dvd

[McNoodle]

How long will it be before playable DVD technology is replaced by digital hard drive recording, and what will replace the DVD? What will you rent, for example - a small 'chip' that you would play on your 'hard drive' machine..?

[markysngc]

Personally I wouldn't be supprised to see it get to the point that you buy something similar to today flash memory cards with the films on them, though this will probably not be for a few years. and there will probably be another format "war" like the VHS/betamax or bluray/HDdvd

for rentals I reckon before long you will not rent anything physical with the films on them but simply rent the film to be streamed to you over the interenet, I have cable TV and to a degree can already do this.

[fo3nix]

Stuff is stored in bytes. It's all computerised.

So the optimisation lies in the transfer of these bytes, from one place to the next. Regardless of what quality is being used (DVD or HD, or even just VHS). Transport can always be optimised.

The most optimal is transfer over the internet -- no need for trucks with physical media on them, or anything like that.

All the technology is already here. It's just that the movie industry execs fear mass piracy so don't want to create an easy system.

In the states (and soon here hopefully), Apple and others are already doing this. You can get a little box under your TV that connects to the internet and lets you rent films. It takes about 30secs for it to load enough to start watching, varying with your internet connection.

[Cakeboy]

Xbox live does this already, you download the film and you have 14 days to watch it as many times as you want. After 14 days it can't be viewed any more and then you delete and start again

[McNoodle]

Wow. Better stop adding to my DVD collection then!

[Ethel]

No reason to stop buying dvds. Dvd players will be available for many years to come - mainly because they are so very cheap to produce.

[fo3nix]

Yea Ethel's right.

That plus the fact that the industry can't get itself sorted out.

You know that part of the blu-ray standard (the disc type that won the HD race againt HD-DVD), was for a disc to only be able to be played in one drive. So you bought it and watched it, but then can't lend it to a friend. They backed down on this, but very reluctantly. Other draconian protection schemes are still in place.

Another main reason that physical media will still be around for a bit is that our internet connections are still comparatively slow. Plus the fact that most ISPs throttle your connection, making downloading stuff slow.