loosely_coupled @ Sep 4th 2008 12:18AM

@squiggledick

"Yeah, there'll be no DVD. Because the studios would rather earn a fraction of what they're earning trying to prop up an unpopular product than sell to everyone."

OBVIOUSLY they are not going to cease DVD production until Blu-ray completely takes over the market. They will both be made for the foreseeable future.

However, the studios will start to push Blu-ray as adoption continues because DVD revenues have been falling for years now, and they need a new way to boost revenue. Blu-ray can offer them that because:

1) BD discs can be sold at a premium compared to DVD. The studios have already largely made all the fixed investment costs for BD authoring and production, so they can start to realize greater profits as more customers make the switch.

2) Just as was done with DVDs, many consumers end up re-buying favorite titles in the new, higher-quality format. Again, more money for the studios.

"The optimists are suggesting that Blu-ray will be even with DVD in 2012. That's four years away, at a time when online downloads are beginning to become credible. "

Given that Blu-ray is already at 7-8% marketshare, It's not much of a stretch to see DVD parity by the end of 2012. Downloaded media will continue to make inroads, but will come nowhere near dominating the market by 2012.
It just isn't realistic, at least in America, because of the broadband situation:

- Many people, especially in more rural areas don't even have access to high-speed broadband internet connections, and are stuck using 56K dial-up, or don't have internet at all.
- Tens of millions more people have slow connections using 1Mbit DSL, fixed wireless, satellite, or 3G cellular broadband that aren't capable of downloading high-quality HD movies in a decent time frame and may have data transfer limits.
- Ignoring the very few with true fiber-to-the-home connection, the rest of America gets their broadband from their regional cable company, which while fast enough for movie downloads, is now moving to monthly transfer caps.

Also, with the recent popularity of 3G cellular broadband laptop cards and internet-connected smartphones, many are disconnecting their home broadband connections and just using their mobile connections. These connections are always capped to a very small data allotment each month.

"Seriously, pull your head out and look at the real world. Blu-ray isn't going anywhere. It needs a massive take up of HDTVs just to be attractive to a majority of the population, and still has to overcome the increased competition it's going to get and the fact BD disks are unattractive to anyone with SD TVs anywhere in their infrastructure. "

Even with the concerns of the economy, HDTVs have been flying off the shelves. I have no hard numbers on adoption, but I don't believe a lack of HDTVs would be an inhibitor of Blu-ray sales.