Sub-Zero

November 15:

bruceames

We need that pie chart to include digital sales as well. It's about 20% of sell through so it's time. Despicable Me 2 came out this week and yet it's down 13%. Fox said they had "record" sales with this movie, on the digital version. So not including digital sales is making that pie chart more misleading as to how well sales really were.

hanshotfirst1138

The whole point of the chart is to show how many units are sold, and it's obvious recreating every week. If they included digital sales, it'd be a completely different chart for a totally different thing. Physical media is dying. Sad, but what're you going to do? And DM2 has been out for some time. I frigging love those Minions.

E Unit

The same people who are buying 4k TV's.

orangerunner

The same people inputting a standard-def signal into a 4K TV and think they're watching 4K.

bruceames

The chart is showing revenue, not units. If they included digital, it would be sell through revenue only, just like physical. So it wouldn't be a different thing, it would be just more complete. Sales revenue through all mediums would be covered, not just physical.

It would be stupid to have a pie chart that constantly showed red arrows for growth, and that's what's starting to happen now. Put the growth category in there, which is digital. This is not 2010.

bruceames

The people who are buying 4k TVs are streaming Netflix 1080p more than they are watching DVDs. I think they all have the app built in for it. Don't know if they are watching more Blu-ray than streaming though (which would include purchased digital movies)

mig0

Found this chart on mac rumors. Given my post count I can't yet post URLs or embed pics so hopefully this will be visible.

cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2014/12/ParksAssociates-Streaming-Media-Devices-TopBrands.gif

showing Roku leading (if not dominating, that was 2013) the streaming set top box market.

Sub-Zero

November 22:

davidh777

I think the fact that you're picking them up for $1.29 shows that there's not much of a market.

Alan Smithee

This weekend I saw a few Blu-Ray players priced under $50- the cheapest one I saw was $35. I think if they can get that low, there's no reason to make DVD-only players anymore and there isn't much reason to make regular DVDs either. VHS releases went away when DVD players hit that price point.

Matthew Chmiel

The problem is Blu-ray discs themselves now need to hit a lower price as well and hit the "bargain bin" if you will.

BuckNaked2k

They have. People are just not that into physical media anymore. This is especially true with the so called Millennials.

bruceames

There is absolutely zero correlation between DVD replacing VHS and Blu-ray replacing DVD. It doesn't matter that they stop making DVD-only players, because every Blu-ray player is just as much a DVD player as it is a Blu-ray player (actually just as much a streaming player as well).

As for not making regular DVDs anymore, this last year 10000 DVD titles were released. Compare that with just over 2000 for Blu-ray. That means out of every 5 titles, 4 weren't deemed viable for Blu-ray and were exclusive to DVD. How can anyone even think that DVD is ever going to slink away, considering how heavily releases are slanted towards it to this present day?

And because of that fact, Blu-ray since the middle of this year has actually declined at a faster rate than DVD has: 10.9% vs 10.3%. It entirely possible and even probable that this trend will continue, that Blu-ray will decline faster than DVD. A faster decline would mean that DVD is actually reclaiming market share from Blu-ray. I know it seems unfathomable, but it's becoming a reality. DVD is not going anywhere. And, if/when it does, Blu-ray is going along with it, if not before.

PhantomStranger

It appears the widespread prevalence of streaming content is squeezing Blu-ray out at the margins. A lot of the DVD crowd are older folk not using Internet-based services as much, so that format is more insulated from the streaming threat. The elite, educated consumer with 100 Mbps fiber connections, the ones that should be snapping up BDs, are instead distracted by oodles of streaming content.

Since most of the bigger mainstream releases seem to eventually hit one of the streaming services, there is less pressing need to buy them day one. Niche content such as horror is selling as well as ever on Blu-ray, since that kind of content is far harder to check out over streaming.

bruceames

Yes very true. According to the latest DEG report, new release digital purchases grew 70 percent YoY for the last quarter and 87 percent for the year. And since new release is Blu-ray's bread and butter, digital's growth (largely fueled by the 2 week early release advantage) is affecting Blu-ray more than DVD, which is much more insulated by virtue of its depth (and like you say, its demographic as well).

Alan Smithee

The new DIVX, and a deliberate attempt by the industry to kill off physical media.

morriscroy

Anecdotally.

Every time I go to places like Walmart, BestBuy, Costco, etc ... whether during lunch or on a busy Saturday/Sunday or Friday evening, the dvd/bluray section is almost always empty.

The few individuals checking out the dvds/blurays are almost always people who looked middle aged or older. (ie. Over age 40, such as older GenX, Boomers, etc ...). Even when I end up spending almost an hour going through all the dump bins, I rarely ever see anybody younger checking out the dvds/blurays.

The few times I ever seen anybody younger checking out the dvds/blurays, it's almost always some guys in their 30's or late-20's wearing a heavy metal band t-shirt (such as Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Metallica, AC DC, etc ...), or a comic book superhero t-shirt (such as Green Lantern, Superman, Spiderman, etc ...).

bruceames

I don't think they are intentionally trying to kill off physical media. They are content to let it decline as it will. But probably they'll increasingly treat it with indifference, like Netflix does with DVD. They're just positioning themselves for the digital future that is inevitable. They would prefer digital sales to not cannibalize physical but of course that's not possible. Most sales eventually will be digital. It's about 20% now, but that percentage is growing fairly quickly. What will be interesting is to see when digital sales peak and physical sales bottom out (if that happens, but I think it will). When you combine sales and rental revenue, digital has finally exceeded physical this year (or maybe last, not sure)

Alan Smithee

Example of how great digital is:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9lHDR7JHhqQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

morriscroy

DIVX would have been really really nasty, if it was a success.

DIVX used triple-DES encryption, which today is still difficult to crack.

In contrast, DVD's css encryption algorithm was a complete joke.

Why So Blu?

Well, it's obvious that the dude has shitty internet.

morriscroy

If bandwidth was shitty and if dvds/blurays were not available at all, I may very well just do without any movies + tv shows.

When I was younger, I hardly watched any tv or movies from the late-1980's to around 2007. (Other than some Star Trek TOS reruns). In those days, I was largely ignorant and clueless about most then-current tv shows and movies.

Dan

Why does the video quality look like the faded VHS boxes at Blockbuster that faced the windows?

Also, this.

morriscroy

(Going offtopic).

I question the notion of "elite" and "educated", when it comes to dvd/bluray collectors.

Anecdotally.

Of the hardcore dvd/bluray collectors I have met offline over the years, most were from the lower or middle classes and/or they did not have much higher education. (Most of these individuals I met while scavenging through dvd/bluray bargain bins, or at parties hosted by other friends).

The few who went through higher education, were typically individuals who partied a lot in college and majored in something "easy" like psychology or political science. (Besides myself, so far I have only met two other hardcore dvd/bluray collectors offline who had a technical background, such as in engineering or a hard science).