Are DualDiscs Doomed?

As I have reported a couple weeks ago on the new format 'DVD album' by Warner Music. According to Medialine, DualDisc is quickly losing heat among consumers, and has failed to gather interest in packaged media purchase.

Even though a number of titles are still being scheduled for release, it's quite obvious that DualDisc is not sought after by either consumers nor record labels.

Interestingly enough, many consumers that purchased DualDiscs are not aware that they are buying a DualDisc, they thought they were buying a regular CD. Just compare the amount of media coverage DualDiscs got with HD-DVD/Blu-ray. It's not wonder why most people are still unaware of this media format.

Since the last few CD-alternatives have pretty much not been very successful, I think if the new 'DVD album' has a lot of hurldes in the near future.

Music you can watch on DVD

According to a report on the Wall Street Journal, Warner music, the 4th largest music company, is in the final stage of developing a new audio format on DVD. This new format, 'DVD album', contains a bundle of music, video footage and other extra features. DVD-audio quality tracks and video will be played on DVD players, while other extra DVD-Rom features can be played on computers.

Media analysts are hardly excited about this new format, and we could see why. DualDiscs, DVD-Audio etc have all been disappointments, but the bottom line is, it could not hurt the industry. On the other hand, retailers are desperately waiting for the CD replacements and welcome anything that gives customers reasons back to the record stores.

From the way that it sounds, there is one major issue with this new format. First off, it does not play on CD players. The DVD album contains a separate set of tracks, of lower quality, ready to be burned onto a CD. Who wants to keep two discs of the same album so that they can play both in the car and DVD player?

A number of titles will be available in October. So we will wait and see how this will pan out. This should spur a new wave of re-releases and collectors editions.