I was telling someone about a 14" CRT TV with DVD player for £50 or £60 in Tesco and they mentioned about the future and Blu-Ray players coming out.

How long do you think DVDs have got left - what with the appearance of Blu-Ray players and Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives on laptops/desktop PCs?

I hope they'll still be around in 5 years time.

Just as soon as you can get an HD player for under a hundred squid.

It'll take years for HD players to be in enough homes to make DVD releases unprofitable so I wouldn't worry about buying DVD kit now or the rest of the decade.

If you are considering buying a DVD player then it's getting to the point that a HD player (all play DVD's and upscale by design) is viable, not at the supermarket price level but certainly at the good quality level.

A few years. There's litle sign of the HD formats replacing them. Less than 5% of the market is HD media currently.

What I can see in the future is the DVD being replaced by SD cards.

Its not like when VHS was beaten by dvd.

That was a given.

DVD has years left yet and may never be beaten by the HD formats as they are now.

There is no certainty that one or the other will be the de facto format.

If both survive people will stick with dvd.

To enjoy HD you need an HD tv.

Many wont bother until there are plenty of HD channels to watch.

While the quality of standard def is so poor on lcd and plasma sets many wont bother to switch just yet

Looking at the current and projected sales of flat panels in the UK (4million this year) the lack of HD content or the expense is not a factor

All removable formats are due for eventual extinction with the ever increasing speed, quality and availability of VoD. Who will bother clogging up their personal space with shelves full of bits of plastic that make it hard to find the one you want?

I think you will find that its less than 0.5%.

Standard def is NOT "Poor" on LCD/Plasma, get up to date- a decent set with a decent upscaler SD is superb!

Why do people buy DVD's when the rental model works so well right now, I really don't think the market will change that much since IP delivery is rental by another name and buying is still buying.


People will still want movies in the best possible audio and video quality and watch them as much as they want for one simple payment. The IP (VOD) delivery system will be DRM ridden and pay to watch everytime not to mention limiting the extras and audio tracks.
It'll be a god send for some and irrelevant to others, the basic business models of owning and renting will probably remain barring.

DVD will be around for many years yet. Remember that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are backwards compatible. These formats are an evolution rather than a replacement. If your DVD player has expired you should be considering buying a High Def player that will upscale your current DVD collection but will also allow you to rent HD-DVDs/Blu-rays, if you don't want to commit to buying discs for any one format.

DVD will remain as the entry level format for watching films cheaply, and High Def optical media will allow your HDTV to do the very thing its designed for.

Every home will have room for a DVD shelf and a High Def shelf (IMO).

No one can claim the UK SD digital broadcasts are good quality, no amount of cash spent on scaling/de-interlacing hardware will resolve a 544*576 2.5mbt digital broadcast to the extent it looks good on a decent sized HD flat panel.

There are certainly digital channels that are better than others but none really match the average quality of a DVD but HD blows DVD out of the water, it may not be good enough for some to justify the cost (hardware and media) of an upgrade but that's a different argument about personal finance and needs not that technology.

just consider how DVD-A and SACD beat normal CDs into the ground...... I see DVD quaking in its boots right now.....

I'd say the lack of availability of CRT's along with the smaller physical profile of flat panels has far more to do with their high sales than the content available for them ....

Exactly, HD display purchases has less to do with wanting to watch or understanding HD requirments than many would want to believe.

Flat panels dominate the high street and prices have collapsed hand in hand with CRT apathy both in terms of profit, stock storage and consumer interest.

A good few years yet, it will be a while before there are enough HD TVs in homes for the format to become mainstream.