Waving Goodbye To The DVD

I have long admired the DVD as a useful and disruptive technology. In 1998 I purchased my first computer that had a DVD drive installed. I was fascinated by the fact that I could actually play a movie on my computer. Even better than that was the fact that writable DVDs could store gigabytes of data rather than the hundreds of megabytes available on CD-ROMS. DVDs were also incredibly portable and easy to store out of sight when compared next to those bulky black plastic VHS tapes. Yes, DVDs even looked like the future. As you can tell I was a big proponent from the get go, annoying friends and family by constantly talking them up.

We all know how things turned out. The DVD wiped VHS and CD-ROMs off the map. For the past decade DVDs have had a great run but for every new technology there always seems to be a newer technology waiting around the bend. So thirteen years after I first became enamored with the DVD all signs point to the eventual extinction of the DVD. Within the next few years you and I will be spending less time with DVDs and more time with digital versionsof media. This is something that I have been considering for awhile but the recent announcement by Netflix that they would split their plans into separate DVD and streaming video products prompted me to announce it publicly.

The move by Netflix is significant for two reasons. First, Netflix has become the dominant player in the DVD rental space, outlasting notable video rental chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Second, the new Netflix strategy forces customers to think about and choose between DVD rentals and streaming video. Had Netfix merely raised prices by a couple of dollars per month people wouldn't think about the choice between DVDs and streaming video. Instead Netflix created two plans, and you can take or leave either one separately. Now is the time for choosing!

Here are some other reasons why DVDs will soon follow the VHS tape into extinction.

• High capacity, low cost USB flash drives
• Apple's iTunes which sells and rents TV shows and movies
• Amazon's digital video on demand service
• Google's YouTube and Google Movies services
• Software application app stores by Apple, Amazon and Google
• Extremely high capacity (1 terabyte and up) hard drives
• Cable video on demand services
• Set top boxes like Google TV and the Roku Player
• Web connected TVs like Samsung's Smart TVs

The waves of technology are pounding DVD's shores and there is nothing that DVDs can do about it. As fast, convenient and portable as DVDs are, digital media is faster, more convenient and more portable. If you want to buy a DVD from a store it could take you an hour or more to drive there, buy the DVD and return home. If you want to purchase a movie from iTunes you can be watching the movie in minutes. If you want to transfer a DVD to an iPad you can go through a process of ripping the DVD but that takes hours to complete and more technical knowledge than most people want to deal with. Similarly, renting a DVD can take anwhere from an hour (if its in stock locally) or days (if you decide to wait for it from Netflix) versus minutes when downloading from a web based service.

The biggest advantage that DVDs have over digital media is the quality of the video. Any video you download from the internet is going to be compressed, reducing the quality of what you see and hear. Blu-ray discs offer superior quality of both sound and video but they're expensive compared to standard DVDs and streaming ,and still not as convenient as digital streaming. The existence of Blu-ray and limits to downstream internet bandwidth will help the DVD to survive longer than the VHS tape. Even with Blu-ray's advantages, the fate of the DVD will ultimately be the same as the VHS tape. Over the years the masses of consumers have shown a preference for lower cost, convenience and portability in their digital media over the benefit of superior quality.

So while DVDs have served me well and provided countless hours of entertainment it's time for me to start saying my goodbyes to what was most definitely a game-changing technology.