Its all about the nostalgia...its fun to remember VHS like when it first came out and people you saw all these really bad horror movies made in peoples garages and being sold and such...god those were the days...

Dang.... I guess I shouldn't say anything about DVD addiction after I picked up 10 DVDs in the last 2 days... but it's been awhile since I've done this so I guess I needed to get it outta my system.

Every time I'm looking at my bank statements and wondering where the hell all my money goes, I just have to look at the "Estimated Value" total on Guzzlefish. Mind blowing.

Personally I have only noticed the PAL speed-up on 4 DVD's that being the Back to the Future Box set that I got 4 month's early from Ezdvd with DTS and Happy Gilmore WS from the same place. I probably have about 45-50 PAL dvd's so to me that is not bad... Some will say that it is horrible but I really don't feel that it is that bad. The picture quality with PAL is far superior to Region 1 DVD's though... Looks great on my Widescreen HDTV.

Some examples are Roadhouse PAL VS Region one the PAL picture is way better same with Adventures of Ford Fairlane PAL is better, I could go on but don't remember all the ones that I have right now... But like the P&S release of the Principal in Region 1 the Region 2 version is WS and much improved picture quality also. Also I was enjoying They Live with the Carpenter and Piper commentary a full year before it was ever released here. I know the Region 1 does not have the commentary and Region 2 does but I got a German version even before the UK version came out. Stuff like that makes being region free great. Of course unless movies like that don't appeal to you. But there are tons of others that can fill your void...
Yes price can be a problem as most oversea's stuff is more expensive.(Region 4 from EzDVD has some great prices though I got Night Hawks for $7.00 shipped in WS) I paid about $40.00 for They Live from Germany but I sold my Region 1 version for $75 when it was OOP, so that made up for it.

PS excuse my rambling... I tend to get pretty excited about other Region DVD's for some reason... and I hope that made sense... :)

No, I appreciate the info. Feel free to ramble away.

I hear ya, chief. I'm trying to add a few imports every week.:thumbsup:

for horror fans....it's the only way to fly.

Well since I'm almost at 1,100 DVD's (Cheap plug for you to view my profiler), I must of spend over $10,000.

1)First of all, I never thought I'd hear the adjective measly used to describe a 6 billion dollar industry. Where I come from, 6 billion dollars is a lot of money...

2)The same could be said for the 16.7 billion in DVD's. 16.7 is WORLDWIDE DVD sales AND rentals. Why are you emphasizing facts that apply to both DVD and VHS calculations? This is no way affects my point, or yours.

3)Dwarfed? Sorry, a 3:1 ratio isn't dwarfing. I don't know what dictionary you're using, but your colorful language isn't accurate.

4)As I've said before, I don't disagree with the popularity trends. DVD's are on the rise, VHS is on it's way out. But you don't seem to comprehend my point. My point is that a 5.91 billion dollar industry is not obsolete. Nor will it be until VHS casettes are NOT IN USE, as the definition of obsolete clearly states.

If 6 billion isn't a lot in a 400 billion dollar industry, neither is 16 billion.

What exactly is your point? You rambled about your personal experience, trends in the industry, etc...all of which I don't disagree with. Yes, DVD will soon be obsolete. I don't disagree. But that is not quite what you said. You said that the industry has already hit this point with comments such as...

And your tense is not correct. Give it a year or two, when DVD's are out-selling and out-renting DVD's 10:1, not 3:1.

And this is absolutely bogus. 1 million dollars worth of VCR's were sold in 2003. And you're telling me that a person who bought a new VCR, who has their home movies on VHS, who bought 250 VHS casettes over the past 10 years has a worthless collection? Please...

Yes, and I am living proof.

The last VCR I bought was back in 1996, but I had been growing a fairly "impressive" video library. I had about 300+ titles that I had purchased for a decent amount of dough (all were purchases new).

I converted to DVD because I am a movie lover, and VHS was dying a slow and painful death.

Now I am trying to off the thousands of $$$ of VHS I bought for literally pennies on the dollar.

Just two weeks ago, I sold a collection of about 40 tapes (most new) for about $44.00. I assure you, $44.00 for 40 tapes is pretty much worthless considering what I spent on them.

Now, I am donating them to the local hospital (for patients rooms).

I'd rather do that, and get a tax deduction, then off them for a buck a tape.

--LVM

--

Yes, to individuals like you and me, it's a lot. But to large businesses - it's lunch.

Because you stated that your numbers represented local rentals alone - which was not the case. I was correcting your error (or intentional deceit).

How tall is the average man? Say 6" (not even, probably)? How tall is a dwarf? More than 1/3 the height. So to "dwarf" something it only has to beat it by more than 2:1.

I used the word "dwarfed" *because* it was accurate.

Clearly, you invented a definition for the word and posted it previously. But that's not what the word means in this case.

When speaking of obsolete technology the word 'obsolete' means "outmoded in design, style, or use." (courtesy of the OED Compact edition).

VHS was technically "obsoleted" the day the first DVD recorder hit the market. But it wasn't *practially* obsoleted until sales of hardware and software declined as rapidly as they have.

VHS software sales and rentals are down more than 70% than they were just FOUR years ago.

Be careful about making your case with only the bare statistics - you need to be able to interpret the statistics, too. The entire industry is seeing a slump now, which is why the overall sales numbers aren't as high as they should be compared to four years ago.

Where are you getting these numbers? Did you just make that up? Is that another personal definition for "obsolete"?

I don't know where you're getting this figure, but that's much less than I would have thought.

$1 million dollars, at $100 average per player/recorder, is only 10,000 units. That's *nothing*.

Yes, you could say that your mom and pop store would be happy to sell 10,000 units (of anything) but for nationwide sales (or even worldwide) that's a very tiny tiny market. I mean, Sony Minidisc did over $10 million in sales last year.

Does that mean that Minidisc is now a mainstream technology that everyone is using?

No, but it means that it's TEN TIMES more popular than VHS hardware. Yikes!

Even Laserdisc sold better than that. And that was considered such an extreme niche market that studios were willing to license out titles right and left because they figured there wasn't much profit to be made.

Because VHS so dominated the market throughout the 80s and 90s there will still be an installed base of users, and companies will still market to VHS for a short while longer - but they're crunching the numbers of the past few years, and when they determine that VHS is no longer economically viable (like that guy from "Falling Down") it'll be gone.

One million dollars in sales. That's funny.

YES! Now you're getting it! Yes, that collection is worthless.

Donating tapes to a local hospital or assited living home is a great idea (tax deduction or not). If they'd be willing to accept the hundreds of tapes I recorded with three movies to a tape from cable I'm sure someone could make use of them, for a short while, anyway.

im not even at 100 and ive been buying for over 2 years. thats like 1 a week...not bad.

Hmm...are you married? Do you have kids? How loud can you turn up your HT without people telling you to turn it down!

If the answers are no, no, and as loud as you want...Columbia House is your friend.

But seriously, use Columbia House as much as possible and you should be fine..

What took you so long anyway?

I started about 2 years ago but it was really slow going. Nowadays in the past month, I've been really buying a lot and starting a collection that I'm proud of having. I just love having all my favorite movies around for me to watch whenever I feel, and you gotta love when your favorite movies have great extras.

Its over...its all over...
Your next main question to this club will be (Anyone know a good way os storing these? Any deals on DVD racks?)

Soon you'll dedicate an entire wall to you collection, buy extra insurance, buy a gun, and put that downpayment on the large plazma you look at everytime you walk into best buy...

But... I could be wrong...???

=D