and either remaining around that amount of increasing in BD's favor in the trailing weeks.

There are a LOT of small titles available for DVD. This allows DVD to make larger revenue without individual titles selling as well as industry revenue indicates. So while the best selling title might make 50% on Blu-ray, DVD still makes larger revenue at large on the backs of hundreds of thousands of previously released titles. But those previous releases won't carry DVD indefinitely.

Blu-ray has been up for four years now; at this pace, in three more years it would only have about 25% market share

That might be 25% overall marketshare, but individual titles could be selling as high as 60% or more. And once they see individual titles selling that high of market share, FUTURE individual titles may begin to start dropping support for DVD. If they get 75% of people buying, say, Thor on Blu-ray, when it comes time to release The Avengers on home video, they may forgo a DVD release altogether, knowing that the ~25% or less of people who would have bought the DVD edition will be forced to buy the higher profit margin BD release. It doesn't matter if BD doesn't make it to over 50% of the industry market revenue; all it needs is individual new releases for the phasing out of DVD to begin.

You have no proof that it will be gone in three years

If one were to look at the adoption curve BD has seen and project it into the future, in three years time, BD will make up the majority of revenue for many new release titles. Once BD makes half the revenue from a new release title, studios will look toward actually phasing out DVD. The old releases will still be around on DVD for sometime and still bring in quite a bit of revenue, but on a per title basis, new releases make the most money, and that's where they will first eliminate DVD... not that they could reasonably do the alternative: they can't pull old DVDs from the shelf and replace them with old BDs, but they can easily just not release new DVDs and make the consumer "choose" the new BD instead.

[blueshadow | Kosty]

Or studios eventually can forgo entirely the DVD only version of new releases and eventually make day and date titles Blu-ray+DVD combos. One sku to ship and place in inventory. But thats going to be a transitional thing for a while as DVDs are so cheap to manufacture, so we are most likely to first see just less and less pure DVD versions being shipped out during the release week and the Blu-ray or Blu-ray+DVD combos being the expected residual sales inventory after the release week sales peak.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by blacklion

This has been a well and truly epic skewering of shillery Bravo, mjbethancourt


But seriously, you're attempting a polite conversation with people who have to argue the opposite for their daily bread and they know it. Time for a breather, I think - any sensible reader has already obtained excellent info from your posts.

Really, accusing someone of being a shill? If someone were getting paid to post wouldn't it make more sense to go to an, oh I don't know, HD site and constantly post FUD about DL(both legal and illegal) and talk down the adoption of Blu-ray... on a site called Blu-ray.com? Just saying. I mean you come here and call people nazis because they happen to like HD, have warm and fuzzy feelings for the people who illegally download films and have a hate/hate relationship when it comes to Hollywood. It just seems that in this economy a company wouldn't pay someone to "preach to the choir", they'd try to shake up the nest.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Rob71

When did you move on? After typing up this post?

There you go again. I never said that Criterion prices had "bugger-all" to do with the survival of DVD. You just have a problem admitting when you're wrong and this is your vain attempt at diverting attention from that fact. So if you have moved on this will thankfully be the last post on the subject. If not carry on, I've made my point and it's plain to see. Have a nice night.

So that's what this has all been about? Badgering me over "admitting I'm wrong" about something that I said weeks ago? Something that I admitted at the time was a facetious remark, which I dropped weeks ago because it didn't stand up to scrutiny? And you're still driving the issue that I'm somehow totally and eternally discredited because of it? What do you want, a trophy?

... Odd, I thought we were talking about DVD, but it turns out this whole time all you really want to talk about is me.

Here, I'll endulge you: I am an idiot and I am always wrong, because Rob "proved" that a wisecrack that I made two weeks ago was factually incorrect. Rob is always right, DVD's are more expensive than blu-rays, single examples trump data trends, and DVD will not exist in 3 years, in spite of any current evidence suggesting to the contrary.

Originally Posted by blacklion

This has been a well and truly epic skewering of shillery Bravo, mjbethancourt


But seriously, you're attempting a polite conversation with people who have to argue the opposite for their daily bread and they know it. Time for a breather, I think - any sensible reader has already obtained excellent info from your posts.

I don't think those guys have a professional stake in the argument, I think personality flaws are the cause. Apparently I'm crazy for thinking people should try to be civil when they disagree... or actually have a reason to disagree, other than just having an irrepressible antagonistic streak (trollery).

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Look away from the industry at large and you'll see individual day and date titles, especially those that sell VERY well, hitting 30~40% on their first week, and either remaining around that amount of increasing in BD's favor in the trailing weeks.

There are a LOT of small titles available for DVD. This allows DVD to make larger revenue without individual titles selling as well as industry revenue indicates. So while the best selling title might make 50% on Blu-ray, DVD still makes larger revenue at large on the backs of hundreds of thousands of previously released titles. But those previous releases won't carry DVD indefinitely.


That might be 25% overall marketshare, but individual titles could be selling as high as 60% or more. And once they see individual titles selling that high of market share, FUTURE individual titles may begin to start dropping support for DVD. If they get 75% of people buying, say, Thor on Blu-ray, when it comes time to release The Avengers on home video, they may forgo a DVD release altogether, knowing that the ~25% or less of people who would have bought the DVD edition will be forced to buy the higher profit margin BD release. It doesn't matter if BD doesn't make it to over 50% of the industry market revenue; all it needs is individual new releases for the phasing out of DVD to begin.


If one were to look at the adoption curve BD has seen and project it into the future, in three years time, BD will make up the majority of revenue for many new release titles. Once BD makes half the revenue from a new release title, studios will look toward actually phasing out DVD. The old releases will still be around on DVD for sometime and still bring in quite a bit of revenue, but on a per title basis, new releases make the most money, and that's where they will first eliminate DVD... not that they could reasonably do the alternative: they can't pull old DVDs from the shelf and replace them with old BDs, but they can easily just not release new DVDs and make the consumer "choose" the new BD instead.

I think the key statistic in "killing off DVD" is BD-players owned, not blu-ray market share of new releases. It's related, sure, but I don't think it is the determining factor. Studios are not going to stop releasing new titles on DVD until BD players are in almost every home, and by that I mean like more than 95%. I don't see why they would pull the plug if there's still a market for them, so as long as there is a chunk of the population that doesn't have BD players but does have DVD players, there is no reason not to continue exploiting that market. And since foreign markets are going to continue buying DVD for a long time, it stands to reason that they will continue making DVDs for them, so why not make a few more to sell to the U.S. market as well, even if it is dwindling.

So, I think the meaningful question is not "when will blu-ray dominate new release market-share?", but rather "when will BD players be in every home?" The only numbers I've found are old (winter), but they were 12 million U.S. Blu-ray households, versus 92 million DVD households. I don't know where that ratio stands now.

This an honest question, not me being sarcastic or b!tchy: do you think the industry will try to engineer that by discontinuing DVD players in the very immediate future? I don't think they will, but perhaps you do.

At any rate, I think we will see them stop making DVD players, well before we see them stop releasing new titles on DVD.

[Afrobean]

BD players don't need to be in every home for BD to thrive beyond DVD. All that is needed is that the majority of people who buy movies need to buy in Blu-ray instead of DVD. This does mean that greater attach rate is probably needed for hardware, but software marketshare can be achieved by marketing combo packs in place of traditional DVD releases. So when Disney releases an animated classic on BD only (which they've done every time with their Diamond line so far), it will be the #1 OVERALL seller in spite of not being available on DVD. See? Software market share can be achieved without increasing hardware attach rates.

But either way, BD doesn't need absolute hardware attach. It only needs to be in the homes of people who buy the majority. If John Doe owns only a DVD player and buys a total of 2 DVDs per year, it doesn't matter if he doesn't own a BD player and refuses to buy BDs. Someone like me buying potentially hundreds of higher-profit-margin BDs makes up for it. And more than this, the studio can save money from production by dropping DVD-only SKUs. And when only BDs are available as software, that will "force" the remaining people refusing to upgrade to either upgrade or deal with not being able to get new releases. This, naturally, would be a far off point though. They'll do staggered releases (as Disney already does with their Diamond line) first, and they'll also probably switch to something like having two different BD SKUs only, one being BD-only while the other would be BD plus DVD plus digital copy (which, again, Disney is already doing with their new releases).

[Post Prod]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

I think the key statistic in "killing off DVD" is BD-players owned, not blu-ray market share of new releases. It's related, sure, but I don't think it is the determining factor. Studios are not going to stop releasing new titles on DVD until BD players are in almost every home, and by that I mean like more than 95%. I don't see why they would pull the plug if there's still a market for them, so as long as there is a chunk of the population that doesn't have BD players but does have DVD players, there is no reason not to continue exploiting that market. And since foreign markets are going to continue buying DVD for a long time, it stands to reason that they will continue making DVDs for them, so why not make a few more to sell to the U.S. market as well, even if it is dwindling.

So, I think the meaningful question is not "when will blu-ray dominate new release market-share?", but rather "when will BD players be in every home?" The only numbers I've found are old (winter), but they were 12 million U.S. Blu-ray households, versus 92 million DVD households. I don't know where that ratio stands now.

This an honest question, not me being sarcastic or b!tchy: do you think the industry will try to engineer that by discontinuing DVD players in the very immediate future? I don't think they will, but perhaps you do.

At any rate, I think we will see them stop making DVD players, well before we see them stop releasing new titles on DVD.

You make some good points. Just wanted to add some other food for thought.

Or food for confusion if you will.

Stand alone VCR's were made well after movies stopping showing up on shelves in the US. and most of the big boys (samsung, toshiba, jvc, magnavox) are still making VHS/DVD combo players. This of course speaks to the fact that there is still a sizable market of people holding on to their VHS collections.

So I predict, if Blu-ray really did over-take DVD, we would actually see stand-alone players still being made well after we saw titles not showing up on our store shelves. At least in the U.S.

What makes things really difficult to gauge the actual success of BR adoption is that BR players are also DVD players. Just because someone has a BR player, does not mean they are not buying DVDs. Especially when you take into account the success of the PS3. There are many, many PS3 owners who buy little to no BR discs. I know 3 people who own a PS3 and do not own a HDTV. So while the PS3 was a wonderful trojan horse, getting BR into consumer hands, it also doesn't guarantee everyone who buys one wants to buy BR discs.

So my point in this rambling is that we should be careful when we try to guess, approximate or predict the future of either format based on the past. As old rules do not seem to fit sunggly in this round.

As I've said before, no on really knows, but if I had to bet in Vegas on it, I would bet BR will never overtake DVD, but it will still do well. It's resulting legacy sitting somewhere comfortably between Laserdisc and DVD.

[Afrobean]

DVD != VHS

VCRs play only VHS tapes. DVD players play only DVDs. That is why VCRs have persisted and that is why combo VCR/DVD/BD players are still available. It's because the new standard technology couldn't play the obsolete technology.

BD and DVD have a different relationship. All BD players play DVDs. All BD players are capable of playing the previous technologically obsolete generation, so there is no reason to continue selling DVD players once BD players are cheap enough. If Sony sells a DVD player for 50 and a BD player for 60, why even manufacture the DVD player at all? Obviously, it's not to that point yet, not even close, but when that time comes, DVD won't even be made anymore.

ps "I would bet BR will never overtake DVD"... haha! It already has in some cases!

[Post Prod]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

DVD != VHS

VCRs play only VHS tapes. DVD players play only DVDs. That is why VCRs have persisted and that is why combo VCR/DVD/BD players are still available. It's because the new standard technology couldn't play the obsolete technology.

BD and DVD have a different relationship. All BD players play DVDs. All BD players are capable of playing the previous technologically obsolete generation, so there is no reason to continue selling DVD players once BD players are cheap enough. If Sony sells a DVD player for 50 and a BD player for 60, why even manufacture the DVD player at all? Obviously, it's not to that point yet, not even close, but when that time comes, DVD won't even be made anymore.

ps "I would bet BR will never overtake DVD"... haha! It already has in some cases!

I personally do not think that time will ever come, at least not quite like that in regard to BD vs DVD.

and you more or less repeated what I said about every BR player also being a DVD player. If/when the cost/benefit comes for CE manufactures to only make BR players, sure we will start to see stand-alone DVD players disappear. But there's no guarantee of that ever happening. Also keep in mind that stand-alone VCR's were still being made as late as 2008. Where as the last major VHS release was in 2006.

If you try to find any exact parallels of history repeating itself, it will make your head explode, unless you're just looking for evidence of a previously held belief. We need to keep an eye on both the hardware and content side of BR to accurately measure it's success, but I think you need to keep a closer eye on the content. For what is a format without content?

I think both supporters and nay-sayers of BR technology are unfairly setting the bar to high by trying to compare it to DVD. BR will never be what DVD was and it's unfair i this age for any physical media format to be expected to.

While on a release to release basis, BR titles are doing ok, holding their own on average of about 20% of market share. Some titles do really well, Avatar came darn close to 50%. But overall BR holds 12% market share and overall revenue is only 3.81% up from last year. Which I know is a blow to the industry who expected much better.

DVD was a revolution to the consumer while BR appears as only an evolution. Of course to a/v snobs like me, the jump from DVD to BR was bigger than VHS to DVD, I concede I am not a typical representation of the common consumer and their perception. DVD also didn't have to battle digital downloads and streaming. BR is fighting the past and the future at once.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

BD players don't need to be in every home for BD to thrive beyond DVD.

True, but that isn't the issue under discussion. The question is not the success of BD, the question put forward was about "killing off DVD". Whether or not the two things are related, I think it's important not to conflate the two things into one... at least, I don't accept that BD thriving beyond DVD is the same thing as "killing off DVD".

Originally Posted by Afrobean

VCRs play only VHS tapes. DVD players play only DVDs. That is why VCRs have persisted and that is why combo VCR/DVD/BD players are still available. It's because the new standard technology couldn't play the obsolete technology.

That's a key difference. VHS and LD players were on the market for a long time because there were vast libraries of tapes and discs to support it. The industry could stop making DVD players today, and it wouldn't hurt anybody because the BD players will still support their library. Whether they choose to do so is anybody's guess. I think obviously they will at some point, but I haven't the foggiest as to when they will do that. A case could be made for them doing it tomorrow, but then at the same time a case can be made that in this economy, the industry will be especially risk-averse and stick with a reliable revenue stream until it dries up. BD is doing fine at this point, but it still isn't doing well enough for them to take the risk of putting all of their eggs in that basket and expect BD sales to carry the whole home-video industry, not with the number of BD players currently in homes. I think they might find the market very reluctant to accept a forced switch. I think all of these things would be easier to predict if the economy weren't in the toilet right now, there's too much uncertainty in every sector.

[blacklion]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

The industry could stop making DVD players today...I think obviously they will at some point, but I haven't the foggiest as to when they will do that.

Today's world is a lot more globalized than during the VHS-DVD transition. That decision (if ever) may be made with North America in mind primarily/initially but most optical disc players are made in East Asia and exported around the world. So who exactly will be making the decision to stop making DVD players? And for which markets?

Even if BDA gets the major Japanese and Korean CE manufacturers to stop producing DVD players for North America and Europe, these companies will continue to make DVD players for the rest of the world where DVD is still only gradually replacing VCD. Never mind the myriad no-name CE manufacturers in mainland China.

Grey imports come to mind, anyone?

[blu2]

Originally Posted by blu2

I think it was a $5 difference on the release week, but I may be wrong. I don't know about you, but personally I'm always on the lookout for value. And an Avatar combo would have qualified even I only had a DVD player. I'm probably not alone.



This is all digression. My point was we can probably expect to see lots more combo offerings in the future, and eventually perhaps only combos for major releases at some point.

(Wouldn't it be great to have one SKU and end these debates on when Blu Ray will triumph and when DVD is done?)

And in a sort-of example, I just read on another forum that in Canada there will be no DVD only nor Blu Ray only release of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".

You can pick the Blu Ray-DVD combo (in a Blu Ray case), or the DVD-Blu Ray combo (in a DVD case).

Not quite one SKU, but getting closer in concept.