DVD or Not VD

DVD pricing has studios in a stew: The DVD movie format is on fire. In just four years, U.S. consumers have bought 31 million digital video disk players. They're snapping up DVD versions of big movies like "Shrek" and even buying second-tier titles faster than expected. In short, Hollywood — promoting the DVD format as a lucrative sequel to its videotape gold mine — looks to have another hit on its hands.

Yet even as DVD surges, it is on a different economic path than video, and one that is fraught with dangerous unknowns.