I'm starting a list of pros and cons related to DVDs and Web Video.

Which do you prefer for what uses and why? Below are my initial notes:

DVD Pros: old technology, wide adoption

DVD Cons: burned DVDs don't play in every player
SD video
overscanning and title safe concerns
heavy compression ruins a lot of text and images
visual jitter due to images meant for computer screens
physical distro costs money
NTSC, PAL formats, need at least two versions
no protection against theft via reproduction
no metrics about who is watching and what

continued:

Online Distribution Pros:
HD video
Cheap to the point of being practically free
no video format issues from country to country
licensing tends to be easier than for physical goods
Can be put behind a paywall
closed captioning may be easier than a DVD authoring app will allow
web videos can't be lost or damaged due to carelessness of a user.
metrics can be measured
embed-able
email-able (links)
view it on your smartphone or tablet or set top box
conversation around the video can be more easily started

Online Distribution Cons:
Not everyone is online

I guess I should mention that I'm mainly thinking about educational materials as opposed to pure entertainment. Think libraries and schools as well as home usage.

You seem to have covered some great points, all of which I agree with. Let me throw a few more down:

Pros:
• DVDs can be produced in limited quantities for those who don't have regular access to the Internet.
• Web video doesn't necessarily have to be just on the web; copy the files to a USB drive and the student can access it on any computer.

Cons:
• DVDs are not a perfect technology and in the unfortunate event that it gets scratched, another one will have to be issued.
• While the video may be online, you will require a slight additional amount of IT in order to make sure that it will be available to watch on computers and mobile devices as well.

These are just some quick chicken scratch notes, but I hope they help!

Thanks for your thoughts.