So about this Blu-Ray stuff....

[Jim H]

"Sure, the players NOW can play DVD's, but what about when the suits decide they are ready to resell all their movies in a new format, and that capability magically disappears from new units. Do you think Burgo wants to repurchase 3000 movies? "

It is not like DVD players will be hard to find in any of our lifetimes.   Look at the costs of LaserDisc players, which in America were a small niche product.  Still cheap and easy to find.  80 years from now, I'd be suprised if something which could play DVD video was that hard to find - there's just too many things that can for it to ever become a rare commodity.  There's nothing to worry about here, is what I'm saying.  Personally, I will not be upgrading any of my DVDs to HD, unless there is some extra reason to do this (better, extended version, etc).

Point in fact, is there ANY somewhat mainstream audio/video format released in the past 50 years that is really that hard to find players of?  Even CED players are less than $50 on eBay.  I just don't understand the irrational fear that somehow old players will become hard to find or something.

Of course, there is also the fact that I own something like 10 DVD players...  One in my laptop, four in other DVD-ROM drives of various types, my Apex player, my PS2, the DVD recorder, the other DVD player, and one in the basement.  Oh yeah, and one in the family van.

[ulthar]

Jim H Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>  I just
> don't understand the irrational fear that somehow
> old players will become hard to find or
> something.
>

I think PART of where the fear comes from is based on the way the tech news reports this stuff.  You get headlines like "Say Good-bye to DVD" and the like.

[Ash]

I had to resurrect this old thread when I read this new article at Howstuffworks.com.

This sheds a lot more light on the subject!
Make sure you read all the pages...it goes into detail about the differences between Blu-ray & HD-DVD.

Check it out here