DVD/BD coexistance?

[Cinemaddict]

I hear a lot of talk about whether BD will replace DVD. It does seem inevitable to me. It's not going to happen tomorrow...but someday.

But latley, I've been wondering... is it possible that when all is said and done, both will exist? Perhaps the average person will buy DVD, and the movie geeks and home theater people will buy BD.

Just a thought. What do you think?

[cajmoyper]

It's hard to say since studios support them both. When the gap gets closer between BD and DVD and then BD surpasses DVD and then BD is far enough ahead of DVD that some studio (nobody wants to be the first) drops DVD entirely realizing that it's costing them more to run a plant just for DVD's than to just wholly produce BD's. But that's a long ways off.

[Beta-guy]

Co-existence with DVD is just as bad as co-existance with HD DVD, DVD will die Studio's don't want to support a format that has cracked copy protection (DVD, and HD DVD) so the studio's will push Blu-ray growth, and when it gets high enough DVD will die off...

[Anthony P]

depends what you mean by coexist. The major studios won't want to support two formats and don't want to continue DVD (it is 100% broken) but might there be DVDs of other stuff? (i.e. your daughters ballet recital, the DVD of a wedding, the DVD of the history of a place -sold at a museum) these will continue a bit longer. But in the end will there be enough demand to keep it going? I don't think so

[EQ3282]

They will share self space for a few more years, at least. I'd say that BD sales surpass DVD by July/August 2009 (as HDTVs and BD Players begin to really become mainstream). However, I don't see the DVD format going away for at least another 2 years after that. By that point, ECs will be producing cheaper BD players, and since they can play DVDs too, they will slow or stop production of stand-alone DVD players.

In short, since DVDs are still cheap to produce, studios and distributors are unlikely to stop printing them until the BD player ownership hits around the 75-85% mark of all movie-buying households. After that, they'll basically 'force' the holdouts to jump on the moving train.

[PeteS]

I think it depends on which markets you mean. VideoCD coexisted in Asia for a long time while western markets went all DVD. I expect something like that again, but when Blu-ray has the market dominated, I'm not sure DVD has a reason to continue in US and western markets.

[Synaptic Reality]

Is anyone familiar with HDTV adoption statistics? It seems that for blu-ray to surpass DVD, there must be a HDTV in nearly every home (or least one to replace one of their old standard def sets). Sadly, I think that blu-ray and DVD could co-exist for some time. Given the current state of our economy, it's not if people can afford a blu-ray player, but can they afford a HDTV in addition to a blu-ray player.

[bhampton]

They are both going to exist for the next 40 years at my house unless all my favorite DVD's make it to Blu Ray which I doubt.

Right now,.. I have some of each (93BR and about 500DVD). I haven't bought DVD's for years but I still have a lot and most of them are not available on Blu Ray and some of them I believe will never make it to Blu Ray.

(Not even going to mention my Laserdiscs but I only have 2 of those left so they don't need to be mention-ed here.)

-Brian

[marzetta7]

Eventually, Blu-ray will overtake DVD, and there are many reasons why.

1) As HDTVs become more and more mainstream, consumers will want to take advantage of the better picture Blu-ray has to offer over DVD.

2) The DVD market is already in decline, and thus there wont be as much money in it as time continues on--something that will spark studios to eventually stop selling DVDs or provide incentives on the Blu-ray counterpart. This will eventually come to fruition as studios will on average make more of a cut on Blu-ray, thus boosting their profits.

3) On the hardware front, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to make a profit on DVD hardware--something that isn't currently too much of an issue on the Blu-ray side of the equation.

4) On the retailer front, shelf space will eventually give way to Blu-ray players. Much like you have seen VHS players/recorders disappear, so will DVD players, again because the margin of profit is greater on the Blu front.

I'm probably missing some other areas, but sufficeth to say, DVD will indeed coexist with Blu-ray, but only for a limited period of time.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by Beta-guy

Co-existence with DVD is just as bad as co-existance with HD DVD, DVD will die Studio's don't want to support a format that has cracked copy protection (DVD, and HD DVD) so the studio's will push Blu-ray growth, and when it gets high enough DVD will die off...

That's why I like having you on my team. I almost forgot about the copy protection.

Records lived until 1990 when the studios stopped pressing them. Records enjoyed decades and decades of existence and saw technologies like 8-Track, cassette, etc fall to way side.

Records are making a slight comeback and will peacefully co-exisit with CD and MP3 a while longer.

Disc is a powerful medium. This why (HD) DVD will live on for years in the home and ebay.

[TheTenth]

I still use a VHS recorder for TV shows I can't watch live, and I'm not alone.