Home Video Trends, the Future: DVRs, Placeshifting and the Internet

By: Chief Gizmateer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

We’ve decided to look into the future of home video and predict five growing trends that we see in this marketplace. Covering DVD, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, Internet video delivery systems and in-demand video services, DVR storage and placeshifting. Which technologies are disappearing? Which technologies will be the wave of the future?

Since VHS has officially been declared dead, consumers probably will not watch too many movies on VHS tapes nor will consumers continue to use VCRs to record shows from TV. Instead consumers will use Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo DVRs even more heavily.

Speaking of DVRs, high-definition is supported with the release of TiVo Series 3 earlier this year. Many cable and satellite integrated DVRs already supported the HDTV format as well. With storage space continuing to climb, DVRs could morph into an integrated recording and storage unit for not only TV shows but purchased movies and other media as well.

Next we have DVDs. For the most part people use DVDs for watching movies. There is a small minority of people that use DVD recorders as their next-gen “VCR”. DVDs overtook the sales of VHS tapes last year and the separation between the two technologies has exploded this year. In addition, most manufacturers have stopped manufacturing VHS tapes. With that said, DVDs are in the late fall of their lifespan. While new DVD players provide up-conversion to hi-def helping to prolong the lifetime and enhance the imagery from DVDs on your HDTV, newer formats are being pushed heavily.

Trend #1: DVDs starting to die.

Read the entire article for the addition growing trends on DVR Playground.