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Forums - Movies & TV - DVD turns 30

JackHandy 2 days ago
curl-6 said:
JackHandy said:

I don't think of them as really being a thing until around the year 2000. In 1996, none of the video stores had them to rent, and they weren't for sale anywhere in my neck of the woods and wouldn't be for years. But man, what a short-lived piece of media. Things launch, and in less than ten years, they're getting replaced. VHS went for two decades before that happened (Laser Discs never caught on). I still love them, and have all the ones I original purchased.

I mean 30 years and counting isn't that short-lived; it may have only gotten 10 years before Blu Ray arrived, but DVD continued long after that, it's still going today 20 years after its "replacement".

VHS came out in the late 70's and lasted until the early 00's as the dominant format. DVDs lasted from the early 00's to... the middle 00s? Late 00's? By 2006, Blu-Ray was here. By 2007, Netflix's streaming service had arrived. A few short years after that, it had surpassed both DVD and Blu-Ray as the de-facto way to consume movies.

It really is kind of ridiculous when you think about how short a run DVD had. It deserved better. And to this day, some releases still look better than their UHD versions. The extended TLOTR Trilogy is one of them. Better lighting, better color grading. And the boxes those came in were amazing.



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curl-6 2 days ago
JackHandy said:
curl-6 said:

I mean 30 years and counting isn't that short-lived; it may have only gotten 10 years before Blu Ray arrived, but DVD continued long after that, it's still going today 20 years after its "replacement".

VHS came out in the late 70's and lasted until the early 00's as the dominant format. DVDs lasted from the early 00's to... the middle 00s? Late 00's? By 2006, Blu-Ray was here. By 2007, Netflix's streaming service had arrived. A few short years after that, it had surpassed both DVD and Blu-Ray as the de-facto way to consume movies.

It really is kind of ridiculous when you think about how short a run DVD had. It deserved better.

DVD didn't stop in 2006 when Blu Ray came out or in 2007 when Netflix arrived though; it's still being manufactured and sold today, 30 years after its introduction, which I believe is as long as VHS lasted (1976-2006 IIRC)



Pajderman 2 days ago

I did not like the look of DVDs when they first got released. I do not remember what the first movie I bought on the format but I remember that a store had a tv with a copy of George of the Jungle playing from a DVD on display. My friend seemed impressed by it, I thought it looked fake.

I still buy DVDs second hand. Building my own digital library of movies and DVDs can be bought in bulk very cheap and they take up much less space on my NAS than Blu-ray and UHD movies. A dvd takes around 5gb , blu-ray 20gb and UHD movie 60gb. But I have not bought a new DVD since blu-ray got released. And now I only buy UHD blu-rays new. Need to make use the expensive tv and sound system to warrant the purchase ^_^



DekutheEvilClown 2 days ago

The first DVD I ever bought was Memento, in 2001 during my first year of University. Second was Apocalypse Now Redux(Redux is actually kinda rubbish).



SvennoJ 2 days ago
JackHandy said:
curl-6 said:

I mean 30 years and counting isn't that short-lived; it may have only gotten 10 years before Blu Ray arrived, but DVD continued long after that, it's still going today 20 years after its "replacement".

VHS came out in the late 70's and lasted until the early 00's as the dominant format. DVDs lasted from the early 00's to... the middle 00s? Late 00's? By 2006, Blu-Ray was here. By 2007, Netflix's streaming service had arrived. A few short years after that, it had surpassed both DVD and Blu-Ray as the de-facto way to consume movies.

It really is kind of ridiculous when you think about how short a run DVD had. It deserved better. And to this day, some releases still look better than their UHD versions. The extended TLOTR Trilogy is one of them. Better lighting, better color grading. And the boxes those came in were amazing.

Blu-Ray sales have never surpassed DVD sales in any single year, to this year. In 2016 revenues from Streaming surpassed DVD+Blu-ray sales. In 2002 DVD sales overtook VHS sales. DVD was the dominant format from 2002 to 2016, 14 year run. VHS got there in the early 80s (before it was competing with Betamax and such) so about a 20 year run.

I agree, the blu-ray extended version of LotR is too green. The 4K ultra HD re-re-release is supposed to fix the color that but looks bad otherwise, upscaling parts of the original 2K digital master with heavy DNR, looks very artificial.
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/s7hv4m/we_may_never_see_the_lord_of_the_rings_trilogy_in/

The DVD version is at least consistent in quality.



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JackHandy 2 days ago
SvennoJ said:
JackHandy said:

VHS came out in the late 70's and lasted until the early 00's as the dominant format. DVDs lasted from the early 00's to... the middle 00s? Late 00's? By 2006, Blu-Ray was here. By 2007, Netflix's streaming service had arrived. A few short years after that, it had surpassed both DVD and Blu-Ray as the de-facto way to consume movies.

It really is kind of ridiculous when you think about how short a run DVD had. It deserved better. And to this day, some releases still look better than their UHD versions. The extended TLOTR Trilogy is one of them. Better lighting, better color grading. And the boxes those came in were amazing.


I agree, the blu-ray extended version of LotR is too green. The 4K ultra HD re-re-release is supposed to fix the color that but looks bad otherwise, upscaling parts of the original 2K digital master with heavy DNR, looks very artificial.
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/s7hv4m/we_may_never_see_the_lord_of_the_rings_trilogy_in/

The DVD version is at least consistent in quality.

I watch my DVD's on a CRT, like they were meant to be watched. On there, the extended editions look superior to any of the HD versions on HD TVs. And as I said, the physical boxes were just... wow. When you go back and check some of the things out during the era before streaming, it's pretty obvious how pathetic the budget is these days for physical anything.



Jumpin 2 days ago

DVD still leads in physical formats according to this site:

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/

Couldn't find historical charts on that site, but found a couple that seem to be sourced from this site:

https://hive.blog/hive-167922/@vikisecrets/dvd-vs-blu-ray-sales-dvds-still-outselling-blu-rays-but-there-is-an-interesting-trend-june-2023

https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/vikisecrets/2424ChBqbVCNSVnWiT6MF19Dog4diiksFZUh5pTbfBF6ofQunLZ63nb6mXCnzQWhnQTVH.png">

https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/vikisecrets/242NywC8KHTuvTBs5kefNACKNfGMfaGuQA9Kiz9hAekCLRf6GiFvLDCsNW3S6B2isoHkw.png">

I wouldn't guess physical media are anywhere near as relevant as streaming and direct digital purchases, however.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Wman1996 2 days ago
Pajderman said:

I did not like the look of DVDs when they first got released. I do not remember what the first movie I bought on the format but I remember that a store had a tv with a copy of George of the Jungle playing from a DVD on display. My friend seemed impressed by it, I thought it looked fake.

I still buy DVDs second hand. Building my own digital library of movies and DVDs can be bought in bulk very cheap and they take up much less space on my NAS than Blu-ray and UHD movies. A dvd takes around 5gb , blu-ray 20gb and UHD movie 60gb. But I have not bought a new DVD since blu-ray got released. And now I only buy UHD blu-rays new. Need to make use the expensive tv and sound system to warrant the purchase ^_^

You ever tried LaserDisc? You get an analog video format with analog audio (and sometimes digital when supported). The resolution is better than VHS and some films look closer to their original theatrical releases (Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King).

If you don't have LaserDisc, I would recommend caution when getting into the format. Many discs are cheap; that's not the issue. The issue is the player prices. I got an old budget player for $65 and free shipping in 2015 and that player is now going for around $150 and up. And you often don't get free shipping and expect to pay far more in shipping than little stuff. All I have to say for anyone who gets into the format nowadays is that a working player is a good player. Even if it's the bottom barrel of features. 

I'm more interested in LaserDisc than DVD at this point because BD and UHD BD more or less killed my desire for DVDs. 



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curl-6 2 days ago

Laserdisc I find fascinating; my brother used to own it back in the day but had to sell it off years ago. The huge discs were super cool.



SvennoJ 2 days ago
Wman1996 said:

You ever tried LaserDisc? You get an analog video format with analog audio (and sometimes digital when supported). The resolution is better than VHS and some films look closer to their original theatrical releases (Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King).

If you don't have LaserDisc, I would recommend caution when getting into the format. Many discs are cheap; that's not the issue. The issue is the player prices. I got an old budget player for $65 and free shipping in 2015 and that player is now going for around $150 and up. And you often don't get free shipping and expect to pay far more in shipping than little stuff. All I have to say for anyone who gets into the format nowadays is that a working player is a good player. Even if it's the bottom barrel of features. 

I'm more interested in LaserDisc than DVD at this point because BD and UHD BD more or less killed my desire for DVDs. 

My LD player unfortunately broke over a decade ago. It also had S-VHS output which I don't have any inputs for anymore. Then half my Laserdiscs got ruined in a flood ugh. But it was awesome combined with a CRT projector in the late 90s. $150 is cheap, I payed much more for it when it was new lol.

Pioneer CLD-D925 it's still sitting in my av stack. It needs a need drive belt I think. 

Blu-ray has its advantages though with lossless 5.1/7.1 and as long as no DNR was used it still captures the film grain from 35mm conversions.