14 DAY TRIAL // There have been multiple occasions where analysts looked into the future of optical media and the latest such occurrence has In-Stat as the one responsible, the prediction being one that isn't too favorable to the DVD.
HDTVs may not be too widespread now, but they will definitely account for more and more of the worldwide market in fairly short order.
With this to give people a reason to buy a better media playback devices, Blu-ray unit sales can only go up.
Of course, this means DVD players will steadily, if not quickly, see consumer interest dropping, since high-quality movies, especially 3D ones, rely on the BD disk format now.
The fact that consumers proved to have an overwhelming preference for 3D than regular video will obviously contribute greatly to this.
“Blu-ray recorders will replace DVD recorders, and many consumers of recorders will even drop the physical disk media option altogether and instead opt for a player with a large hard drive or a DMS in which to store DLNA-certified and other digital video content,” said says Norm Bogen, vice president of digital entertainment at In-Stat.
“DVD players and recorder shipments will decline over the next five years for most regions. By 2015, DVD recorders will be essentially phased out entirely, with only negligible shipments to Japan.”
About 105 million Blu-ray player units will ship in 2015, by which time most TV channels should have crossed to high-definition broadcasting as well.
In the meantime, BD players will probably start to incorporate hard disk drives more and more, as well as Internet capabilities (browsing, WiFi, streaming, etc.).
Of course, Smart TVs are going to go through something similar, so there might arise some rivalry between them and web-linked players. This won't really impact consumer need for a means to play HD media disks though.