DVD is DEAD??

[ulthar]

odinn7 Wrote:
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> DVD is dead! Long live Betamax!
>

As I think I've mentioned a few times, we still have a Sony Betamax, and some beta movies.  It is at my Mom's house, probably under a pile of old blankets or something.

[odinn7]

My neighbor was selling 2 Beta machines and 2 boxes of Beta tapes last May at a yard sale. All this stuff for $20 and nobody wanted it. He tried to give it over to me for free but I just had no room for any of it here. Basically, he couldn't give it away.

[Scottie]

I'm still cautious about DVD's. I've said it before and I'll say it again, DVD's are a passing fad. In time, they will become obsolete, going the way that VHS is going now or that 16mm went for home movies. Yes, there will be some capabilities in the new format players that will allow for older technology to be played, such as the VHS/DVD players of today, but sooner than later, the industry will try to push a new format on us. How long did the VHS have its run? It was invented in 1976, and about 20 years later, it started to succumb to the superior technology of DVD's, which became a market item in 1998 with "the first pressed DVD [being] the movie Twister in 1996." (Wikipedia). Twenty-Two years? DVD's have been around for 8 years now, and they're already going out of style with the introduction of Blu-ray. How long will it be before Blu-ray overtakes DVD's in production and sales? Or is Blu-ray even the one to take off next? What about HD DVD?

What 'law' states that technology will increase by a multiple of two every ten years, or something like that? It's a dangerous thing to keep on making new stuff and tossing the old stuff away. All that crap will build up and eventually we'll have piles and piles of machine stuff that's been forgotten and/or outdated.

Here's what I see happening, and this is speculation. In time, most, if not all information will be sent via the internet through ever increasingly faster connections. This means movies and music too. I see the demise of the hard copy for consumer needs. I don't like it, no sir.

[Scott]

That is why I buy DVD's cheap $1 or only rent DVD's cheap with coupons. To costly to purchase DVD's at $10.00 to $25.00 only to have them be outdated. At least those rare films are preserved now with DVD for future advances..

[ulthar]

Scottie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> What 'law' states that technology will increase by
> a multiple of two every ten years, or something
> like that? It's a dangerous thing to keep on
> making new stuff and tossing the old stuff away.
> All that crap will build up and eventually we'll
> have piles and piles of machine stuff that's been
> forgotten and/or outdated.
>

You may be thinking of Moore's Law, and in a way that is often misunderstood.  Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a processor chip will double about every 18 months.  This has been extrapolated in all sorts of ways.  For example, many people think it means that processor speeds will double every 18 months (for a while, this was true, but it was fortuitous).  There may be another law that is more applicable to what you described, but that's the one I thought of when I read your post.
 
> Here's what I see happening, and this is
> speculation. In time, most, if not all information
> will be sent via the internet through ever
> increasingly faster connections. This means movies
> and music too. I see the demise of the hard copy
> for consumer needs. I don't like it, no sir.

There was an interesting and related article out today or yesterday about the "short" lifetime of data on 'burned' CD's.  The study claimed that the data life was about 5 years or less.  That's pretty short, but if you think about it, it's not a whole lot out of kilter with other "recent" forms of data storage.

One commenter mentioned maybe we should return to stone tables.  You know, those hieroglyphs have been around a while.

Regarding the demise of hard copy for personal use, an alternative view might go something like this: why should we ALL store many copies of the SAME DATA?  If the data can be centralized, a grand library if you will, and we access it when we need/want it, a very efficient system of data storage would exist.

(You many insert comments about centrally stored data being easier to modify clandestinely here).

[Menard]

Robert Anton Wilson referred to it as the Jumping Jesus Phenomenon: where technology advances at an interval which is half of the interval for the previous advancement. It has not been passed into law yet.

[trekgeezer]

Like I said, if you have a lot of money invested in DVDs, just stock pile some cheap players.

[Scott]

Menard read a couple used books of Robert Anton Wilson books in the late 80's.

[Scott]

Are we talking about the future again? Then as B-movie people we must first contact THE AMAZING CRISWELL for help................................



Criswell: Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown... the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?



Criswell: [narrating] ... All of us on this earth know that there is a time to live, and that there is a time to die. Yet death is always a shock to those left behind. It is even more of a shock when Death, the Proud Brother, comes suddenly without warning. Just at sundown, a small group gathered in silent prayer, around the newly-opened grave of the beloved wife of an elderly man. Sundown of the day; yet also the sundown of the old man's heart, for the shadows of grief clouded his very reason... The funeral over, the saddened group left the graveside. It was when the gravediggers started their task that strange things began to take place.