How long until you feel dvds will be a thing of the past and Blu-Ray is the new "standard"?

Never.

It's all about compatibility. Every single Blu-Ray player out there will also play standard DVDs. This eliminates the need for Blu-Ray to replace DVD as a standard.

When VHS gave way to DVD, it was because, try as you might, it was impossible to get your VHS to play in your DVD player (discounting the small niche of combo players). So the collection had to be rebuilt.

The need to replace is gone with Blu-Ray, and studio and manufacturers are content with releasing new movies and high profile catalogue titles on Blu-Ray at a premium price point.

Eventually, major studios will stop making DVDs and release only on Blu-Ray, but this will not effect the smaller releasers. The backwards compatibility of Blu-Ray players will ensure that... magazines can still include a DVD with their issues... small scale producers can still shoot and release their own film on the internets... niche productions will still be able to sell their "50 Horror Films That Scared Your Parents" collection of public domain films... and those less inclined to pay for something they can easily steal, will still be downloading standard definition copies of Blu-Ray movies and burning them to DVD discs.

In short... the disc-based nature of the Blu-Ray format precludes its ever rendering DVD obsolete. To get rid of DVD one would have to get rid of disc based formats entirely.

In spite of what others say I don't think downloadable content will change anything. My ISP currently limits me to 60 GigaBytes of bandwidth a month. That is the data size of just over 7 DVDs OR 2 Blu-Ray Discs. I don't care how you slice it... I watch more than that in a BAD week. With the implementation of "fibre-to-the-door" internet hook ups and bandwidth management you could possibly see an increase of a hundredfold in bandwidth and internet speed. But you are also going to see an increase in the amount that the ISPs are going to charge you for this service.

Not to mention the DRM crap that comes with any technological advance so that the MPAA can "protect" its rice bowl. If the studios have their way, one day you will be able to download an amazing quality movie experience quickly and easily to your home entertainment system. The studio will charge you a small fee for the movie (rental or purchase) and the ISP will charge you a small fee for the bandwidth usage (approximately 65 GigaBytes, of which over half isn't even movie... it's Digital Rights Management code to prevent you from illegally trying to make a hard copy in case your hard drive crashes)... and your movie player may even charge you a small fee to call up the studios and check to make sure your movie has been legally purchased before starting to play it (your phone company might even charge you for that call).

So simple as that, you are watching a Hi-Def Movie instantly for only $39.95 that would have cost you at least $21.95 if you had purchased it as a Blu-Ray and even less as a DVD.

It always about the money. Technology is never used to make our lives easier, that's just an unintentional by-product. Technology is used to pull more money out of our pockets for doing the same thing.

When CDs were first introduced, the recording industry priced them higher than cassettes even though they are a fifth of the cost to produce than cassettes because, "we need to recoup our re-tooling expenses. Once we have, we will lower our prices accordingly." They never did. And so you pay $10 to $20 for something that cost them 25¢ to 50¢ to make.

So... to sum it up... Blu-Ray will never replace DVD as the "standard". It will however, grow and eventually become the "main" standard, but DVD will continue to exist alongside Blu-Ray and it will take the demise of the disc-based format entirely to effectively "kill" the DVD format.

Hope this helps.