Catalog sales down 20% (1 Viewer)

That was a great piece today on Digital Bits about why no one should be shocked that catalog sales are down 20% and why it doesn't have to be this way. As someone who allots about $100 every month to spend on Blu but can't usually find more than $40 that's worth buying every month (and that's after lowering standards severely), it really hit the nail on the head for me.

Couldn't agree with Bill more. He was right on the money... The studios on the other hand...... waaaaaay off base.

Bill you hit the nail on the head. I have nothing to buy & I've been trying to rebuild my old DVD collection in Blu-ray. The slow releases & poor quality with killer price tag is keeping me away. I always hated the bells & whistles. I even hate those motion spoiler menu's that is the standard now. The load times are horrible & too many trailers on the Blu-rays you buy. I can't tell you how many time I lost my spot when i had to finish a movie the next day or after a stoppage. Its almost like Blu-ray is a step backward.

I'm not exactly rolling in the dough right now and even I'm a bit disappointed in the release schedule. There just hasnt been alot of must have titles for me.
 
I'd have to check my list, but off the top of my head: The Thin Red Line, Apocalypse Now, and Seven Samurai are my must haves.

I have actually not bought a lot of catalog titles because they have applied too much processing to the release to try and make them shiny and new, in other words they dumbed them down because they thought it would make them look better and achieve higher sales among the young.
 
I read somewhere that market research was carried out among twentysomethings and the consensus was that film grain was a no-no among that age group who want smooth detailed images, thus studio's sometimes pander to this ill informed logic.
 
When time and money and a little effort goes into making a catalog title look film like and great then i buy it.
 
As examples, King Kong and The Evil Dead, effort was made in their restoration and they didn't dumb them down to meet the smooth video look expectation that some have of older movies, for example If Paramount were to redo a catalog title like The Untouchables as just one example then i would buy it in a heartbeat but i will not buy the current release, if Fox were to redo Patton or The Longest Day then once again i would purchase them. If Universal were to redo The Thing then i'm in there man and buying it but i will not buy smoothed over crap.
 
I think they need to ask themselves who actually buys catalog titles, the older generation buys them and they want the titles to resemble film and be the absolute best possible quality.
 
If they put more effort in then the sales will come.

Very true. Bad reviews put me off from buying a bunch of discs.

Quite a few of those bad reviews had to do with problems like DNR.

I remember when i got started in DVD there was always a "killer app" for my player. I remember when Ghostbusters first came out, it made me want to get a DVD player. I spent $350 of my high school graduation money in 1999 to get it. A toshiba player. I also picked up Criterion Armaggeddon (a title still missing on blu-ray) and the Special Edition of Aliens. Later came T2 in the silver metal slip case. There was always a great edition to be had, but now, it seems like everything is lacking. My dvd collection used to be 1500+ movies and tv shows, now i have maybe 75 blu-rays. Very disappointing.