What format is most of your movie library in?

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

BluRay will never become the dominant format as pretty much all sales in the future will be downloads.

Absolutely bang on. The HD DVD / Blu-ray battle has been made moot by the evolving capacity / capability of the Internet. No one really wants / needs shelves full of VHS/DVD/Blu-ray discs if the alternative is instant access to a vast library of real-time content.

Folks here on mobileread are more likely those who value possession: but, really, all that matters is when the desire is there, can I access the content I want? Many of us buy content "for a rainy day" and never get around to it (*blushes* knowing there are a few LPs in the closet with original shrink wrap and "SALE!" stickers attached). Imagine if that budget was spent solely on content that was actually used.

Blu-ray is wonderful ... but almost all of the movies I care to own are pre-1960 and enhanced DVD does a pretty darn good job, especially for content I am only likely to view once. Casablanca, I will grant you, looks fabulous in true HD, and better than enhanced DVD ... and I probably will watch that more than once. But if a library with the depth of Amazon offered me HD of anything I asked for, for a reasonable rental, in truth I'd buy almost nothing to "own".

Oh, wait: that might apply to e-books ... !

[dapriuk]

Blu-Ray - last 5 years?

In the UK my impression is that Blu-Ray has only started to become accessible in the last year with cheaper players and PS3. The movies themselves are still 2-3 times the cost of DVDs which will also restrict their uptake for a while

I don't know how things stand in other parts of the world outside NA but I would guess it's a similar situation.

[Druid_Elf]

Definately DVD. I have a few old VHS tapes, but they are replaced with their DVD counterparts
BR, well no, for the simple fact I have an old TV on which it wouldn't make a difference in image quality if I would use DVD or BR. Besides BR movies are still too expensive in my opinion.
Secondly I don't want to rebuy my entire movie collection into BR, to see it being replaced in 5 years with something new I am (hopefully) going to pass on BR

[ManosHandsOfFate]

DVDs but I'm moving to Xvid. The fact that I can rip DVDs and put 4-5 decent quality Xvids on one DVD-R is appealing.

I have a PS3 with a few Blu-Ray Discs but until the price comes down I can't see myself using them too much.

[Sweetpea]

DVD's. By far. If I do download a movie, it'll be deleted after I've seen it. We do have 1 (or 2) blue ray disc(s), it was (they were) in a package with the DVD...

[Clancy_s]

Pretty much evenly divided between xvid and DVD (didn't vote).

New purchases will be Blu-ray.

[nursedude]

I find my Blu-ray player upconverts DVDs pretty well. With my eyesight it doesn't make much difference even on my HD TV...

Most of the movies I watch are in mpeg/avi or other format and streamed from my 'puter to the xBox 360.

Purchases are either BR or DVD depending on the price difference but I have to really like a movie before I buy it.

[SeaBookGuy]

mpeg (avi) as I usually only watch movies on my Cowon D2 while traveling

[Sydney's Mom]

I record movies from TV (commercial free, of course) and use freeware to convert them to a format my ipod will read. Then, if I don't have any hands free (when I am sitting on the train knitting) I can watch an old movie or past episodes of True Blood.

[sakura-panda]

The bulk of my collection is DVDs, but the majority of my recent purchases have been Blu-Ray, which includes DVDs and digital downloads with purchase (at least the ones I buy do. I'm not sure if they are all that way. Since we have Netflix, I'm more selective these days with what I'm buying.)

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by dapriuk

Blu-Ray - last 5 years?

In the UK my impression is that Blu-Ray has only started to become accessible in the last year with cheaper players and PS3. The movies themselves are still 2-3 times the cost of DVDs which will also restrict their uptake for a while

I don't know how things stand in other parts of the world outside NA but I would guess it's a similar situation.

Similar situation here in Oz, dapriuk. The Australian public is apparently something of an early-adopter, so we've had maybe four years of significant Blu-ray marketing, and most players sold these days are Blu-ray systems that also read DVDs, but still Blu-rays occupy only a small proportion of the video shelf space in electronics retailers and BR discs sit at prices around twice those of first-release DVDs. I'm not aware of any titles that have been released on BR that haven't already been available or else simultaneously come out on DVD as well.

Myself, I'm not planning on shifting into the BR camp. My hand was forced when DVDs first came out because my house got burgled of both my video player/TV equipment and the "Desert Island" favourites I had on VHS. For a time after I upgraded I went a bit nuts on buying discs, because they were elegant and pleasing and visually such a revelation compared to videotapes, and I confess I bought a lot of titles I wouldn't buy a second time. But to move to BR now would mean replacing <i>all</i> of my equipment - hardware and software combined - and though I haven't had a lot of experience of HD - I still have a CRT television, for instance - I find I just don't care enough about the higher specs to justify the expense.

Especially when, as others have pointed out here, the format is likely to change in the very near future anyway. Even if it stays in some optically-readable hardware format, the shorter-wavelength laser prototypes that Sony and Toshiba have recently demonstrated are incompatible with the existing Blu-ray system anyway. I'm not interested in stepping onto that planned-obsolescence treadmill.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Similar situation here in Oz, dapriuk. The Australian public is apparently something of an early-adopter, so we've had maybe four years of significant Blu-ray marketing, and most players sold these days are Blu-ray systems that also read DVDs, but still Blu-rays occupy only a small proportion of the video shelf space in electronics retailers and BR discs sit at prices around twice those of first-release DVDs. I'm not aware of any titles that have been released on BR that haven't already been available or else simultaneously come out on DVD as well.

Myself, I'm not planning on shifting into the BR camp. My hand was forced when DVDs first came out because my house got burgled of both my video player/TV equipment and the "Desert Island" favourites I had on VHS. For a time after I upgraded I went a bit nuts on buying discs, because they were elegant and pleasing and visually such a revelation compared to videotapes, and I confess I bought a lot of titles I wouldn't buy a second time. But to move to BR now would mean replacing <i>all</i> of my equipment - hardware and software combined - and though I haven't had a lot of experience of HD - I still have a CRT television, for instance - I find I just don't care enough about the higher specs to justify the expense.

Especially when, as others have pointed out here, the format is likely to change in the very near future anyway. Even if it stays in some optically-readable hardware format, the shorter-wavelength laser prototypes that Sony and Toshiba have recently demonstrated are incompatible with the existing Blu-ray system anyway. I'm not interested in stepping onto that planned-obsolescence treadmill.

I also do not like the planned-obsolescence treadmill and upgrade only when forced to. I was satisfied for many years with my 13" CRT TV/VCR combo because I had to hang it off a wall and the wall mount I had to use could handle only so much weight. I resisted upgrading to an LCD because of the expense so I was waiting for prices to go down. When the USA mandated that most TV stations switch to digital broadcasting, even though I did take advantage of the government subsidized converter boxes, the directions that came with the box were more complicated than the ones for my TV/VCR so I delayed hooking it up. I also saw one in use at a friends house and how much of a pain it was to use. The final switchover date got pushed back a few months and during that time, LCD TV prices dropped some more so I went ahead and got a 32" LCD that weighed a pound less than the TV/VCR. I haven't regretted that decision.

I haven't switched over to Blu-Ray Disk yet because I don't want a separate player for it and my present computer may require some modifications to take a BD drive. The difference between a movie or TV show broadcast in standard def. and in HD is stunning, however, before I go to the trouble of upgrading software and hardware to BD, I want to compare a normal DVD playback to an upscaled one and see how the upscaled version compares to a BD version. I have a BD/DVD movie bundle I'm supposed to try at a friend's house (she has the equipment) so we can make the comparison there; I just haven't gotten around to doing so yet (shows how eager I am to do it). I have a lot of DVDs already so if I can be satisfied with an upscaled DVD using software on my computer, I probably won't bother with a BD drive, let alone a player.

[Stitchawl]

We don't have any movies on DVD's, VHS, or Laser disks. Everything is MP4, AVI, etc., and stored in external drives. Stored probably isn't the best word to use as I only 'keep' about 15-20 of the classics; i.e. 'Casablanca,' 'The Court Jester,' 'Rear Window,' 'African Queen,' 'Debbie does... er... Movies that can be watched more than once. All others get deleted after watching.

Stitchawl

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

I also do not like the planned-obsolescence treadmill

It isn't "planned obsolescence" when the products involve technology that hadn't been invented at the time. On the introduction of DVD, there were no blue diode lasers like are used in Blu-Ray players. It was many years of long, hard work to figure out how to make them, and the blue diode laser was long the Holy Grail in the laser field. And even if they had one, there wasn't a processor on the planet that could handle real-time decoding of 1080p MPEG4 video. Things like Blu-Ray and the latest CPU aren't a marketing ploy doled out a little at a time to keep people buying-- they are technologies that mankind was literally incapable of producing only a few years ago.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Things like Blu-Ray and the latest CPU aren't a marketing ploy doled out a little at a time to keep people buying

No, they are planned obsolescence. Sony and Toshiba have acknowledged they were working on the replacement technologies for Blu-ray before BR machines even went on the market.

There's ongoing development and technological breakthroughs, but part of the model is also to sell products based on each interim stage of development, knowing that the products will be superseded fairly rapidly and the majority of the customers will be squeezed into repurchasing seats to that ongoing bullfight.