DVD won’t go out of style for a while

By JOHN BACHMANN

Don’t worry about switching from DVD to Blu-Ray or HD DVD just yet.

With Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies slowly starting to take their places in retail stores, regular DVDs may be losing their popularity.

But, associate professor of communication, said DVDs will still be sold in high numbers due to the lack of people adapting to the competition.

“The adaption is small because a lot of people don’t have HD televisions, so there’s not reason for them to buy HD DVDs,” Brookey said.

Brookey finds the current competition similar to that between BETA and VHS years ago.

“Consumers are very reluctant because they are afraid that either Blu-Ray or HD DVDs will become obsolete like BETA did against VHS,” Brookey said.

Brookey said he will wait until the end of 2008 before he buys one of the players.

“By then there will be a shakedown of the two products, having only one of the formats left,” Brookey said.

As for the regular DVD format, Brookey thinks the market for it won’t go down until the same time. His advice for others is to also wait because they will get a better product and price.

Will Barbrey, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, won’t be buying any of the new formats any time soon.

“They cost too much, so I’m going to wait until the price goes down,” Barbrey said.

Dan Beck, a sophomore geography major, is also going to wait it out.

“I’m going to wait and see what will be better in the long run,” Beck said. “I’m fine with regular DVDs and don’t have a HDTV, so I don’t need a HD DVD player.”