HD-DVD is dead. Toshiba pulled the pin on hd-dvd back in Feb.
Its all blu ray now.
The question ought to be, how long had dvd got left before it too disappears.
Won't be to long before we see titles only on blu ray an dthen kiss goodnight to dvd for ever.
I disagree. The question should be, "How long will Blu-ray last?" After all, it has a few things going against it already:
1. The public seems nonplussed, and Blu-ray players are still artificially price-inflated to compensate for the format war.
2. Downloading services are just getting their acts together, and Apple TV represents an industry in its infancy. Don't count them out.
3. Someone, somewhere, is working on the next format.
You're statement that DVDs will go away assumes an awful lot:
1. Studios must believe they can force people to abandon DVDs in favor of Blu-Ray. The implication is that the public can (and needs to) be convinced that DVDs are significantly inferior to Blu-ray. (I'm not so sure studios can do this. DVD sales have been sluggish, at best, for years. There's nothing to make them believe that Blu-Ray sales are going to be decent for a long time to come. After all, studios are, well, interested in sales, not Blu-ray. They, like any good whore, will peddle their wares on whatever side of the street has the most traffic. That Blu-ray won doesn't mean it'll have more traffic than DVD -- only that it will have more traffic than HD-DVD.)
2. Broadband speeds will limit the accessibility of HD source. (I think that with each passing year, demand for better, faster broadband increases. As the public becomes more aware that the US is a third-world country in broadband speeds, demand for better service will have to be addressed by competing services. As broadband speeds go up, so does the likelihood that people will want the instant gratification of renting HD movies.)
3. People are willing to adopt yet another standard for media. (I, personally, am not. As a former SVHS, LD and DVD owner, I am done collecting soon-to-be-extinct media. I find the downloadable/streaming paradigm much less expensive and far more immediate. The assumption that everyone wants to own a format-sensitive collection of media is ridiculous, at best.)
For me, it's critical mass. As much as I would like to view Blu-ray on my nice HDTV, upscaled DVDs provide enough of a film/movie-going experience that I find the need for crisper, cleaner images overkill. I may at some time purchase a Blu-ray player for renting, but I am unlikely to ever purchase a Blu-ray disc.
tv.
