Blockbuster again bullying the DVD industry-this time about menus (1 Viewer)

[JonZ]

Who the hell would rent a Extras disc???

Give me a break.

 

[David Lambert]

Who the hell would rent a Extras disc??? :rolleyes

Give me a break.

My point exactly...that's why I think it might have to do more with having to not hassle with customers who ask for the second disc, and therefore they (BBV) can just put it away and not worry about that disc.

 

[Brian Kidd]

What's worse is when Blockbuster has special versions of discs made that leave off the special features that are present in the regular edition. NEAR DARK comes to mind.

 

[JonZ]

Rereading my post,I hope no one misunderstands or takes offense.

My comment was aimed at Blockbuster for the idea,not those suggesting they may be renting the extras.

I HATE Blockbuster. They drove the greatest video store Ive ever known out of business.Only goes to show that people have NO sense. Instead of renting from a place that has twice the number of movies and that charges $1 for catalog and $2.99 for new titles they go to Blockbuster.

All of the Mom&Pop stores in my area are now gone.

I dont rent often, but when I do I go WAY out of my way to go to a Mom&Pop store,Id never give BB my money.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> Blockbuster apparently has a mandate on multi-disc sets that no menu page should refer to features that are on another disc.

I've seen very few discs that do that, but if anything, that would make some people want to rent the other disc, too.

 

[Jim_C]

>>I have not walked into a Blockbuster in 15 years...ever since they tried to get 95 bucks from me on a unreturned tape. I HAD returned it. Thank God it was a title they only had one copy of...it was on the shelf. I asked how do i prove it if it had been a 100 count new title. They didn't have an answer, but they sure were willing to burn me for something that was THEIR fault.

 

[dan fritzen]

What about music?

Tony, Walmart and Kmart said they would not sell music with explicit lyrics and studios agreed to create clean version for these stores. Prodigy (UK techno) and another band gave them "clean" CD's that were in fact unclean and it took a while for Kmart and Walmart to figure it out. How funny.

Walmart now advertises sexy womans lingerie in commercials yet they stopped selling Maxim Magazine. I think we should complain to walmart that their new ads exploit women.

 

[Wyatt_Y]

These threads always rile me up....people talk like Wal-Mart, K-mart, Blockbuster have some conspiracy to piss 'us' off... The companies go by demographics, marketing studies, etc. and most of the time they succeed in achieving their desired results...and no, it's not about making EVERYONE happy - only a fool tries for that. It's about targeting the market audience and pleasing them...

Does Blockbuster want to deal with the hassles of a two disc set - customers wanting the second disc or their money back; tracking down the unreturned second disc, etc. NO, and I don't blame them...the MAJORITY of the renters just want to watch the fricken movie.

And as far as Blockbuster making demands of studios...well, depending on how many copies they buy, they can change or make the rules.

Anyway, I know I'm a minority niche video enthusiast - and yeah it worries me where the mass markets may take the industry..and I know that if there's enough of 'us' there'll be companies to cater to our desires...and if there's not enough of 'us'...well, we're SOL...

But that's how CAPITALISM works...it's not a bad thing...
Wylie

 

[Patrick McCart]

What is the logic in hiding stuff about special features?

I guess Blockbuster is afraid of people wanting to PURCHASE discs rather than rent them.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Exactly what they're scared of: Their business has started to go downhill and they're scared

My demands should be as good as Wal-Mart's

When 30% of DVDs sold pass through your cash registers, you can also have this kind of power

 

[cafink]

I guess Blockbuster is afraid of people wanting to PURCHASE discs rather than rent them.

This strikes me as a logical position for a video-rental chain.

 

[TommyT]

YEP! Blockbastard is the Walmart of the video market just like Ticketbastard in the concert market. Same damn thing has happened in my area, there's only a handful of small chains that have been able to hold their own against BB & they're slowly dying too. The last time I went to BB was at least 6 mos ago & I was unable to rent a widescreen copy of Goldmember (admittedly NOT high on my priority list but I needed a cheap fix...) & saw that EVERY copy was pan/scan. I even politely told the clerk that I wouldn't rent a P&S vers of that or any other film. Haven't gone back there since & I started renting from Netflix for this very reason.

They also don't carry many titles I've been interested in because they're more concerned with having 100 copies of Scooby Doo on the shelves than having 1 copy of a film that actually means something.

The other factor in my decision was that they refuse to rent NC17 films, instead dismissing them (as so many other self-righteous, sanctimonius, self-centered 'people' have) unfairly as pornography.

BB are just cutting their own throats by renting 2 disc titles separately. What they don't realize is that people aren't gonna bother w/the 2nd disc if it costs extra $$$ to rent it.

 

[MarkBurton]

I think Blockbuster's policy concerning menus is more apt to pertain to titles like Reservoir Dogs. A pan-and-scan version on one disk with some suppliments. And a widescreen version on the other disk with different suppliments.

Blockbuster could rent a pan-and-scan and a widescreen version seperately. Of course, if you rented this movie, you would have to rent it twice to see all of the bonus materials.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

No, they don't want people going "where's the extras disc"?

 

[Malcolm R]

The studios should simply prepare a movie-only disc for rental stores and put the standard version with special features in retail stores only.

 

[TonyD]

malcom that is a good idea, but i would hate to see it happen. i like to rent the dvd's and watch the sups as well as the movie.

the odd thing about 2 disk returns at blockbuster is that when people forget to return both disks is that it is always the movie dvd not the sup dvd.

the reason for this is they open the dvd case and see a dvd in the right side and figure that is the movie and just return it.

the movie is always on the left side of the blockbuster double sided cases.

even showing customers and telling them it has 2 dvds isnt good enough because the person who returns it isnt always the one who rents it.

i can see this as being the reason for going to a rent of seperate movie and the sups.
we have a whole box full of dvd's that are missing one
of the discs.
i would hate to see this happen but if people dont return both discs and we can't get in touch with them isnt this the same as stealing if they never return the dvd?

 

[Michael Allred]

It's ridiculous really.....so what if the studios didn't cave in to the BB's and WMs of the world? Those two chains would also be losing a LOT of money if they didn't carry DVD's, they're never gonna say "Ok, no full screen titles? Fine, we won't sell DVD's period!" Never gonna happen.

Studios should just stand their ground, idiot chains like BB will be the ones to cave in.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Tony, what is with the box of DVD's with 1 missing? I can see a customer forgetting to put the other one back in, but when they are checked out again, doesn't anyone check to make sure that they are in the case?

Otherwise, a new customer could rent a movie case - without the movie. The records would show who rented it last, and they would get a bill for a replacement. If your store is not doing this, Well - I don't know what to say.

Glenn

 

[Jeff Kleist]

they're never gonna say "Ok, no full screen titles? Fine, we won't sell DVD's period!" Never gonna happen

Of course they won't refuse, Star Wars, Matrix etc

They WILL refuse to carry the SMALLER titles! As Peter Staddon said "Sure we won't refuse Star Wars, but I think we can do without One Hour Photo"

 

[TonyD]

glenn the box is behind the counter and about once a month we close it out and consider them lost.

we call the customer as soon as the dvd is checked from the drop box. we use the phone number in theirr profile on the computer. if it is not updated after a customer changes a number we are at their mercy for them to bring back the dvd.

for reasons unkown to me we only chrge customers for lost dvd when they never return the entire dvd including the case.