DVDs, Hollywood’s Profit Source, Are Sagging

[oopAnt]

An article about how DVD sales are sagging.

http://www.rareoopdvds.com/articles/new ... tssagging/

I would like to hear you opinions.

[princessrich]

As far as consumers confused and all that, maybe they are.... somewhat. First DVD's come around, they fight long and hard to finally vanquish the VHS monster. They are pretty detailed, informative, a whole lot prettier than those awful looking tapes of old. They are finally accepted into the world of film and cinema. They hold a respectable amount of freight aboard with trailers, and special features, not to mention, some even include sweet looking booklets and inserts. Then all of a sudden, these very up to date discs are no longer good enough for the masses, so they create a "Disc on Juice", the Blu-Ray, and the HDDVD, or the brown against the blue is how I used to label it. My question or answer is what made the regular DVD not good enough, or a step below? Does movie society really need a super disc? Two entered and one came out of it. There is no need for the super disc, that's what high definition televisions are for. I'm very happy with the regular format, I've got about 4 to 5 hundred in my personal collection that my wife and I can watch, or lend out to the inlaws. I'm satisfied with what they offer me, I really don't need a skinnier cased disc with a blue coloured emblem on the top with maybe a little more enriched inside for a helluva lot more bank. Perhaps during this huge slide that the country is now enduring, most people would rather keep that sawbuck in their pocket to bring home "Ironman" or "The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2". To me the Blu-Ray format to most people is a high water mark, just because my neighbor bought a lexus, I gotta buy me a lexus, keeping up with best that society might offer. I'm just waiting for the next shoe to drop, first Toshiba's 'brown' format, we'll see just how long Sony's 'blue' can or will hold out for. I'm just saying that I've invested well enough into my appreciation of cinema, then to put it on the back burner. How do many collectors feel when a particular disc, perhaps a rare or high priced oop disc, comes with a "limited edition", or a "Limited Edition, Director's Cut", or a "Special Edition Unrated Edition", or a "Steelbock Exclusive", when a particular flick gets whored over and over again. Do you want them all?, Do you need them all?, will your collection be complete if you don't have every edition of that movie that ever existed. You feel cheated, I know I do, I feel the same way when the Blu-Ray format is forced upon. I don't need it, it's just too expensive for what it ultimately offers. The Blu-Ray format is on borrowed time, people just don't want to invest the little time that they might have to chance it, if they don't understand then they will never support it. I don't care if Blu-Ray discs were a buck a piece, I wouldn't take em', my regular discs do just fine by me.

[Ptflea2]

I think it’s obvious that Blu-Ray is suffering like so many other industries right now because the state of our economy. Could they have picked a worse time to be fighting for customer’s attention and money? I was about fifteen when DVD’s started to appear in retail stores. At that time, my movie collection was of course VHS. After watching my first DVD film at a friends house and noticing what an improvement the image and sound quality it had over VHS, I immediately stopped buying tapes. Why throw my money away on an inferior product? While I couldn’t afford a DVD player or DVD’s themselves at that time, I waited, and like most popular technologies, the price eventually fell to where the majority could afford them. Right now, I can’t afford to make the Blu-Ray switch, and like the previous poster mentioned, I’m not sure I want to. I’ve already spent a lot of money on the DVD collection I have, and can’t justify why I should switch.

Sure, Blu-Ray is better than a standard DVD, but is it really THAT noticeable? Is it that much of an improvement as DVD was to VHS? I think most people, myself included, after weighing the cost to upgrade, are saying “no.”

[erichk]

Hollywood has brought this on themselves and the morons behind much of their products and marketing should be caned and/or canned. First, let's be frank about the real reason for blu ray - it can't be played on computers or easily burned for pirate use (arrggh!)... and it allows them to double dip on stuff.

I think there's a huge swath of dvd users out there who don't even know about the "progressive scan" button on their players, or how to select "16 x 9" screen option on their player AND their TV or projector. If you don't believe me, just take a look in the average bar at the average widescreen with the image sssstretched to fit. I still deal with this when i go home for Xmas and my attempts to fix the image are met with weary groans by my family. When I watch an anamorphic DVD on my projector at progressive scan on the right aspect ratio, it looks absolutely stunning - arthouse theater quality - if blu ray is marginally better, fine, but it's not worth the time and trouble, for me any rate. Meanwhile, the DVD companies are showing their true colors by not bothering to release much requested classic titles -- so much of Hollywood's classic back catalog still languishes in oblivion, as opposed to re-releasing, over and over again, stuff like Casablanca and Wizard of Oz, that sort of mainstream stuff, or westerns because they are in color and appeal to the middle American audiences.

As a film fan, it becomes clear that the way to go is to get a burner and start recording stuff off of TCM and forget about buying new DVDs except in the rare instance when something new and good actually comes out. Criterion is busy re-releasing stuff like Bottle Rocket and Chunking Express, already avail. on good transfers, rather than stuff like My Life to Live or Last year at marienbad, which are OOP on crappy Fox Lorber. Where are the Howard Hawks or Le McCarey boxed sets? It's a crime, is what it is. But we're supposed to be focusing on buying yet another version of some title because it's on blu ray? Pleease

[hindolio]

...But we're supposed to be focusing on buying yet another version of some title because it's on blu ray? Pleease

i agree with you largely, but however sad it is, it is true.

[Kretster]

Has anyone heard the rumors about WB purposely making the standard dvd version of Dark Knight horrible to help sell their Blu Ray version? I have been reading some people claiming WB has been doing this for quite some time, if this is true I think WB should be ashamed of themselves. I was out shopping most of the day yesterday and the amount of standard DK dvds being sold was amazing. I don't care how much Amazon.com wants us to believe DK Blu Ray is outselling the regular DK dvd it is clear most people are still buying standard dvds. If I had to give a guess I would SD dvd outsells Blu 200-1 maybe alot more, anyone agree?
As for the poor dvd sales sagging, I blame the companies for it. How many times do we see the brand new release dvds priced $15-$20 every week, then a month or two later we find it on sale for $10 or even less? It is obvious people are NOT buying the new releases right away for exactly this reason. I admit I still enjoy buying new releases every Tuesday, but I love TV shows on dvd and I have been waiting for certain shows to have huge price drops before completing the season collection. Good Example is CSI, I have been buying them all along, this new season that just came out recently (was not even a full season) was priced on sale for $64.99, now Best Buy has a $99.99 price on it, I am waiting until it goes on sale for $30 or less. People, like myself, have gotten burned too many times with TV shows dropping in price, I mean HUGE price drops, like the X-Files were $100 for each season when they came out, now you can get them for $30, if I ever decided to sell them, how much would I get now, $10 maybe $15, nice loss there!
Personally, I have no sympathy for the dvd companies or Hollywood...

[oopAnt]

Has anyone heard the rumors about WB purposely making the standard dvd version of Dark Knight horrible to help sell their Blu Ray version? I have been reading some people claiming WB has been doing this for quite some time, if this is true I think WB should be ashamed of themselves.

I dont know of any numbers. MovieRabbit posted first days sales for (I guess Blu-ray) were above 100,000. According to one report, it states that Dark Knight Sales were 500,000, with about 26% being Blu-ray.

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/09122008/5/h ... ght-0.html

Maybe my eyes are not adjusted to Blu-ray well enough, but when I was at the store, and Dark Knight was on the screen, it was obviously a Blu-ray version. But there was something about it that I did not like, and what struck me was that it looked like it was shot on video, not on film. The complete loss of grain removes the entire quality of what film "looks like". And so to me, it shows up like a daytime soap opera. But I have not heard Warner deliberately making DK intentionally poor on SD to boost Blu-ray sales, but that also does not make sense. If someone who has an SD version gets DK on DVD, and its not the hottest looking thing, there is still nothing to gauge it by. I mean, its not like you can say "oh this version is crappy, I will just get the BD version". That's like thinking Mac software is better, so I will buy that for my PC.

[url]As for the poor dvd sales sagging, I blame the companies for it. How many times do we see the brand new release dvds priced $15-$20 every week, then a month or two later we find it on sale for $10 or even less? It is obvious people are NOT buying the new releases right away for exactly this reason. I admit I still enjoy buying new releases every Tuesday, but I love TV shows on dvd and I have been waiting for certain shows to have huge price drops before completing the season collection. Good Example is CSI, I have been buying them all along, this new season that just came out recently (was not even a full season) was priced on sale for $64.99, now Best Buy has a $99.99 price on it, I am waiting until it goes on sale for $30 or less. People, like myself, have gotten burned too many times with TV shows dropping in price, I mean HUGE price drops, like the X-Files were $100 for each season when they came out, now you can get them for $30, if I ever decided to sell them, how much would I get now, $10 maybe $15, nice loss there!
Personally, I have no sympathy for the dvd companies or Hollywood...[/url]

I can understand taking a loss on a used product. I can understand price cuts. The X-Files Boxed sets you mention were like the first complete seasons to be released on DVD and at that time it was unprecedented, also being an 8 disc boxed set. I am not saying it justified the $100.00 price tag, but they were very big boxed sets. Later they were re-released with doubled-sided DVDs in slimline cases and so, yeah, the price was marked down for cheaper packaging. Friends is another example where each set was like 50 bucks, now you can get them for less than 10. The industry has changed so much since those original sets came out so the prices are going to change, and they will continue to do so.

New sets on the other hand I do not think should be priced so high. The DVD market is so cheap that to charge the prices that they do is more of a robbery than it was back when they were introduced. $34.99 for a copy of a 3-disc set of Wall-E is rape of the wallet IMHO. If BCI and other companies can release semi-decent DVDs in boxed sets of like 30 movies for 20 bucks, I know Disney and studios can also release their movies for at least $20.00. The single disc version of Wanted is bare bones, not an ounce of extra features on it and the MSRP is $29.99 (2-disc set at $34.99). With the rate of bootlegging, introduction of Blu-ray and downloading as well as digital copies, it is amazing to see they continue to inflate these DVD prices.

Now those prices I do not understand. Granted the online world will not pay those prices, so most of them are cut in half. But small stores cannot buy in those kinds of bulk, so they will sell it to you at $29.99. Will they ever sell it? Perhaps to the mom who shops at the local curial stores who thinks its a nice gift for someone and has no clue of the online world.

[Classic]

I have a Blu-Ray player/recorder on my computer, and I don't buy discs because of sticker-shock. That's the only reason.

The Blu-Ray titles for $9.99 that I see at Frys, for example, are titles that I wouldn't appreciate for free.

Stores like Frys and FYE still have Blu-Ray and HD displayed right alongside each other, so yes, this causes confusion for less informed shoppers.

Bottom line, however, is that I'm happy with standard format DVDs on my HD TV, and I'm not going to spend two to three times as much for Blu-Ray.

[GIALDE123]

DVD's are not Hollywood's NO#1 source of revenue.Hollywood makes it's money
on boxoffice and rights distribution especially to cable TV.Hollywood's major profits
on DVD's exsist in the Straight To Video Market .Cheap to make. No huge publicity.
No huge stars.I think I read once all those National Lampoon titles that seem to come
out every week make there money back usually the first day there released.

[KFelon]

DVD's are not Hollywood's NO#1 source of revenue.Hollywood makes it's money
on boxoffice and rights distribution especially to cable TV.Hollywood's major profits
on DVD's exsist in the Straight To Video Market .Cheap to make. No huge publicity.
No huge stars.I think I read once all those National Lampoon titles that seem to come
out every week make there money back usually the first day there released.

I actually read somewhere (here?) that many studios consider theatrical releases just a preview/taste of what movies will make in home video sales.

[GIALDE123]

I think that's right especially when it comes to titles based on graphic novels,
comics and TV shows.It would seem a good investment hedge if the movie
bombs because you have a built in audience waiting for the video.The reverse
occurs when you have a movie like Iron Man and The Dark Knight that do killer
boxoffice.Most people see those movies 2 or 3 times and HAVE TO OWN IT when
it comes to DVD.That's when all the exclusives and the belt buckle crap happens.
Felon there's no doubt that a producer will take a chance on a movie they wouldn't
normally make BECAUSE of the video market.I think Halle Berry's Catwoman is a
perfect example.
.