Frankly, I see no reason why DVD should stay on the market over a year or two more. This is the 4th laser disc-y type format that’s been tried, and I really don’t see what advantages it holds over any of the others. First we had laser discs in the 80s, where the disc was permanently contained in the plastic sleeve, then laser discs which came in an LP sleeve, then compact video discs, now DVD. None of these formats was compatible with any other. My $59 VCR, however, will play tapes made in the 70s just as easily as those made today.
Secondly, I don’t think the sound and picture quality is that much better–certainly not good enough to encourage a lower-class family of 6 to go out and buy one. I sell second-hand electronics every day, and I can tell you that I sell probably 6 times as many VCRs as DVD players. It helps that DVD players are down to $150 or so, as opposed to the ridiculously expensive laser disc players that died on the vine, but $20 for a movie vs. $6.99 for a movie is going to alienate a lot of buyers…
So, Usurer, can I assume you’re not on the bandwagoning urging the widespread move to DTS and DD CDs? Or SACD (or whatever the new fancy-schmancy CD format is)? What about audio DVDs? No?
Not to be elitest or anything, but I hardly doubt that the people who are in the market for used electronics are the same ones that are going to be interested in buying DVD players. On another note, I’m reminded of a Blockbuster billboard that said something along the lines of “Cost of buying a DVD: $25, Cost of renting a DVD $3.49.”
That being said, anybody want to lend me a few bucks for that $3K THX Ultra certified Marantz receiver? 
Maybe the fact that EVERYONE I know now has a DVD player. I don’t know anyone that had a laserdisc or any of the other “laserdisc-y” medium. Also, ever notice how many stores sell DVD movies? Every electronics, movie, music, and video game store sells DVDs. I never saw that kind of inventory for laserdiscs.
If and when the D-VHS comes out, most everyone will probably have a DVD player, and I can see many people saying “I just bought the DVD, why would I want D-VHS”. As soon as Recordable DVDs have the same availability, I see VHS dying out altogether (and probably this TIVO type stuff as well). The next generation of kids (born today) will probably never know VHS tapes (like 8 tracks or LPs).
This is all my opinion based on observing the increased popularity and marketing of DVD. Anyone who went christmas shopping in a place that sells DVD players saw the huge push, and probably agrees that laserdiscs weren’t anywhere near it.
Usurer, I don’t know where you’re buying your movies, but I haven’t seen new mainstream movies for $6.99 anywhere on VHS. I happen to think DVD’s are pretty reasonably priced; they’re a few bucks above their VHS counterparts, but when you take the vastly superior quality (not to mention longevity) into account, I think it’s worth it.
Now, it would be reasonable to assume that as manufacturing costs decrease, DVD prices will drop below those of VHS movies. However, we’ve been anticipating the same thing with CDs vs. cassettes, and it still hasen’t happened.
Also, a couple of your facts are off. First, the video disc that remained in its sleeve (actually, it didn’t, the machine extracted the disc and then ejected the sleeve) was not laser based, it was needle based, like an LP, and it was a failed competitor to the laserdisc. I’m not familar with any other video disc that came in an lp-type sleeve except laser discs themselves, and IIRC they were available in two sizes, 8" and 12" (and playable in the same player). Video-CD hasn’t really caught on in the US (the quality is comparable with VHS) but is very popular in other countries. The laserdisc format was moderately successful, but it was always known as an enthusiast’s format (probably due to it’s high cost). I don’t know if any companies made money off it. OTOH, DVD has a very high market saturation considering the small amount of time it’s been on the market. It also builds on existing technology (CD), which is the reason players dropped in price so quickly (I just bought a Panasonic player with component outputs for $140, shipped).
I believe another reason for DVD’s success is that it arrived at exactly the right time - when home theater started becoming mainstream. You can go down to your local K-mart and buy a home theater audio system for a few hundred bucks; another few hundred will buy a decent 27" TV. Only a few years ago a quality 27" set cost upwards of $500, and 35" sets were selling for $3,000.
Having said all that, it’s unfortunate that DVD was not designed to be upwardly compatible with HDTV (the best resolution you can get is 480p, which is the lowest resolution of DTV available). This means that all the HD enthusiasts will have to buy new players in a few years (current players will not be upgradeable).
One, the picture quality on dvds isn’t merely a little better. Videocasettes are prone to signal interference, noise, etc etc which is far more annoying than the inherent poor sharpness of videocasettes. Two, people are buying dvd players and dvds. Sure, a lower class family of six may not buy a $199 dvd player as quickly as a $50 vcr, but dvd players are consumer electronics. They are generally marketed to the middle-class types that purchase such things. As well, you can purchase perfectly workable dvd players for UNDER $100 nowadays. As recently as a few years ago, a VCR would run you nearly 200. DVD players strike me as a one of the great bargains of consumer electronics, and they’re coming down. Why didn’t laser discs catch on? Well, its fairly obvious. First, there was no agressive push by the industry to get people to adopt them. Prices remained high (people spending upwards of $1000 on laserdisc players, $40 on the discs). There was no widespread manufacture of hardware or software as there is in DVD. As well, you mentioned video discs (by which I assume you mean cd-roms). These were, for one thing, a tiny product segment that was mainly pushed at computer shows and the like for people to play on their computers. There was no marketing from studios, no consumer electronics devices, etc. At that time, the motion picture industry had presumably seen forward in time to the DVD (or however they envisioned it at the time). Bottom line, DVDs contain fantastic picture and sound, the hardware and software are aggressively priced, and there is widespread industry adoption, including things like video rental stores.
Hooooweeee! I shore did get peoples’ attention, didn’t I? I’ll try to address these replies in order:
KKBattousai: You’re right in that people who shop for used electronics are not typically those who would buy DVD players, though I have sold a few used ones. Most of my customers are blue-collar types, employed but not middle class. They’re not buying DVD players, nor are they asking for them. Most of them seem to have 2 or 3 VCRs, however. Anyway, in aggregate, these people have huge economic clout, and they’re buying VCRs. VHS isn’t going anywhere.
c_goat: Yes, stores certainly were pushing DVDs and DVD players last Christmas, weren’t they? We mustn’t get too snobbish, though, about assuming that everyone has them and/or wants them. Not all of us are drooling techno geeks. In fact, most people I know could really care less whether they own a DVD player or not. Oh, sure, they think it would be kinda nice, but they also think it’d be kinda nice if they knew how to play piano. It’s one of those “someday” things. I’d say maybe 25 percent of my friends and relatives own a player, but it’s not like they’re slavishly devoted to it. VHS will be around for a long, long time because it’s the standard for home entertainment. As long as millions of homes have VCRs, videocassettes will be produced. In fact, the only thing I can think of that would kill VHS is something way more convenient and cheaper, like pay-per-view meets WebTV.
frogstein: Wal*Mart typically sells newer movies for $6.99 to $9.99. True, they’re not the latest box office smash, but they’re not all that old, either. When you’re thinking about buying a movie that you’ve liked for awhile (in my case, Das Boot), I think you could buy it in VHS WAY cheaper than on DVD. I don’t really think longevity is a factor, unless you own a video store. Really–you go out and buy a movie, and how many times are you gonna watch it? Like six. Heck, even my favorite movies only get played maybe once a year. CDs, yeah, you play a million times, but not movies. Yes, of course the original video discs were not permanently fixed in the hard plastic case (didn’t know they were needle-based, though), and yes, the people marketing DVDs are smarter than the people who marketed laser discs–not having to pay $1,000 for the player certainly makes a big difference. But with the way our information technology is improving, how long 'til the next great thing that kicks DVD in the butt? I’d guess about 3 years.
occ: No, I didn’t mean CD-ROMs, I meant compact video discs, but thanks for mentioning another failure in the laser disc-ish market. I think I’ve already addressed the rest of your comments.
That’s funny. our local paper (Atlanta) just announced that TDK is closing a local videocassette plant, and they’re directly attributing DVD as the reason why. The article says that “International research company Strategy Analytics predicts that companies will most likely stop making both videotapes and VCRs by the end of the decade.”
But with the way our information technology is improving, how long 'til the next great thing that kicks DVD in the butt? I’d guess about 3 years.
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Maybe so, but I’m willing to bet that the “Next Great Thing” will be backwards-compatible with DVD.
I’m sure that I’ve read that the adoption rate of DVD exceeds any similar technology or appliance, even television.
A quick search turns up:
From 1998, DVD Adoption Outpaces VHS, CDs
From January 2000, DVD adoption frenzy - RESEARCH: “The most successful consumer electronics launch ever”
A short overview also hypes the rapidity with which DVD has become accepted. I remember clearly an audiophile friend of mine who insisted that vinyl LPs would never die. And, he was right. There are still some new vinyl albums available, and in certain areas (dance club DJs come to mind), there will be a market for a long time to come. Noone would argue, however, that vinyl is no longer mainstream.
Hey, my kids have a VCR of their own to use, not a DVD. But, I bet it won’t be long before they do. They already have a half dozen DVDs to watch on the family player. (And thank the gods! – do you have any idea how often a pair of six year olds can watch Toy Story? Can you say, worn out tape?)
Bzzzz…wrong. About the CDs that is. This the most common misconception about digital optical discs like CDs and DVDs. The pit does not indicate a 1 or a 0. The pits and lands (flat areas with no pits) BOTH correspond to 0. A 1 is recorded when the laser reads the BOUNDARY of a pit/land. This boundary scatters the light, and tells the light sensor that a 1 is there. Pits on a CD ARE different lengths, they are not the same size. If a sequence of numbers looks like this:
00011001001 The corresponding CD surface would look something like this: _|||–| Where _ is a pit, - is a land, and | is the boundary.
Interesting, huh?