Blu-ray looks to replace DVDs within three years - Page 3

No, most HD-DVD players are backwards-compatible with DVDs also, just like Blu-Ray.

That said, most people feel that Blu-Ray will win the format war, in large part due to the 'Trojan Horse' effect of all PlayStation 3s having a Blu-ray drive in them. Also, more movie studios support Blu-ray than HD-DVD, and retailers don't really want to have to support two hi-def DVD formats.

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Yes, but that's 60 million housholds! About 10 million now have Hi Def Tv's. By the end of this year, 20 million will have them. By the end of 2008 35 million will. By the end of 2009, over 50 million will. A $3,000 set today will cost $1,000 before 2009. That's a big deal. When more people have a Hi Def Tv, more people will want to get one. No one wants to be left behind, and feel as though they are being mocked by others.

Apple is selling into a rapidly growing market. Economists will tell you that that is the best time to be in the market, and be the leader.

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The analysts I've heard say it'll take five years for hi-def DVD to achieve marketshare parity with DVD. That sounds about right. Domination would occur a couple of years after. Ironically, that would make the DVD-to-hi-def DVD changeover no faster than the VHS-to-DVD one, despite the many advantages that hi-def seemingly has in this transition.

That said, I'm looking forward to it, as I am becoming something of a videophile-in-the-making. 8)

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The advantage to buying a Hi Def player, is that you can still play the old formats, as I brought up before, thus, you lose nothing. I don't agree that these will have to become cheap before they take off. Despite what some people think, the PS3 IS proving to be a contender, at least in the short run, in the Hi Def market.

If one doesn't want to buy that $29.95 DVD player, in a year or so, when Blu-Ray costs $399, it will be a viable choice. In two years, when it costs less than $299, it won't be too much of an issue. I can easily see people going into Best Buy, or elsewhere, buying a Hi Def Tv, and saying"Oh, with the Tv, and surround system, give me one of those Blu-Rays, and I'll pick up a couple movies meanwhile."

I dunno Mel... you seem really stoked by high-def DVD, and I am too, but we always have to remember that we, the techno-savvy, aren't the market, Joe Wal-Mart is. And Joe Wal-Mart exists in a low-price, 'good enough' world. \

A lot of people don't want to spend even $500 on a TV, much less $1000. Average TV selling price is $549... hit that pricepoint, and you're still missing half the market:

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=413

I think we agree that by 2010, HDTVs will be the majority of the market. If nearly all of those people replace their DVD players with hi-def DVD players by Christmas of that year, then by 2011 Blu-ray (or whatever) will be the majority of the market. That's still 4 years away, and DVD will still be far from dead at that point.

We agree that it'll definitely happen Mel, we're just quibbling over the timetable by a couple of years. 8)

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Believe it or not, I'm not talking about my feelings about it. I'm merely taking the sales numbers that we know, and projecting them out into the future, based on percentages given by others. From what we know about CD adoption, VCR adoption, and DVD adoption, it's not that tough to feel out what will happen.

It is a fact that many more Tv programs are in Hi-Def than before. That finally gives the potential buyer a reason to get that set.

With more people buying computers, iPods, laptops, and Hi Def Tv's, the barrier to these expensive toys is rapidly falling. Someone willing to spend $200 to $300 on an iPod is much more likely to spend that amount, or even more, for a video product. Video is perceived as having a greater value than audio.

The point I've been making, is that it doesn't matter that the average Joe is spending $550 on a Tv right now. Enough people are spending $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, and above, to make this a viable market right now.

The more people who buy them, the more who will buy a player as well.

I'm also sure that some people will buy a Blu-Ray in a year or two, when prices have come down further, even if they don't have a Hi Def set yet. Why? Because they will be replacing their old DVD players, or buying their first one, and figure that as it plays DVD's anyway, and they will be getting a large screen anyway, why buy a DVD player, and then have to buy a Blu-Ray six months later, when they do buy that Tv?

Besides, I said mostly replace in five. I don't think it will 100% replace, or possibly not even 75% replace.

Yeah. I don't think we're worlds apart on this one.

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Yeah, mostly could be 60%.

Some of the earliest players (of both kinds) were not backwards compatible. But as far as I know, all players sold today (second-gen or later) support DVD.

There's nothing inherent in the technology that makes hybrid players impossible. Just like DVD players have two lasers (one for DVD, one for CD), there's no reason either hi-def DVD players can't have two lasers (or 3, to also support CD playback.)

The person I was responding to here said that he wouldn't consider BD until Apple adopts it. Which tells me that he has no intention of playing hi-def movies on anything other than his Mac. It may be true, but I think that will be a very unusual attitude.

Go back and re-read that section. My numbers were a bit off (forgot to take into account the additional 2:1 compression from converting SD TV video from MPEG2 to H.264.) It makes the argument even stronger. (e.g., putting all 9 seasons of Seinfeld on a single 8-layer BD. )

I don't think they'll rise at all. Looking at the price for BD and HDDVD movies in stores right now, they're all selling for about $25 each, which is comparable to those same titles on DVD. Sure, the el-cheapo movies cost much less, but those aren't available in HD at all, so you really can't compare them.

I think that by the time it starts making good business sense to release box sets on BD (or HD-DVD), the publishers will have made back all of their manufacturing-upgrade costs, and the incremental costs of actually making the discs will be the same as DVD. If they charge more, it will be for reasons other than manufacturing costs.

I've also been looking at 32" 720p LCDs since that seems the best fit with my current size/price constraints. Whether or not I get more serious about buying depends on the outcome of this year's taxes.