Future formats of DVD movies-Doomed to Incompatiability?

[Tim]

I'm concerned about the ever changing formats that are on the horizon for DVD movies (i.e the Blue laser DVD format being worked on now) and the impact the new players will have for watching current DVD's. Specifically, I am hesitant to pay $80 for a boxed season set of Star Trek or Buffy only to find out that the current DVD format will be incompatible with DVD players 10 years from now. What are your guy's views on this dilemma? Are we doomed to continuously re-purchase our DVD collections every ten years?

[Ruri]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I have about 100 LDs to prove it :(

But that's how the consumer electronic / entertainment industry works. They come out with a new format every decade or two, hoping that consumers will have a reason to upgrade their hardware and re-purchase their software.

As for my solution, I am starting to copy my LD collections to DVD, and one day, I'll probably start copying my DVD collection to whatever new format will come out. But I am NOT going to repurchase a DVD of something I already have on LD. I refuse to play that game as best as I can.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by Tim
I'm concerned about the ever changing formats that are on the horizon for DVD movies (i.e the Blue laser DVD format being worked on now) and the impact the new players will have for watching current DVD's. Specifically, I am hesitant to pay $80 for a boxed season set of Star Trek or Buffy only to find out that the current DVD format will be incompatible with DVD players 10 years from now. What are your guy's views on this dilemma? Are we doomed to continuously re-purchase our DVD collections every ten years?

I don't think i would mind a new format 10 years from now. 10 years is a pretty long time. Granted VHS has been around for a while. I still think that the change over process to a new format would take another 5 years to complete the cycle. DVD players have been around for a while and yet you still find VHS movies and players around.

[llbbl]

You need to do some more research I think Tim, because I am pretty sure that the vast majority of DVD players on the market today use blue lasers to read. I could be wrong, but I thougth this is how they were able to fit more data on the disk. In other words, the blue laser is what makes the DVD format capable of recording smaller pits and valleys on a disk the size of a CD. It is true that they are double sided and the coating and manufacture process is different than the CD, that at least I am sure of!

Oh and another important point is they do not use lasers! I don't think any CD / DVD drive today contains laser because they are just too bluky to fit into the small enclosure. What they do use is what is called a LED or Light Emitting Diode. They come in all sorts of colors these days.