Poll: Will Blu-ray ever replace dvd?

[SmilingKitsune]

I personaly don't see it happening, it just seems to me that apart from gamers and technology aficionados most people don't really care that much about high definition or storage capacity.
What about you, do you think it will win out over dvd?

 

[EeveeElectro]

It better not.

I don't fancy paying about £500 for something that's no different to DVD.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Nope us civilized folk use direct download or on demand for our HD movie watching needs.

 

[Iron Mal]

I don't think Blu-ray will outlive DVD.

When it came to switching from VHS to DVD there was a clear advantage to the DVD (discs are easier to store, don't have to rewind, have subtitles, different languages and special features, can be played on games consoles and PC's etc.) so the DVD became the standard while the VHS faded into memory.

The only advantage Blu-ray has over DVD is a greater capacity on the discs (wow! I can have an extra commentary that I probably won't listen to) and slightly higher HD resolution (which isn't that great a bonus when you remember that not everyone has a HD TV and not that many people actually care about the scrren resolution).

I'm not going to shell out all that cash (and ditch my DVD collection) for what is only a minor improvement (a minor improvement that most of us won't notice anyway).

 

[fix-the-spade]

No.

As a format it's far too similar to DVD to ever replace it. The jump in quality and features simply isn't there. For 90% of the buying public Blu-ray offers no discernable advantage but still costs more than double the price of DVD, before getting onto the cost of hardware.
It also doesn't have the PS2, granted the PS3 is a good player. But it isn't the must have console in the same way the PS2 was. I know a lot of people who didn't get into DVD movies until they had a playstation.

It's also badly timed in that digital distribution is taking off in a big way whilst DVD has become extremely cheap and affordable.

I don't think Blu-ray is a bad product. It's just not good enough to kill DVD (in the same way DVD killed VHS) and it's too expensive to rival digital downloads for HD movies.

 

[Captain Spectacular]

Over time I think it might, once prices begin to drop and HD starts to become the norm. It took a while for VHS to be pushed out of the picture. VHS was around for a long time before DVDs came into play, DVDs didn't have half the life span that VHS did before a new format came out.

 

[RetiarySword]

It has the potential to. It has already won at films. Games it could if they increase the disk read speed. Also once they bring down the price. I think solid state drives (Extremly big USB pens) will win in the end.

 

[rossatdi]

I have The Dark Knight on blu-ray for a 52" TV.

Yes, it is worth it.

 

[Kastil]

I certainly can't justify spending the money on Blu-Ray. To replace my current DVD catalogue is more money than I'm willing to spend also.

 

[SmilingKitsune]

In a long time, yes. I'd say about 20-30 years. Just give it time, soon the price will go down.

In 20-30 years I'm banking on us having invented non-lame virtual reality simulators.

 

[Eagle Est1986]

Urgh, I was gonna say no until I saw all these negative answers.

I don't fancy paying about £500 for something that's no different to DVD.

Has everyone forgotten that DVD used to be as expensive as Blu-ray is now? DVD players used to be stupid money and DVDs used to be as much as Blu-Ray movies are now. I know this, I paid silly money for Godzilla on DVD back in the day.

I don't think Blu-ray will outlive DVD.

When it came to switching from VHS to DVD there was a clear advantage to the DVD (discs are easier to store, don't have to rewind, have subtitles, different languages and special features, can be played on games consoles and PC's etc.) so the DVD became the standard while the VHS faded into memory.

The only advantage Blu-ray has over DVD is a greater capacity on the discs (wow! I can have an extra commentary that I probably won't listen to) and slightly higher HD resolution (which isn't that great a bonus when you remember that not everyone has a HD TV and not that many people actually care about the scrren resolution).

I'm not going to shell out all that cash (and ditch my DVD collection) for what is only a minor improvement (a minor improvement that most of us won't notice anyway).

A fair point that DVD had more (and clearer) advantages over VHS but don't forget that it still took an age for DVD to actually replace VHS, longer than blu-ray has currently been out.
I'd say, so far, blu-ray is doing just as well as DVD was at this point in it's lifespan.
Blu-ray also has one major advantage that DVD didn't have, a blu-ray player can play DVDs, so in buying a blu-ray player, you aren't automatically making your current movie collection obsolete.

Most people are making the change to HDTV, though it's a slow process, people don't want to just chuck out their old sets, but when people come to replacing an old or broken one, most are now going for HDTV.

All that blu-ray defending aside, I don't think blu-ray will ever have the chance to be where DVD is now, I think digital distribution will become the main way of delivering movies in the future. Though it won't completely destroy blu-ray, it'll make sure it never leaves second place. Look at the music business, people still buy plently of compact discs, just a bit less than they used to.

 

[ejhio]

you used the word "ever" so of course it will get replaced, eventually

 

[Shycte]

No

The visual diffrence is not worth the money. Since Blu-ray is so f'n expencive it will not be profitible for anyone to repalce DVD-

 

[LooseNugget]

Digital downloads are the future...optical disc is dead.

 

[Ghost]

no, no one apart from nerds even knows what 'them blue rays' are. and why do we need better picture quality anyway? i can't tell the difference between ps2 and xbox 360/ps3 graphics as it is....

and if everyone buys blu ray movies and blu ray players, in 5 years they'll be out dated and we'll be encouraged to buy goddamn yello-ray players, which may be built into the ps4 and will feature 59.7 TB of storage, and a couple of years after that there will be a dual layer yello-ray disc...

EDIT: before AMAGAWD THARS NAW SUCH THEENG AS YELLO RAY ND NEVAR WIL B, U TROL OMGOMG, I'm joking.

 

[rossatdi]

I have The Dark Knight on blu-ray for a 52" TV.

Yes, it is worth it.

I'm going with, up till your post you're the only one apart from me in this thread with Blu-ray capability.

Cost me £60 to get the drive and software for my PC, due to some prudent buys when building it. Even on my modest 26" monitor, Blu-ray is worth it. I still buy DVDs, but the special films get Blu-ray treatment.

It might be interesting, i don't see the format going away. If the recession gets worse, i could certainly see DVD staying dominate for costing reasons alone.

I think Blu-ray will be the last of the major disk based formats. By the time it starts to become dominate, which i think is about 2-3 years off yet, it'll get a good 10 year run.

I also disagree with Khell, they only put off a minority of early adopters, in a time where either formats where prohibitively expensive for most. In fact two of my friends got blu-ray capability as soon as the competition died off.

I'm suspecting a lot of those who don't rate blu-ray haven't seen blu-ray. It's a futurama joke but I swear to god blu-ray is better resolution than real life.

Example. At the beginning of The Dark Knight in the bank heist scene. I saw that film 6 times in the cinema (yeah, yeah, I know) but it wasn't until I watched it on blu ray that I noticed the thread The Joker ties to the grenade is purple.

 

[Vlane]

It will someday. Maybe not this year but I'm almost sure it will. But for now let's look at a funny post.

Digital downloads are the future...optical disc is dead.

Yeah because everybody has a credit card/paypal/whatever or has the time to download a game which he can buy at a store in a shorter amount of time.

Things like Steam aren't the best thing. Steam isn't bad but it has it's flaws (anyone remember the Empire: Total War launch day? Or the fact that you can't play some Steam games without an internet connection?).

 

[Baby Tea]

no, no one apart from nerds even knows what 'them blue rays' are. and why do we need better picture quality anyway? i can't tell the difference between ps2 and xbox 360/ps3 graphics as it is....

I highly disagree.
I know an older couple who aren't very 'technically aware' and they bought a BR player once they had an HDTV and can say they see the difference. I can totally see the difference between DVDs upscaled and a BR movie, and obviously others can too since it's selling pretty well.

And if you seriously can't tell the difference between PS2 and 360/PS3 games, then you're either playing the wrong games on the newer consoles, you're playing on a non-HD TV, or you should get your eyes checked. PS2 had some good looking games, no doubt, but the difference is night and day. I play on a 40" LCD TV at 1080p, and my 360 games look bloody brilliant. A friend of mine brought over a Wii (Which does 480p max) so we could play some SSBB, and it was atrocious by comparison.

 

[scarbunny]

I guess at some point it will.

I think for it to reach the same sort of market share as DVD is going to take a while. As it stands there is no good reason for the majority of people to upgrade to a Blu-Ray player if they have a working DVD player, and while you can buy £20 replacments. Sure in a few years when Blu-Ray players are even cheaper and the current batch of DVD players starts burning out I can see a greater shift from DVD to Blu-Ray.

As it stands I would probably buy a Blu-Ray player when my DVD player breaks, its not like the VHS/DVD conversion where you lost your whole movie collection.

I would rather Blu-Ray becomes the dominant format as I couldn't stand Digital delivery as a standard means of getting my movie fix, I like to collect special editions to much.

 

[Frybird]

One problem that hasn't been talked about yet is that the gain you have with Blu Rays is more than...inconsistent.

I have a Blu Ray Drive on my PC, and while some movies (Transformers, Hellboy 2 and, quite surprisingly, Tropic Thunder) certainly look much more awesome in HD, others don't benefit that much from the higher resolution (Fight Club, "Not Special Effects-Scenes" in Iron Man) due to a grainy picture.

There are enough low-quality DVDs, but the DVD Format had other advantages to VHS while Blu-Ray Movies are only better because of the image and sound quality. So that makes a hard sell even harder.

I think Blu Ray won't replace DVDs, and that both formats will be replaced by a much better format in the future.