Would Killing DVD Improve Blu-ray and 4K UHD’s Fortunes? (1 Viewer)

[Guardyan]

Many “average consumers” were happy with VHS and would still be buying that if it were made. I worked for Tower during VHS’s last years and had many people ask for new titles on VHS and then say they had hundreds of tapes and weren’t going to switch to another format. (And again, nobody was saying they couldn’t still watch those tapes.)

With stores cutting back on media in general, they shouldn’t be wasting that decreasing space on obsolete DVDs. Some might grumble but most would just buy Blu-rays, some might switch to streaming instead but even THAT looks better than DVD, all “ownership issues” and whatnot aside.

But I think that unless you can quantify "average consumers," it's hard to say how many of those people would be narrow-minded to the point of not switching to DVDs once they realized quality was just much better and the format was just so much more convenient to deal with.

We cannot discuss the switch from an analog to a digital format because it's comparing apples to pears. In the end digital seems to always come on top (with the exception of vinyl perhaps?) not only because of quality but also ease of use. Also the switch to DVD was revolutionary. BD is superior but it wasn't as revolutionary when you compare VHS to DVD. With DVD we were able to get entire seasons of TV shows. Something that was pretty unheard back during the VHS era. I remember friends in Germany talking about being able to buy Buffy The Vampire Slayer on VHS... but the amount of space on the shelf and how costly it was made the whole thing ridiculous.

I also don't think it's just a matter of DVDs or Blu-rays. People seem to be done with discs. They wanna press a button on their remote and see things on their screens right away, without the need to go to a shelf, picking something out, opening the case, putting a disc in the player, etc.

Also, and this is something that applies not only to your POV but to a lot of other people's views here: there's been a too US centric approach to blu-rays on here. I've seem some say: well, there are BDs for $5 or BDs aren't that much more expensive than DVDs. Yes, but that's not the case for a lot of other countries around the world. BDs are considerably expensive in some countries. Also, many countries never even saw the arrival of 4K UHD players!!! It's hard for people to adopt something that is not accessible or attainable. It seems like that studios gave up on home media and tech companies decided to focus on manufacturing smart TVs only. Even the 4K players currently on the market are somewhat of a joke.

I'm getting closer and closer to the conclusion that killing DVDs wouldn't have improved BD's odds. It's very sad but patents, bad marketing, and a few people in the industry trying to call all the shots seem to have killed physical formats. A professor in college once said that if companies really wanted to retain control over content, they should never have accepted the switch to digital. But we all would have lost in terms of quality and experience.

 

[jcroy]

I find that hard to believe, though I also find it hard to believe that DVDs still sell the most but apparently that’s true. It really seems most people are clueless and will just buy whatever is put in front of them.

This goes to show that the "world of Alan Smithee" and the "world of Joe Sixpack", are entirely different planets with almost zero communication with one another.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I also don't think it's just a matter of DVDs or Blu-rays. People seem to be done with discs. They wanna press a button on their remote and see things on their screens right away, without the need to go to a shelf, picking something out, opening the case, putting a disc in the player, etc.

This indeed! Even here on HTF, many of us are being won over by streaming to varying degrees... but that's because people are actually on a (fairly wide) spectrum, not all merely on either extreme ends... though granted, probably the vast majority of avg folks would just rather have the convenience and particular kind of freedom (and good enough quality) of streaming...

A professor in college once said that if companies really wanted to retain control over content, they should never have accepted the switch to digital. But we all would have lost in terms of quality and experience.

Well, he was probably wrong... because streaming has arrived (for better or worse) and is (or at least can be) basically doing just that for the most part... although the streaming providers and/or studios may (apparently) be having a hard time figuring out how exactly to make this endeavor actually profitable, LOL. Well, they may be fine if they weren't pushing *all* their chips into streaming by producing lots of expensive straight-to-streaming content and merely using it to replace disc media, but nope, they apparently got too greedy (yet again) and tried to take too big a bite, LOL...

_Man_

 

[jcroy]

A professor in college once said that if companies really wanted to retain control over content, they should never have accepted the switch to digital. But we all would have lost in terms of quality and experience.

More broadly, I believe something like bluray/4Kbluray might have thrived if the internet never became ubiquitous back in the mid-1990s. Basically if the internet was still "frozen in time" in its late-1980s -> 1990 form before AOL.

 

[BobO'Link]

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

More broadly, I believe something like bluray/4Kbluray might have thrived if the internet never became ubiquitous back in the mid-1990s. Basically if the internet was still "frozen in time" in its late-1980s -> 1990 form before AOL.

I don't know about that. The internet/www did quite substantially help DVD take over the physical media market. Not sure DVD woulda succeeded nearly as much w/out the dot.com boom (and beyond). Heck! It might well have lost to DivX if not for the internet of the mid-to-late-90s. Of course, DivX itself probably needed at least some minimal form of internet or equivalent, but not much more though -- they likely coulda done it w/out actual internet at all just as they already did w/ cable/sat pay-per-view or similar (or BBS, etc back in the day).

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

View attachment 196224

That likely basically (implicitly) points to streaming taking over (although streaming's not shown/compared) and will likely be what kills off DVD while BD (and 4K) may well stick around for a reasonably long time w/ gradual decline roughly at its current niche level going forward...

Makes sense me thinks...

_Man_

 

[Malcolm R]

And given that DVD has a lower price point at retail than Blu-ray, that graphic means the actual quantities sold are even more lopsided.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

And given that DVD has a lower price point at retail than Blu-ray, that graphic means the actual quantities sold are even more lopsided.

The pricing diff isn't quite *that* great though, but yeah, actual quantities sold are probably lopsided. Yet, the $ value diff is actually quite small and not lopsided at all. The real lopsided comparison would likely be against streaming at this point.

PLUS the more interesting/important figure in that illustration seems to me to be the far steeper decline in DVD (of 10.5%) vs BD (of just 2.5%). At those rates, DVD sales revenue will fall below BD in maybe ~2.5 years.

_Man_

 

[BobO'Link]

The pricing diff isn't quite *that* great though, but yeah, actual quantities sold are probably lopsided. Yet, the $ value diff is actually quite small and not lopsided at all. The real lopsided comparison would likely be against streaming at this point.

PLUS the more interesting/important figure in that illustration seems to me to be the far steeper decline in DVD (of 10.5%) vs BD (of just 2.5%). At those rates, DVD sales revenue will fall below BD in maybe ~2.5 years.

_Man_

Maybe... maybe not... 3 years ago:

And 4 years ago:

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

We need more data (and probably covering an entire year, not just a week at a time), haha... although a good deal of that huge 8/2020 downturn may have been caused by the pandemic...

But either way, seems pretty clear that all the $$$ has gone elsewhere, ie. most likely streaming, which seems likely to impact DVD sales (at least somewhat) more than BD (and 4K disc) sales given the likely demographics...

_Man_

 

[BobO'Link]

Sales have been consistently dropping for 5+ years with the spread between DVD and BR being fairly consistent. I'd absolutely say the $$ are going to streaming. You can often trace those huge swings to "tentpole" type releases - or lack of such a release in the "current" year. Basically, there's a lot more to it than just the raw numbers though they *do* show steady declines month to month for physical media sales.

 

[jcroy]

Sales have been consistently dropping for 5+ years with the spread between DVD and BR being fairly consistent. I'd absolutely say the $$ are going to streaming. You can often trace those huge swings to "tentpole" type releases - or lack of such a release in the "current" year. Basically, there's a lot more to it than just the raw numbers though they *do* show steady declines month to month for physical media sales.

In other words, if one draws a "line of best fit" through the data over the past 5+ years to "average out" the huge swings, the slope of the line would still be consistently negative downward.

 

[albert_m2]

I think the only way this would have worked would have been to phase out DVDs more than a decade ago. Studios know that there are a lot of people who are very casual or infrequent buyers at this point who may have a DVD player and are just not going to buy another player. The massive shift to streaming has only solidified that.

It would have helped if they transitioned to at least all movie releases and new show releases to blu only, early in the last decade, if was more realistic for older catalog tv titles to be on DVD, well, then better than not having it... to me at least. Let's face it, a lot of shows just are not getting a blu release whether DVD exists or not.

 

[jcroy]

Studios know that there are a lot of people who are very casual or infrequent buyers at this point who may have a DVD player and are just not going to buy another player.

The movie companies know this now.

In hindsight, the bluray/dvd/digitalcode multipack idea was likely the "last chance" they had at convincing Joe Sixpack to upgrade to a bluray player. Unfortunately Joe Sixpack didn't bite and went straight to streaming.

 

[jcroy]

It would have helped if they transitioned to at least all movie releases and new show releases to blu only, early in the last decade,

This is hard to say.

There is also the possibility that this action ^ might have torpedoed the disc market and accelerated its decline even faster.

Many "pointy haired bosses" are not willing to make a decision, which might torpedo their careers and lead to their dismissal when things go south on their watch.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I meant to add that Best Buy no longer carries regular DVDs of movies anymore- everything is 4k or Blu-ray except for a few older TV shows. And they’ve cut back on space for media so at least they aren’t wasting any of that on DVDs, also being an electronics store they hopefully want people to buy the equipment capable of playing the best formats. You can’t even get a display that tops out at 480, I’m not sure if they even still make TVs that don’t display more than 720.

 

[jcroy]

I meant to add that Best Buy no longer carries regular DVDs of movies anymore- everything is 4k or Blu-ray except for a few older TV shows. And they’ve cut back on space for media so at least they aren’t wasting any of that on DVDs,

This must be location dependent.

The nearby BestBuy offline retail outlets still carry the Star Wars and some Marvel superhero movies on dvd. Next to the dvds, were the blurays and 4Kblurays of the same superhero movies.

also being an electronics store they hopefully want people to buy the equipment capable of playing the best formats.

No guarantee anybody is buying the bluray (or 4Kbluray) players on display. The last time I checked out the nearby BestBuy offline retail outlets, it was hard to find where the bluray players were. One had to walk around to find them, which turned out to be at the very back wall in a not-so-obvious place.

 

[jcroy]

A professor in college once said that if companies really wanted to retain control over content, they should never have accepted the switch to digital. But we all would have lost in terms of quality and experience.

Well, he was probably wrong... because streaming has arrived (for better or worse) and is (or at least can be) basically doing just that for the most part...

I distinguish between streaming of music, and video streaming of tv/movies.

In the case of music, I get the impression the music industry was eventually forced into it kicking and screaming. There was a whole entire "generation Y" which came of age during the late-1990s -> early-2000s who only saw music as being easy free downloads (ie. napster, kazaa, limewire , etc ...) which led to a significant decline of cd sales over the 2000s decade. Eventually the music business figured out that the only way to convince "gen Y" folks to actually pay anything for music, was to offer flat-rate streaming services.

Flat rate video-on-demand (vod) streaming of tv shows and movies, seems to have started off as a sideline where the movie studios first saw it as easy extra cash flow source. Back in the mid-2000s, the movie studio executives at the time likely didn't anticipate streaming cannibalizing dvd/bluray sales very quickly.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Flat rate video-on-demand (vod) streaming of tv shows and movies, seems to have started off as a sideline where the movie studios first saw it as easy extra cash flow source. Back in the mid-2000s, the movie studio executives at the time likely didn't anticipate streaming cannibalizing dvd/bluray sales very quickly.

My .02: Studios are of two minds about streaming and PVOD:

1. They like it BECAUSE it gives them greater control over their productions than physical media. When you buy a PVOD title or stream on a streaming service, they still retain control of the media. Buying a PVOD title is a licence they can rescind at any time they see fit, since you don't physically "own" anything; likewise, they can place finite timelines on the availability of media on streaming services.
2. They hate it because they are rapidly losing a revenue stream in physical media. This is why we are seeing studios licence their titles to AVOD, because, much like when network TV dominated, they're getting a chunk of that sweet, sweet ad revenue.

It's a textbook example of cutting off their noses to spite their faces.