The last numbers I saw said DVD annual sales were down 4%.

Just 4%.

Considering how many other means of delivery are supposed to be chipping away at DVD's market share I'd call that an amazing result.

DVD by numbers sold or earnings is still - by a very long way - 'king'.

I'd love to be able to discuss Blu-ray numbers properly but the BDA make sure no-one really can by refusing to release sales numbers for titles at 3, 6, 9, 12 months and beyond.
Even in a market of 1 and after almost 3yrs.
Suspicious?

I do know that DVD sells around 1.7+ billion units in the USA & around 7+ billion worldwide.

Blu-ray has yet to breach even the 2% mark on those figures
(and - excluding PS3 Blu-ray discs, they have encouraged a little confusion there afterall - even more than a whole 1% is unlikely).

The economic slump (yet to even hit fully) means everything tanks next year (probably for a couple of years at least).
I doubt such a non-essential like a new video format stands much hope in that climate.

16,000 Sony redundancies say this is all set to change.

Whether the studios like it or not high def on disc is not the new cash-cow 'premium' product they had hoped it would turn out to be.
Instead it is merely added value that might attract some sales & help sustain movie disc sales, period.

Especially in the current economic climate (which is set to get much owrse next year & be really horrible for quite some time yet).

TBH I expect to see several studios focus back on DVDs & start to back away from Blu-ray due to the higher costs associated with it next year.

Sony is in really really deep sh!t.

16,000 redundancies announced today alone - and this coming recession has yet to even hit fully.

I wouldn't believe a single self-serving word those guys have to say, clearly they're in major trouble and they will say anything to paint the picture better than it obviously is.

Had the Foo Fighters, at Wembley in June, instead.

Superb show & the 24bit 48kHz audio gave the HD receiver a good work-out.
Page & Jones guesting was just glorious.

Maybe get around to TDK at the weekend.

I got mine for £13.44 from The Hut
(if you look out for them they sometimes do a luchtime special offer & take an extra 10% off - I got the Blu-ray steelbook of Wanted for the same price & the new Rush Blu-ray for £9).

Result......well, for a new release price it is.

I wonder how they calculate that kind of number?
What happens to all the pre-orders & early deliveries?

I got mine last week, worth the fuss?
Hmmmmm.
We'll see.
Might watch it tonight but maybe we'll have the Foo Fighters at Wembley instead.

Go cry at someone else, they might even care.

So sorry not to have played your dreary little game & to have spoiled your fun.

(LMAO at the name-calling btw)

Quite plainly cwnyc your comprehension skills are so poor that dialogue is impossible.

You wheedle & fiddle around with the most minor and secondary points whilst ignoring the primary.

I'm sure you find your debating skills stunningly impressive.

I'm so pleased for you but I just cant be ar$ed wasting my time.

Tell you what, you win. Wow.

OK?

How's that for you, eh?

Go ahead & bask in your mighty victory.

I am so massively humbled.

LMAO

Way to (deliberately?) confuse several related, but different, points there, cwnyc.
I'm sure you at least were impressed.

My choice of upscaler is mine (and umteen reviewers) alone.
(conclusions arrived at by numerous visits to shops and specialist a/v rooms actually, nihillasohen; but kudos to you, you little fantasy was at least amusing)
It is hardly the point whether or not the general public/mass-market agrees or can even see the qualitative difference.
The fact is some scalers are verifiably (much) better than others.
Just as the general public might not notice, at a casula glance, the difference between certain PC components, that does not mean those difdferences do not exist.
That's a rather silly point you made there actually.

It is also a fact that the HD TV market is currently composed of a majority of HD TV between 32" - 42" and with a resolution of 720p.
EngadgetHD actually gave the numbers here as recently as Sept this year.
This means it is undeniable that the leap from upscaled DVD to Blu-ray is less than it would otherwise be (on a larger higher res HD TV).
Again this is just a fact beyond dispute.

It will also be true that a bad scaler feeding one of these HD TVs will exaggerate the difference (such as it is) between the upscaled DVD and the Blu-ray displayed image.
Of course that gap will be less and the mass-market might not notice or care but nevertheless that is still the fact of the matter.

You might (condescendingly IMO "The average consumer cannot readily tell" as if that were a certain fact) claim this does not matter (and indeed it may not to some) but it is still no reason to deny that most Blu-ray players make cr@p DVD players.
They do as repeated reviews show.....and as repeatedly going out and comparing them would also show.

I have never stated (and I am unaware anyone else ever did either) say that REON or QDEO produce an image identical to Blu-ray or better than Blu-ray.
Your ridiculous straw-man.

Similarly I bought REON for upscaling my TV service as well as my DVDs (it is built into my HD receiver).
Of course 'most' will never be interested in that level of performance but then I was not the one who made laughably favourable claims about the scaler built in to most Blu-ray players.

You might not care about DVD playback but I, like many many others, do - & ditto upscaling SD TV transmissions.
But to you that just written off as "ego talking".
LOL
Way to respectfully discuss & dismiss something you don't agree with.
Not.

As usual you choose to make a mountain out of the difference between Blu-ray and upscaled DVD.
Just because you care about it does not mean everyone else will or does.

Most people that I know when they are watching movies are very quickly into watching the movie, they not consumed with slight differences in visible detail.
Similarly I've yet to meet the owner who didn't enjoy his Dolby Digital receiver.
Just as I know several PS3 owners who often choose the DVD version of a movie is good enough & the Blu-ray isn't worth the cost (how lossless can be that 'awesome' on a dialogue heavy movie?).

Somewhere along the line I think the PS3 fanboy element is going to wake up to being taken for a ride.
Most of them just do not have the kit to properly experience what Blu-ray really offers
(with the slight exception of those sitting about 12" - 24" away from their small HD TV screen/PC monitor).
Most do not have an audio system capable of properly reproducing audio to the high quality necessary to even hear what lossless audio offers.

.....and too few will ever have the enormous 60"+ HD TV or high end audio kit.

Of course there's always the underlying truth that not everyone can have nor actually wants a 'home cinema' either.

The general public are not especially video or audiophiles and attempting to sell the general public a product that so clearly is aimed at the video/audiophile is futile IMO.

I would suggest that Blu-ray should settle down to doing what it can do, for now, offering the highest available quality possible.
They should forget all about replacing DVD, it just isn't going to happen.
It cannot happen fast enough, particularly now we can expect at least 1yr and maybe as much as 3yrs of economic slump
(if not worse....who recalls that the crash of 1929 was followed 3 or 4yrs later by the worst of the 1930s depression - think that's exaggerated? Go talk to some senior bankers/financiers and see how frightened - and I mean really frightened about what is going on right now - they are right now).

They should switch to BD50s only and encode to the highest possible standard the spec allows.
At least that way they can grow as the video/audiophile's choice and begin to justify the premium they demand.
Trying to be a mass-market product is IMO futile, it simply hasn't enough to offer the mass-market and it comes at a price almost guaranteed to ensure it's failure to replace DVD.

I'd also say that they ought to wake up to the fact that as a recordable PC media it is going nowhere at current pricing.

As for the general public and whether or not they should bother with Blu-ray?
Frankly I do not think they have any serious reason to.

Unless you have a huge (60"+) HD TV (watching at normal distances) and an expensive audio system it offers so little over DVD that I personally do not think it is worth the additional costs.

Wow, so shoot me down, I have a different opinion/view.

That's great and smugly elitist of you Ben, I trust your ivory tower is comfortable and you enjoy your relative isolation.

But there are many of us that have nice DVD collections (several hundred strong and which we will not be replacing - even assuming they all became available on high def) and live in areas where HD TV doesn't even make up 10% of the available channels.

For those of us out in the real world upscaling/upconversion is an important part of our a/v experience; and it will remain so for a very long time to come,
regardless of how quickly high def is adopted (which right now is 'not very').