Re: The next successful successor to DVD as a medium for video will be:

[jonadab]

Whatever it is, nobody's ever heard of it yet, if it's even been invented. The DVD format is pretty new. Nothing is going to replace it for a good solid while. Heck, it's going to be another half dozen years before DVD finishes pushing VHS out of the market. As near as I can tell, there are currently still more VHS players in North America than DVD players (although, I'm pretty sure at this point more movies are watched on DVD than VHS; people who don't have DVD yet tend to be people who watch relatively few movies). Frankly, most of the DVD players that have ever been sold were manufactured in the last two years, and for the moment practically everyone that has a DVD player _also_ still has a VHS player (although that is starting to change, gradually). Plus, cam corders still mostly use VHS. DVD burners for computers only became sanely affordable in the last year or so. In short, DVD has only just barely arrived. It's not going anywhere for at *least* a decade. Any attempt to market a successor format now is going to meet with widespread apathy if not outright disbelief and scorn. Well, outside certain very narrow niche markets, it will. There are of course always a handful of people who will seek out and adopt a format if it meets their special needs (e.g., Laserdisc, which was present in school film departments and media labs all over North America for _years_ while the rest of the world used VHS), but that sort of product isn't going to push out a mainstream format like DVD. A few videophiles may adopt this or that, but for most folks DVD is still going to be the "new" format for a nice little while yet. Talking about what's going to replace it is, in a word, premature.

HD-DVD and BluRay are competing for the niche markets formerly occupied by products like Laserdisc. Their proponents may *think* they're aiming to replace DVD, but that's a lot more enthusiastic than realistic.

[davido]

Did you just say "Plus, cam corders still mostly use VHS."?

I'm glad to announce that as of 2006, that statement hasn't been true in over 15 years. And according to wikipedia, analog camcorders aren't even marketed anymore (this includes VHS, 8mm, Analog Hi-8, VHS-C, SVHS-C and SVHS). MiniDV and Digital-8 (shot on Hi-8 tapes) dominate 1st-world market sales, and according to a CNET article, DVD camcorders are currently the fastest growing market segment.

[jonadab]

Did you just say "Plus, cam corders still mostly use VHS."?

I have yet to see (outside of store displays) one that does not, except for models that don't record at all but only transmit to another device that does the recording (e.g., via firewire to a computer). There are also security-oriented video cameras, but those really are a different market from cam corders.

And according to wikipedia, analog camcorders aren't even marketed anymore

Aren't actively marketed with TV advertisements, perhaps. It is certainly still possible to buy one, although frankly at this point almost everyone who wants a camcorder has already had one for a while, so new sales in the last couple of years account for only a small percentage of the total units in existence. If you don't happen to have one, it's also not hard to go out and rent one for a week (unless you're trying to rent it for the week of Christmas or high school graduation, of course, in which case forget it). New sales at this point are mostly to young people who just moved out on their own, so it takes a few years for a new model to gain siginficant share.

DVD camcorders are currently the fastest growing market segment.

Now you're making my point for me. DVD camcorders are still at the stage of being the fastest-growing market segment for new sales. This implies that they're the new, up-and-coming format. In a couple more years they will dominate new sales to the extent that their market share can no longer grow much, and then in five or ten years after that they will account for the majority of the units people have. Nothing that comes out before then has a prayer of gaining significant acceptance in the market, because DVD has the mindshare. DVD isn't ready to be the old format on its way out yet; it's only just started to really get going.

[jhourcle]

You may be confusing 'video cassette' with VHS. VHS is a specific form factor and encoding standard of tape. 'Video cassette' can refer to MiniDV or Digital8.

(it's similar, although not entirely like, referring to a DDS tape as a DAT -- they're the same form factor, and the earlier versions could be read in both types of readers, but they're no longer compatible)

Oh ... and I bought a MiniDV camcorder three weeks ago. (the video's fine, but they've gotten these things so damned small that the mic is too close to the tape mechanism, and the audio is just foul) ... and I moved 'out on my own' many, many years ago.

[freddo411]

Generally, I agree with your point the DVDs are here for a while, just like the CD format has stayed just about constant for almost 20 years. On the otherhand you say:

HD-DVD and BluRay are competing for the niche markets formerly occupied by products like Laserdisc. Their proponents may *think* they're aiming to replace DVD, but that's a lot more enthusiastic than realistic.

DVDs were adopted very rapidly compared to the average electronic consumer device despite the existance of tape. HD formats might follow a similar pattern.

While there aren't many adoptors of HD-DVD or BluRay right now, the emerging prevalence of HDTV monitors makes it a likely that the uptake will be rather fast going forward.

I don't have a HD set yet, I've been waiting for more content, a reasonable HD tivo device, and a HD DVD like device. When I make the upgrade to my TV display I'll likely want to buy my movies in the new format to take advantage of the investment in the HD set.