Serling1979 said:

Harmy said:

Actually, I think that the comparison of BD to LD is quite accurate in the sense that BD is to DVD what LD was to VHS (here's hoping that BD will become somewhat more mainstream though).

I think this is the reason why BD will ultimately fail. There is nothing wrong with BD but there is nothing exceptionally new about it either. It's like a DVD but with higher resolution and while HD-TVs have become more common so have upscaling algorithms. Do I shell out another $20 to get the movie on Blu-ray or do I use my DVD? It's like the Star Trek rule, every movie with an odd number, or every other Bond being terrible (though Timothy Dalton was just mis-cast). It's just that DVD was such a revolution that BD didn't have enough new stuff to offer. Whatever the next home video medium will be, it will rock in terms of sales but BD, while still a good medium, is bound to crash.

Why it will fail? It's already a proven success. The unfortunate success of the Star Wars BDs is evidence of that. It's a higher-end format that has been embraced by some consumers, not all. It's unfair to compare it to DVD, which is the greatest format success story ever. It's a premium format that was released in harsh economic times, and it isn't the jump in quality as DVD was to VHS.

As for the next home video medium, I think Blu-ray may be the last as far as "hard" formats go. However, on a mass scale, it's still the best as what it does, and it should be around for several more years.