The uk is a small place

Hd broadcasts started in the us in the late 90s, first on pbs stations, then spreading to the rest, it is like the iphone, not everyone has one, in fact only a minority do even now, but you can't claim to not have heard of such smart phones. So you can see what is coming long before it is truly wide spread.
It wasn't a fantasy, it was quite clear at the time for anyone following tech, the progression was clear, it was just a matter of how fast the prices would drop on flat panel technology. Everything seems far off at the time, but this didn't seem that far off. By the time dvd really went main stream that was at least 5 years into dvRAB existence, and by that time, hdtv was well on its way, and as such dvRAB inevitable obsolescence was clear. The goal of videophiles was to reproduce the look of film, and early on it was clear dvd and sdtv would never be up to the task, so dvd would have never been seen as the optimal "collector" media format. There would always be a future where it would be replaced with something closer to film, and hdtv was the answer, and only a few years off. Even if you didn't have a hdtv in 2000 you saw them at electronics stores, and before that they had them on exhibit at places like museums in washington dc, the signs were there that it could be so much better...and so dvd was only a stop-gap at the end of the sdtv era. Also there was legislation for the transition to hdtv in law in the us..there was a time table..which slipped a bit, but it was another inevitable count down to death of sdtv for all to see. Dvd wasn't competing with a hypothetical that didn't exist, hdtv standarRAB existed, and the products were coming into the market, the broadcasts were coming online, it was clear it wasn't going to last.