A Few Words About A few words about...™ Carrie -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Brandon Conway]

Yes.

 

[Loregnum]

I have no desire to buy catalog titles at more than 20-22 bucks at Amazon. Until Fox gets in line I simply will not purchase any discs of theirs unless there is a BOGO type sale. There is no way a catalog title should be priced the same as a new disc when the catalog version of the disc (and usually with special features although I do not care about those) can be had for 8 bucks on dvd.

I'm STILL waiting to get Man On Fire and Master & Commander because of this...

 

[frankie108]

Which, I think, brings up a very interesting question; are the studios out of touch are is it the HDM aficianados that have a problem with reality? Certainly, the studios are entitled to a reasonable profit just like in years past with the LD format. I really don't know what's a reasonable profit. Perhaps those that do can comment on pricing.

 

[Travis Brashear]

When you can buy multi-disc Blu-ray sets like BLADE RUNNER and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND for $20-$25, I think the answer is clear and it rhymes with "the moodios are grout of such".

 

[Carlo_M]

One thing that's being overlooked, and it was true in earlier DVD pricing structure as well, are that some of the studios have ties with hardware manufacturing and some don't.

What this means is that the studios with hardware manufacturing ties (WB, Universal, Sony, off the top of my head) charge less for their product because they have a vested interest in seeing the product succeed due to their parent companies being involved in the creation of hardware. Thus hardware sales can subsidize lower priced software.

On the other hand, the other studios (Disney, Fox are two) do not have hardware ties, and thus rely on their software sales for profit. No coincidence that those two have historically charged higher prices not just in Blu-Ray, but also DVD as well.

It's not an apology for them, but rather an explanation in the various forces that drive pricing decisions. They aren't all stupid in those boardrooms, otherwise those companies would have been driven out of business a long time ago.

 

[LarryH]

I'll take door number 1, please, and my price is a firm $20 street.

Further, if an enhanced version came out later at a higher price, I would not purchase it, but I wouldn't be enraged at a better copy coming out at the same price. No rebates of any kind are to be tolerated. Rebates are scams that vendors know will most likely never be redeemed.

I don't have any interest in waiting from some possible sale, Amazon or other.

 

[Rachael B]

Aye-aye cap'in! I've seen BD's that were priced 7X over the DVD in Busted Buy. Eargon was on sale one day recently for $5. On the BD aisle, they were stamped $35.

I'd like to get Carrie because I've never had the DVD. I do have an LD. However, I will wait till it's on sale. Very few videodiscs are worth more than $20 to me at this point. When the format was an infant, I sometimes paid more just to have somethin' to play. That was then, this is now. Fox-MGM's prices are just unacceptable. They've lowered some lists to $35 but I'm not impressed. I'll proably even wait for The Day The Earth Stood Still to go on sale and I like it a hell of alot more than Carrie. Twenty-five and change, at Amazonia, is stille too much for budjet releases such as Fox-MGM are so partial to.

No studio has taken the fun out of collecting videos over the years like Fox. I'm sorry that they and Crumcast were able to pry MGM away from Sony at this point. It's alot more fun to collect reasonably-priced catalog titles from the likes of Warner and Sony than collecting Fox titles. There's never a good reason to jump on a Fox title on release day, given the prices.

Robert's review has me wanting a copy. I read other reviews that trashed the PQ. I quessed they were against the grain, say hay! I'm on the wait. I'd like to make wall art of that ole LD but I'm patient. Carrie's a $15 disc as far as I'm concerned. Robert's glowing review just makes it harder!

 

[CraigF]

I'll take #1 and at $20. I feel that's reasonable and doable, should be very easily doable for a catalog title like Carrie. It's not like they need to make $$$ to compensate for some massive loss looming over their heads on the title. Of course, I do not know what kind of agreement with the artists etc. may have been made, especially with some old titles before home video, and I suppose these could be expensive to the studio in some circumstances...

Considering most of the discs of this ilk the fans have on SE-DVD, it's not so hard to keep the DVD for the extras as they're not worth much to sell, and no point paying for the (typically) SD extras again. Once we're over $20, I'm looking for a more complete package so at least I can give the DVD away and create some shelf space (my quid pro quo for laying out more $$).

 

[Vincent_P]

DAMN, where did you find the Blu-ray CLOSE ENCOUNTERS for $20-25 at? And here, I thought I got it at a bargain when I ordered it from Amazon for $32.95 a couple days ago...

Vincent

 

[Vincent_P]

While I agree with the folks criticizing the lack of supplements and the inflated list price, I have to say, to attack the codec of the film being presented in and of itself is pretty absurd, when some of the most highly-praised Blu-ray discs have been MPEG-2 (the special-feature lacking KINGDOM OF HEAVEN anyone?)...

And to link a Peter Bracke review as evidence that this Blu-ray is bad- Michel, you of all DNR-hating folk should know better than this! You're quoting Peter Bracke, the man who praised the Blu-ray of SCARY MOVIE to high Heaven- as in, the SCARY MOVIE Blu-ray which is one of the greatest Blu-ray DNR abominations known to all mankind! This is NOT the type of reviewer who you want to throw your trust behind against Robert Harris when it comes to evaluating a proper, film-like presentation on Blu-ray.

Vincent

 

[Travis Brashear]

This logic irritates the pants off me--I already have over 1,500 DVDs and Blu-rays that are becoming a nightmare to find storage space for, and now you want me to double-up?! If the Blu-ray is done right, a) storage space becomes less of an issue because I can sell the old SD-DVD off and b) use the money from that sale to help off-set the cost of the Blu-ray.

 

[TravisR]

I've never seen Close Encounters for $20 to $25 either. And quoting the (amazing) sale price on that title or Blade Runner but quoting the MSRP on Carrie isn't a fair comparison.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Don't read too much into a posting. I was neither supporting Brake's verdict nor suggesting that MPEG2 must be bad. But MPEG2 on BD25 is not exactly a recipe for a newly made superior disk. Nobody these days uses MPEG2 on BD25 because if you are limited to the smaller BD variant you want to encode efficiently and not waste space. So I have good reason to suspect this disc was encoded quite some time ago and I wonder why it was held back. On the other hand if there is only the film which is not very long and they used a pretty high average bit rate the encoding might be just fine, MPEG2 or not. If it's one of the older Fox < 20 Mbit/s MPEG2 jobs it will suffer, though.
Sounds like a disk I will rent first to check it out before purchasing.

 

[Travis Brashear]

That's a fair counterargument, but we don't even have to bring sale pricing into it--for $39.95 SRP across all three titles, CE3K, BR and CARRIE, compare what the consumer gets with the firt two versus the latter. Fox is screwing consumers on multiple levels with this title, end of story.

 

[Mike Williams]

Travis, DVDBeaver shows that the feature film of Carrie takes up only 19.6 GB on a BD-25. That leaves at least a single DVD layer worth of space for extras, which I seriously doubt was fully used by the previous DVD release. So yes, even on a BD-25, there seems to be plenty of room to have added the extras that already existed.

 

[Travis Brashear]

Well, thanks for cheering me up, Mike!

 

[John Sparks]

...LD's, the movie only in CLV for $39.95...we've finally come full circle!

By the way, I'm a movie collector, not a bonus material collector.

 

[Travis Brashear]

Well, I hope I can be like you when I grow up, John, but right now I live in a childish fantasyland where technology has advanced to the point where everyone can easily have both!

 

[Mike Williams]

Once again, on Blu-ray there is plenty of disc space, and it continues to baffle me that those who don't care about bonus features begrudge those that do. I have not heard one person claim they want bonus features at the compromise of video/audio quality. On Blu-ray we can have the very best picture and audio quality available as well as numerous quality bonus features. One only need look at Indiana Jones, the Pirates Trilogy, or of all things, Superbad and Hot Fuzz.

Like Travis and others, I'm a movie collector too, and like Travis, BECAUSE I am a movie collector, I'm also interested in the things that went into the movie. Movies I enjoy, I also enjoy knowing more about.

Like Travis has said repeatedly, like I have said repeatedly, and like others on other threads and forums have said repeatedly, we can have both.

 

[Bleddyn Williams]

But that would require re-authoring the disc. The MPEG-2 and lack of extras matches the pattern of early Fox releases. I think this was meant to come out some time back, and for whatever reason, just made it out the door.

The studio obviously didn't want to go to the extra expense of redoing to disc to bring it up to current standards. Released on the same day, The Omen, obviously prepared later, has all the extras produced previously, and even some new ones.