DVD Rentals Top Videocassettes For First Time
from the steady-march-of-the-DVD dept
A new report says that DVD rentals outpaced videotape rentals for the first time last week. Revenue from DVD rentals and sales passed VHS revenue quite some time ago, so this is just in absolute numbers. It is fairly impressive just how fast DVDs have come in and taken over (and in some ways revitalized) the entire industry.
Comments on “DVD Rentals Top Videocassettes For First Time”
Worse than video because...
1. DVD has regional formats that make it virtually impossible to see foreign films.
2. Older, obscure movies are not available on DVD.
3. DVD hasn’t caught on in Japan yet.
Electronic makers are poised to come out with blue-wavelength DVDs soon, which will add further confusion to the market. I wonder if we won’t see a spectacular flameout of DVD, the first medium that reached majority status before backing down again?
Re: Worse than video because...
Wow! Blue-wavelength DVDs will be out soon which will add exactly what to the entertainment experience?
As it is now, most DVDs you buy or rent contain a full length movie, sometimes in both 4:3 and 16:9 format, full 5.1 audio with multiple optional audio tracks, subtitles in multiples languages, cut scenese, behind the scenes and more.
Some DVDs, like the LOTR sets, contain as much as 8 or more hours of video.
The movies on DVDs are already at the maximum resolution that existing TVs can show and still have room for all these extras, so why do we possibly need higher capacity discs?
I see blue-laser DVD having limited uses, either as archival storage for computers – similar to a DVD-RAM drive, or for HDTV DVD-type movies, but since the cost for blue-laser media will be prohibitively expensive until it becomes popular, and since the only thing you would really be able to use it for is archiving (won’t play in your CD player, won’t play in your DVD player, won’t read in your buddy’s DVD-ROM drive, etc) I don’t think it will become popular enough that the price will ever become tolerable. Plus, HDTV adoption is so slow with all the different formats and the fact that they still haven’t decided on copy-protection, I don’t see that happening any time soon.
I was at Radio Shack last night to pick up an obscure battery for a camera and noticed that they had a tiny (small laptop PC sized) DVD player for $48 after mail-in rebate ($10 rebate, IIRC). It not only plays DVD movies, but MP3 files and JPG files off of CD-R as well. At that price, there is no reason why anyone can’t afford DVD instead of VCR.
People who keep saying “yeah, but X-technology (in this case blue-laser DVD) is just around the corner and it’s going to be a zillion times better, so I’ll wait for that” are just doing themselves a disservice. Some things like mini-disc and DAT audio tape looked good at first but never took off for one reason or another. DVD Video is not one of those things – it’s here, it’s still growing, and it’s going to be around until something significantly better becomes available.
Re: Worse than video because...
> 1. DVD has regional formats that make it
> virtually impossible to see foreign films.
One Word – APEX
> 2. Older, obscure movies are not available
> on DVD.
Another Word – Netflix
> 3. DVD hasn’t caught on in Japan yet.
No Word…
Re: Re: Worse than video because...
>Another Word – Netflix
Won’t let me do a search. Does it have “Zontar, the thing from Venus”? Or “I spit on your grave”?
Re: Re: Re: Worse than video because...
Zontar No. Grave Yes.
Re: Re: Re:2 Worse than video because...
OK. I forgot to mention “Zardoz”, a 1974 sci-fi movie starring Sean Connery. There are 2 versions of that movie, one where everyone has clothes on, and one where everyone doesn’t. It’s the only movie I know of where Sean Connery runs around with his ding dong flapping around.
Re: BLUE WAVELENGTH WILL NOT REPLACE DVD ANYTIME SOON
BLUE WAVELENGTH WILL NOT REPLACE DVD ANYTIME SOON. FOR ONE THING THE PRICE OF THE PLAYER AS WELL AS THE DISKS WILL HAVE TO DROP DRAMATICALLY BEFORE IT BECOMES MAINSTREAM, THE PRIMARY REASON BEING MOST CONSUMERS ARE MORE THAN SATISFIED WITH STANDARD DVD MOVIES. IN FACT AS YOU MENTIONED SOME ARE STILL SATISFIED WITH VHS SUCH AS JAPAN AND OTHER COUNTRIES NOT TO MENTION MANY U.S. CONSUMERS WHO CONTINUE TO BUY AND RENT VHS MOVIES. THE PRICE WILL HAVE TO DROP DRAMATICALLY BEFORE THERE IS A SHIFT TOWARDS BLUEWAVE DVD ECHOING THE SHIFT FROM VHS TO DVD. THE FINAL REASON I’LL MENTION IS A SENTIMENTAL ONE. MANY HAVE ALREADY BUILT UP A STANDARD DVD COLLECTION AND WILL HAVE A LITTLE DIFFICULTY PARTING WITH SUCH A COLLECTION. THE TRANSFER FROM VHS TO DVD ACTUALLY TOOK LONGER THAN YOU STATED BECAUSE YOU LEFT THE LASER DISK WHICH DID NOT CATCH ON OUT OF THE EQUATION.