Study: Format wars won't hinder DVD sales

Published DVD products will rake in $76.5 billion worldwide in 2009, up from about $33 billion last year, In-Stat/MDR said Tuesday.

That means the battle over next-generation DVD formats won't slow sales, the market researcher said.

		Related story Apple sides with Blu-ray Company to help develop new format.

The HD DVD format--which allows for high-definition discs that hold up to 30GB of data--will lead in the near future, the market researcher said. An added benefit of HD DVD is that the technology is backward-compatible with current DVDs.

But Blu-Ray products will start gaining in 2006, spreading from Asia to Europe and the rest of the world in 2007, In-Stat said. Blu-Ray discs can store up to 50GB of data; by comparison, current DVDs can store up to 9GB for dual-sided discs, roughly 4.5GB per side.

In North America, the researcher said, consumers will start replacing their libraries of old videotapes and DVDs with high-definition discs, fueling HD DVD growth.

Elsewhere, Blu-Ray discs will become the dominant high-definition format because of support from leading gear makers, In-Stat said.

"High-definition DVDs will appear later this year to take advantage of the growing installed base of HDTV sets in the U.S.," Gerry Kaufhold, an analyst at In-Stat, said in a statement. "Music videos, DualDisc products and locally produced DVDs will account for 20 percent of the market value by 2009."

In-Stat said point-of-sale offerings such as those by Rimage will facilitate "burning" DVD discs from kiosks, making it possible for bookstores, airport shops and other retailers to sell DVDs without keeping inventories.

[Earl Benser]

With some luck,

DVD burner/player manufacturers will provide multi-format dual
layer units so that consumers can handle anything that comes
their way.

My money stays inb my pocket until such units are available.
Right now, single layer DVD burners and dual layer DVD players
are quite adequate

[TMB333]

What are we, lemmings??

Well, imagine that! The 'industry' is coming out with ANOTHER new video format, and consumers are just going to blindly "start replacing their libraries of old videotapes and DVDs with high-definition discs".

Well, speaking as a consumer myself, I am NOT going to do that just because the new format has some fancy new flash and dazzle so that I can have yet ANOTHER version of some movie I've seen like 3 or 4 times since I first bought it on VHS. It doesn't make sense!!!!

I agree with a previous post, that if they make recordable devices to support the new format (at reasonable prices) then I 'might' consider purchasing one to upgrade my movies to the new format. Ah, but then again, thanks to the paranoia of the movie industry, some of my old content is copy protected thus making it much more difficult to upgrade.

No thank you, I'm VERY satisfied with DVD quality movies and will continue to use that as far into the future as I possibly can until they stop making them.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Blu-ray Not Backwards-Compatible Untrue?

Aren't Blu-ray players backwards-compatible with DVD just as HD-DVD players are? The article implies that only HD-DVD players will play older DVD movies, which isn't true as far as I know. Both rely on blue-spectrum lasers, which aren't directly compatible with red-laser DVDs, so both players usually incorporate blue and red lasers to play all media. Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?

[mortis9]

yes. you're wrong.

eventually blue-ray players will be compatible through the use of an additional laser, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the burners themselves can't be modified to burn blue-ray disks (they can be modified to burn hd-dvds). considering that the content companies have a lot of money invested in the burning equipment, i can understand why they don't want to have to replace all of it.