The Price of High Definition versus SD DVD! (1 Viewer)

[PaulDA]

This is an unfortunate left over of "old-style" marketing. I've noticed this at BB as well as some other stores--leave the MSRP sticker on the product, advertise it much lower on the shelf with a price card and make the customer "feel good" at the "bargain". Unfortunately, with media (unlike big ticket items like a car), all it does is create the impression that the media is overpriced (particularly when the flimsy cards are missing or improperly aligned with the product--that is, when it's clear that a product is on sale).

 

[Michael Elliott]

I never noticed that. Outside a couple scenes where the contrast seemed too "warm", I thought the transfer was very good.

 

[Leo Kerr]

As for the comment about laserdiscs in the "old days," the other side of that issue is quite simple:

laserdisc was a small specialty format, knowing that there were, what, a few hundred thousand players in all of North America?

Bluray is trying to be main-stream, with millions of players.

Though right now, it sounds like Bluray is just "trying."

 

[Brian L]

Seems to me that rather than drive BR sales by making their prices seem better, this apparent strategy will most likely serve to hurt SD DVD sales while failing to help BR sales.

Depending on the title, a new release BR at > $29 is usually a no sale for me, but the same title, on SD DVD, might get my coin if it is aggressively priced between $10 and $15. But if the SD DVD is itself ~$20, fuggeddaboutit.

I am no marketer, but it seems to me that prices that are perceived to be too high do not suddenly become more palatable because a lesser alternative is now priced higher. All that happens there is that BOTH products are perceived as too expensive.

Brian

 

[Robert Crawford]

If you're talking about actual sale price then yes, the stores have stopped using dvds as a loss leader to get you in the store and buy other stuff which was the norm about 3-4 years after the launch of the dvd format.

If you're talking about MSRP then what titles are you talking about, as to new releases or catalog titles?





Crawdaddy

 

[Douglas Monce]

Yeah that is exactly what I'm talking about. The real world out the door price. MSRP is irrelevant to the general public.

Of course most of us here know where to shop to get good deals, but most people are buying their DVDs and blu-rays at Wal-mart and Best Buy and are paying through the nose for it.

Doug

 

[Robert Crawford]

I disagree that the MSRP is irrelevant to the general public. If you have Paramount/Dreamworks titles with a $39.99 MSRP that means you're going to pay more in real dollars in comparison to Warner that may have a $35.99 MSRP for their new Blu-ray titles. The difference could be $3-4 difference in the actual sale price with the titles with the higher MSRP costing you more. Also, I'm talking about new titles that had their theatrical run within the last 12 months.

However, the same applies to catalog titles if you have Warner having a $28.99 for most of their catalog titles and Fox/MGM/Disney with a $34.98 MSRP you will most likely still have a $3-4 difference in the actual sale price between Warner catalog titles and Fox/MGM/Disney.

Also, I'm not happy with Warner's new tactic of offering certain catalog titles as "Blu-ray Book" releases which bumps up the MSRP to $35.99 and you end up paying $25-30 for them. I'm not falling for the tactic and will wait until these titles are priced closer to the $20 before I buy them.

Again, if the studios are unhappy with Blu-ray sales then they need to look in the mirror because people in today's economy are not going to spend $30-35 in Best Buy for "Pineapple Express" in high definition when the SD DVD is selling for $10-11 or more depending on whether you get the one disc or two disc. People will buy titles like "The Dark Knight" especially when it's priced reasonably, but they won't do the same for most comedies or dramas. Discretionary spending is in the dumper and the studios need to understand that when evaluating their price structure.




Crawdaddy

 

[Chad R]

I actually cooled my buying habits before I got into Blu-Ray a year ago. It wasn't really the price, either. It was just one day I looked at my shelf of DVDs and thought long and hard about how many times a year I watch a specific title. 90% of the time I watched them once when I bought them and haven't watched them since in the intervening years. 5% of them I bought real cheap at Wal-Mart - but have yet to watch them, which even at $5 it's a waste. That leaves 5% I really watch once a year or more.

So when I got into Blu-Ray I really cooled buying titles. I can actually go months without purchasing a single disc when it used to be several every payday. Now all I do is rent constantly. It's not a money issue for me, it's really more of a space issue and a feeling of waste. Maybe I'm just getting old.

 

[David Wilkins]

Good to know that I'm not imagining things. I've noticed a halt in the "free fall" of SD prices. Of course, there are some dirt cheap titles, and some good ones, but all this talk about $5 SD's vs. $30 BD's is a bit disingenuous.

 

[David Wilkins]

While on the topic of TV on BD prices, I'd like to blow off some hot air about the notoriously ridiculous price of 'The Sopranos', season 6, split into two separate boxes, which when combined reaches an outrageous total, no matter where you shop. What balls. Hell, if I'm going to start buying that series on BD, I'd want to start with season 1, anyway, not season 6.

I haven't bought any TV series on BD yet, but I have been tempted some pricing for 'Dexter', season 1. Otherwise, I haven't been all that hooked on any series offered on BD.

 

[Robert Crawford]

The halt in the "free fall" of SD prices started about three years ago when retailers started to pull back from having dvds being the loss leader to get people into the stores.

 

[David Wilkins]

The change that I noticed seems to have arrived at or near the end of the high-def format war. My observations are in no way specific or scientific, but there seems to be a similar perception on the part of other members.

Of course, there's always the chance that I'm full of hot something or other.

 

[Robert Crawford]

People have been complaining on this forum about SD DVD pricing for 3-4 years now and it has nothing to do with the end of the high-def format war. The SD DVD market reached full maturation during that time with not enough profitability in sales of other high priced items to sustain dvds as a loss leader.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...e-pricing.html

 

[Mike Frezon]

Robert:

I couldn't agree with you more about the need for Blu prices to fall for sales to dramatically increase. I figure, though, the huge number of Blu players sold this holiday (combined with a pretty good saturation of HDTVs in households, I would imagine) will have to spark some sort of sales spike...but those numbers will probably not sustain themselves over the long haul without some adjustment in software price.

While on one hand it makes a certain logical sense for there to be a certain premium for a product that is "better" than its SD counterpart. Yet Criterion has found a parallel logic that says the pricing structure should be equal in order to spur sales.

Bottom line: if producers want their new product to make in-roads against the established product, you need to undersell the existing product to get people to buy.

About the Warner Blu-ray Book releases: prices on those releases seem to be all over the place right now. As of this writing:

$19.99 Shawshank Redemption

$22.99 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

$23.49 How the West Was Won

$23.99 JFK, Dirty Harry

$25.99 Natural Born Killers

$26.99 Amadeus

 

[frankie108]

Another even cheaper alternative if you have a Sat/Cab HD DVR (I have a Dish 622) is to buy external hard drive(s) (currently $90 for 500GBs) and simply record/archive your shows. I get about 70 HD movies on a 500GB EHD which would equate to about 100 one hour episodes or more than 4 seasons of shows on one EHD.
Using this method I have accumulated quite a collection of Network/Premium channel TV shows all in Hi-Def as well as over 200 movie titles many yet to be released on Blu-ray.
I decided to go this route because I just don't want to go through the expense and frustration of collecting yet another physical media and watching it go obsolete after just a few years.

 

[Dick]

A typical SD comes out with a list price of $29.99. Wal*Mart and most other big boxes, as well as online retailers, sell these for $19.99 (or less). Warner Bros Blu-rays, to use an example, come out often with a $28.99 list, but big boxes sell these for $24.99. Columbia House, Deep Discount, etc. have MUCH smaller discounts for Blu-rays. Other studios have the balls to price their Blu-rays at between $35-40 retail, but the street prices are usually only five bucks less - maybe ten if you're lucky enough to catch then on sale at best Buy or Target. With a format that is still trying to win a larger customer base in a terrible economic crisis, doesn't this seem silly? Are these pumped-up street prices supposed to reflect the greater prestige of the product? Is this another example of corporate shooting itself in the foot? Seems that way to me, and I I refuse to pay more than $20.00 for any Blu-ray release. I'll buy it used on Amazon when the price is right.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Dick: I'm not sure SDs are coming out, generally, with higher MSRPs than Blu-ray discs.

But I agree with your feeling that stores & studios are going to have to bring pricing down for the new format to gain wider acceptance.

Economic crisis aside, I believe customers will think twice about Blu-ray purchases that are too much more expensive than their SD counterpart. Again, leaving the tough economy out of the equation, there is an interesting phenomenon of two such similar products being sold side-by-side and the "regular shopper" (by that I mean someone who doesn't frequent HT forums like this one) may not fully understand the value of the product and discern that it's worth spending too much extra above the very-similar product sitting on a near-by shelf.

I'm already on record in several other threads that I only pay bottom-dollar for Blu-ray discs--most of them used. That's my economic reality (and ability to determine where some really good deals are!)

 

[Robert Crawford]

I know there is a major disconnect between Warner's catalog pricing structure versus other studios such as Fox and Disney. However, I don't remember seeing a new release of a SD DVD/BRD in which the BRD is priced lower than the SD DVD. I have seen recently released BRD priced lowered than a previously released SD DVD of the same title for a short period of time example being Band of Brothers.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I rented THE HAPPENING (which I loved, sorry!) and decided I wanted to add it to my collection. Since I have a BD player, obviously I am going to buy the Blu-ray version...

...but when I got to the store, the damn thing was $29.99 . Sorry, that's too high. I walked out, and I'll wait.

 

[Dick]

Robert - sorry, I'm not sure that my original post was clear. I did not intend to infer that Blu-rays have ever come out for LESS than SD's. I was trying to point out that SD's have been regularly discounted at about 33%, whereas BD's are only about 20%. That seems counterproductive for studios wishing to push Blu-ray. Warner Bros. has the best initial price point for Blu-ray, but box stores and online sites do not discount them the way they do SD's. That was what I tried to put across.