The future of DVD and our collections
 

This question goes out to all traders. As the last few years have gone by and we have seen VHS eliminated and Blu-ray overthrow HD DVD. I've become increasingly concerned that a decade down the road; DVD all together could be eliminated or obselete to say the least. So essentially, what are the difficulties in converting our collections to Blu-Ray, a server system (kaleidescape) or a new format coming out?

To even use the term "traders" sort of dates you (and me, and us). I started to refer to myself as a "collector" in recent years. To acquire our favorite TV shows, the need to "trade" tapes (then discs) has become more or less antiquated, reserved mostly for the few things that don't seem to have downloads (high quality homemade, or official on-demand), frequent replay on one of many networks on cable/satellite (record it yourself), or the incredible amount of shows now available on official DVDs for $20-30 per season box set.

I would say that most of my home VHS recordings and DVDs have not been migrated, but actually trashed. I remember suffering through poor recordings of Jack of All Trades, refusing to watch awful bootlegs of Gomer Pyle, or even my relatively perfect recordings of Justice League --- all of which met the circular file once the studios gave us those gorgeous DVD releases.

Blu-ray has proved, is presently proving, and will continue to prove, that it is an unwanted format, and will be relegated to history along with Laserdiscs and other "superior" techs that were not really all that superior. The extreme anti-copy measures have made it to where it's basically impossible to record anything in HD off TV, so why mess with it?

The future is solid-state and network-driven content. If anything, the future will be a more mature H.264 or its successor, with a streamlined "TV OS" computer, probably even integrated into the viewing display itself (note that I did not call it a "television", but a display). The only "box" you'll have is something small and external, for satellite or cable. You'll still have DVD players, the legacy format that will persist far longer than VHS did.

I say that as somebody who actually follows the industry, both from broadcast and the manufacturer side. As with anything else, studios will try to buck the trend once the tech gets here, but people are already getting used to this sort of thing, between their iPods, Tivos and SD format HD cameras. People are tired of fragile discs.

There was a great article about "unknown owneds" last year in one of my industry magazines. I may see if I can scan it sometime. It will help address this sort of topic.

The tech is indeed changing for NEW CONTENT, but legacy content will remain largely on legacy formats -- DVDs in this case. I don't see DVD going anywhere for at least 5 more years (and 10 maybe to disappear, maybe).

ztrade, what do you mean by "converting our collections to..."?

if you mean transfer the existing dvd movie / series / cartoons to blu-ray (or the next medium), then that is easy enough.

but this also means the resolution of the movie / series remains at dvd level, i.e. 704x480, 720x576 etc.

however, if you really want to "convert" the dvd movie / series to the next format, i.e. blu-ray's 1920×1080, then this is a tough job.

it will be a long & strenuous process on your computer and the end results will probably be mixed. imagine having a jpeg picture at one size and then resizing it to be 6 times larger. the end results may be half decent on some, bad in others.

my advise would be to not do it!

move the contents "as is" from medium to medium as technology changes.
or replace your dvd movie / series with the blu-ray version if you can afford to.

hope i have answered your question.