Giggles

Maybe this question or rather its answer is obvious for some, but I was always curious how the price policy works? Who decides how much will some particular DVD cost and why some of them cost $13 and others - $26? Certainly a two-disc edition in a fancy box would cost more, but why some usual, seemingly similar DVDs differ so much in price?

Giggles

Anyone? I can't sleep

chase3001

Isn't it daytime in Russia right now?

Giggles

That was a good one. But I lost count of days and nights

kaze0

Because stone cold said so.

Jah-Wren Ryel

It costs less than a buck to manufacture the physical DVD, case and inserts. For a fancy setup, 5 bucks probably covers everything for two or three standard deviations. If the movie productions costs and advertising, etc, costs have already been paid for, everything else is gravy and the distributors get to pick a price they think the market will bear.

Since copyright gives them an artificial monopoly with no legal competition for the distribution of each title they have the rights for, they can get away with setting the price at whatever they want, within reason, and still be assured of some level of profit.

tonyjg

Let me throw a spanner into the works....


OK - why does HBO price... no... OVER PRICE its titles in the U.S (Region 1) ??

We are so incredible THANKFUL that TV series can be purchased here in Australia for sometime half price or more than the corresponding US Version.

heres some example :

DEADWOOD - $68.99 a SEASON at DDD - whereas it can be purchased for around the $35 mark in Australia (when its on distributor sale) (released by Paramount in R4 - noting that we miss out on the special features)

SOPRANOS - $44 - 69 a season at DDD !!! again - we can get this for around the $30 mark with (quite) often sales.

THE O.C. - $48 -52 at DDD - $27 per season in Australia !!!

GILMORE GIRLS - $39 per season at DDD - $27 per season down under

THE SHIELD - season 1 and 2 - $44 at DDD - $24 in Australia


Why are you guys in the US paying so much more for your TV series ????

Eve Brown

I don't pay more then $20 for a season of TV this days but HBO is overpriced. The only show I have brought is the Complete Sex in the City set

waiting for sales OC and Gilmore Girls along with other Warner shows are often on sale

Fox is another studio with great sales at varies times I picked up Shield 2 and 3 (NEW)for about $15.44 each in a sale

seltzer77

My guess as to why HBO dvds are priced so high:

HBO is a premium service on cable, costing $12 (approx) per month for the service. If their dvds were priced cheaper, people would have less reason to purchase HBO, if they only got it for Sopranos, or Wire, etc...

Does it work? They've been doing this for a few years now, and I'd assume if this cost structure didn't work for them, they would've changed it by now.

On a side note, in December Best Buy had all HBO dvds for 50% off...

mcarver

Besides issues regarding "licensing" for such as music, etc. the prices are basically set to what the "market" will allow. Why are CD's more expensive than many DVD's? And why do CD's almost never see any price reduction like DVD's? It's all what the market will allow.

It looks like the market in Australia is more begrudging that the USA market....

Giggles

Thanks for the insight, everyone. Btw, if someone's interested - a little about prices on R1 DVD here in Russia. Generally we have most of the films released on licensed R5 DVDs. And they're pretty cheap. But there's a store in Moscow that sells mainly R1, R2 and R3 DVDs. It's the only place you can buy them here, I was there a couple of days back, and here're the prices on some DVDs for you to shudder:
The Sopranos (no mater what season) R1 - $120-130;
Wrong Turn, Final Destination, First Blood (UE) or any other regular release R1 - $35-40;
Some special editions like Seven (Platinum series), or Memento (2-disc SE) R1 - $45-50;
R3 releases (Hong Kong mostly) like Re-Cycle (2-disc edition), The Host (3-disc LE) - $100-120;