I don't think Disney considers it a "risk," it's probably a certainty to them that a large chunk of their sales are going to be on the DVD at a later date.

We don't know if it's really a "delayed" DVD release though. It could be that they always planned the DVD to come out at that date, but moved the BD release to an earlier date.

Which is why a specifically mentioned retail VHS release, not rental VHS releases. You never found a rental priced VHS available at a retail store, so for all intents and purposes to the consumer, the VHS became available for sale to them at a later date than the DVD. A number of people in this thread have mentioned it as an advantage DVD had that BD doesn't.

Of course, reflecting back, I recall that Disney often skipped the rental pricing scheme on their VHS releases, going straight to retail pricing. So for their titles, the VHS and DVD were available for retail on the same date. It's interesting that they're trying a staggered schedule for BD when they didn't on DVD, unlike most studios.

I'm sure Disney isn't sweating it out. Remember, this is the studio that took the old DVD off the shelf and kept the title OOP for several years, delaying additional revenue from it. I don't think a few additional weeks concern them that much.

Does it matter, though? As long as it's all within the same financial quarter or whatever, does getting X dollars by such and such date or the exact same amount a few weeks later make a difference? It's not as if they're going to miss a mortgage payment or anything, and a few weeks won't have any negative impact on their balance sheets.

This is an experiment. That's all there is to it. Maybe it'll succeed, maybe it'll fail, or maybe it won't make any difference at all.

I suppose not but on the other hand look how important the opening weekend is to a film in the theaters. A movie used to play for several months, now the studios need their returns within the first week or two before more competition arrives.

I imagine they would apply the same logic with home video.

Additionally they may also consider the fact that they will have to spend more money on advertising awareness as their campaign will have to stretch over at least seven weeks instead of the one initial launch.

The opening weekend for the theatrical release of a brand new film and the home video release date of a decades-old catalog title aren't even remotely comparable.

Do you seriously believe that, after having existed for over 70 years, people will lose interest in Snow White after an additional few weeks?

Most advertising campaigns exist for much longer than the "one initial launch" week. However, we don't know what Disney's ad campaign for this will be. It could be that the BD will be more-or-less a "quiet" launch, with little advertising. I'm pretty sure Disney has already taken into consideration the differences in approach a staggered release will entail.

You're right, I think Disney always sold their animated titles at retail right from the beginning. Some summer blockbusters were often sold at retail as well on VHS, like Batman, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade etc.

Could the seven week gap become the norm?

At least in the past when the retail VHS came out several months after the retail DVD, the VHS consumer wasn't completely shut out for that time frame.

They could at least rent the title, which was the more common practice with VHS for most people at the time anyway. It wasn't as if people became used to buying new release VHS tapes at retail & then found it was no longer offered.

I'm guessing too, that the rental markets will only receive a single disc Blu-Ray version & not be given the retail Blu-Ray version with the extra DVD copy.

the only negative thing about blu-ray is I am the only one who owns a player. So if my sister wanted to watch a movie on her DVD Player, It would work and everyone in my family will not upgrade to blu-ray because simply they can't see the difference. They really need to get their eyes checked lol

They are comparable when you consider a film like Dark Knight which I would guess sold well over 75% of its total numbers to date within the first month of release. (If anyone has the offical numbers, please post!)

I don't feel the fact that Snow White being a catalogue title would diminish the importance of that initial marketing push.

I'm not a marketing wizard, but it would make sense to me to gather as many sales out of the gate as possible.

When DVD came out, every new movie had a retail VHS release, and there were plenty of catalog titles available as well, not just blockbusters. New VHS tapes of catalog films could be bought for as little as $6.99 at places like Best Buy.

Well, it could, but I'm not sure how likely it is.

Well, with this particular release, it's likely that anyone who wants to rent it can rent the previous DVD release from a store.

True. Since DVDs of new releases started out being sold in advance of the retail VHS release, most people saw it as an advantage studios were giving DVD, and a bonus for DVD adopters, instead of suddenly disadvantaging VHS and its consumers. In this case, since the BD of a new release has been sold mostly day-and-date with the DVD for almost three years, creating a staggered release schedule appears to consumers as an attempt to cripple DVD/punish them for not yet adopting BD.

I don't think we need to discuss idle speculation at this point. If rental stores received BD-only copies of releases like Bolt and Pinocchio, then it's probably likely to happen to Snow White as well. If not, then we should wait and see if Disney does anything different or not with this release.

Which is why I specifically pointed out that Snow White is a catalog title, which the Dark Knight wasn't.

Again, we don't know how Disney is going to structure their marketing push for this title. However, catalog titles are marketed a lot differently than new releases. How often do you see TV ads for the video release of an older title? Did you see any TV ads for the 3-disc SE of No Country for Old Men? How about for the 75th Anniversary Edition of Cleopatra? The Goldwyn Follies?

Disney's fairly unique in that they're able to market their catalog title re-releases as an "event." However, the market for these titles is not going to disappear because of a 7-week wait, unlike new releases, where, for example, the market for the film "Yes Man" will likely have forgotten that film even exists after 7 weeks on home video.

Obviously, the actual marketing wizards at Disney are testing out the possibility of another approach to selling a title that might turn out to make even more sense, in that it's more profitable. Or maybe not.

I agree it doesn't make much sense to delay 90% of your potential customer base for seemingly no other motivating factor other than trying to
entice the masses into buying a format, that so far, has received only a lukewarm response.

I can't see too many people dropping $250 for a Blu-Ray player so their kids can watch a re-issue of Snow White six weeks sooner.

In these economic times, could this method of distribution inadvertedly send out the subtle message to their target family demographic that those who are more wealthy get the extra advantage of being able to purchase it first?

Well, again, the DVD might not have been delayed; the BD's release could've been accelerated. I was talking about customer perception though, where all they're going to notice is that they can't get the DVD just yet.

Well, it might prompt some current BD owners to get the BD instead of settle for the cheaper DVD. It might also prompt some people to consider upgrading for reasons in addition to getting Snow White sooner. Also, some DVD-only owners may buy the BD, and view the included DVD until they upgrade at a later point. Also, not everyone is going to be buying this for their kids (or even have kids).

Did the earlier releases of DVDs than VHS by other studios send that message? Did anyone care?

I think this will be the largest group.

For example, with Bolt last month, and the higher value coupon for the BD version, it made no sense to buy the SD version, even if you didn't own a blu-ray player. The price was virtually the same for the SD and BD versions after the coupon, and the BD included the SD disk with all the special features.

Of course, every release will be a different story based on pricing. But if they continue to drop BD prices and more studios include the full SD, then it will make more and more sense for consumers to "switch", even if they don't have HD hardware.

That is interesting that a few recent BR releases are including an SD DVD copy with it. I always thought it would be a good marketing strategy to getting people to buy into BR sooner by including SD versions @ a standard BR price. Allows people to build towards the future without overhauling their current equipment. I certainly would be more prone to buying new releases this way, where as right now I am holding off on all new release purchases and only buying SD catalog and TV releases.

I just figured they wouldn't go this route for fear that people would share purchases (i.e., one gets the BR while the other the SD). Maybe the tide is turning where studios would rather risk this for the longer term goal of selling more BR disks, and quickening the adoption of BR. After all, once you have a couple of BR disks sitting around with no player, you're going to want to get one.

This was my train of thought when the format war was still on. I liked the idea that HD-DVD had the combo discs. If they had released one version of the film as a combo (either a flipper or two separate discs) and priced it as a regular DVD I think that format would have had a better chance.

Eventually you accumulate several "free" HD discs and would be more compelled to buy the player. As well you would have that added confidence that you're prepared when the technology shifts.

HD DVD/DVD combo discs were a good idea in theory that didn't pan out in practice. Packaging separate DVD disc with the BD seems a better implementation of the basic idea.

The main reason DVD died was studio support; not customer support. They sold plenty of players, but once WB pulled out, there was no way that it would succeed with such a limited amount of material to offer, against a format that had every major studio's catalog.

As for pricing: it makes sense that a premium product comes with an extra cost. If BD came with a DVD and cost the same as a regular DVD, why would anyone buy the regular DVD-only product?

While it'd be nice if the movie studios subsidized people's transition to BD, they're in this to make money too. Still, including a "free" DVD with the more expensive BD purchase will help the transition for some.

I would be willing to pay the standard BR disk price if it came with an SD DVD. I would not expect it to be sold for less.

I do like the combo idea but the pricing will always be something of a sticky issue.

For argument's sake if they priced the combo at $22.95 (standard DVD pricing), will the standalone DVD drop in price to, say $15.95?

Now you still have that wide price gap that takes us back to the main reason why Blu-Ray has been difficult to sell.

If they narrow that gap to the point where it no longer makes sense to buy the DVD (Say, $24.95 for the combo and $21.95 for just the DVD) and they lower the prices on a good player to $100 or less, I think Blu-Ray could finally put a serious dent in the market as far as new releases go.

From a completely non-fanboy perspective, I was kind of rooting for HD DVD towards the end after they flooded the market with inexpensive players. I figured it was the cheapest way to go.

But just getting the field narrowed to one format was the big step in getting me off my duffer.

Combo discs have never appealed to me. I have a suspicion I'm not alone here. Besides, studios make more money now by have the formats separate.

No, but it sends a blatant message to consumers how ass-backwards the Blu-ray marketing folk are.

Actually I've see quite a few commercials for the No Country For Old Men re-release

No plans on going Blu here. I'm enjoying my DVD collection, VHS collection, and my DVR is loaded with over 50 hours of movies from satellite, most of which are either unavailable on video at all, or on overpriced VHS tapes. Satellite is the great untapped movie-lovers paradise, and format-less!

I think this is the kind of attitude Disney is hoping their BD/DVD combo releases will generate.

It might be easier to stick with MSRP, since retail prices vary widely for DVD and BD. A BD usually has an MSRP of $39.99, while a new release DVD has an MSRP of $29.99. I don't think that studios will want to drop below that pricing for new releases, since consumers have shown they'll buy at that price, at least after the discounts retailers are willing to give. So if studios released a new film on BD with free DVD for $29.99, I'd think it's much more likely they would make that the film's only release than lower the price of a DVD-only release.

So is it the high price of BD, or just the fact that there's a price gap, that's keeping the adoption level from being higher? I mean, if people are willing to pay the DVD price now for DVD-level quality, why wouldn't they be willing to pay the same price for a BD with included DVD? It's obviously a better value.

You don't think 10% of sales where only 35-40% of the population has HDTV isn't a "serious dent"?

To be clear: For the "combo" BD releases, the DVD is a separate disc. So this isn't quite the same situation as the HD DVD combo discs, which were plagued with a number of problems.

I don't think many people mind the concept of getting both the BD and DVD, as long as it doesn't cost any more than a BD-only release. Its when it costs more, and there's no cheaper BD-only release, that people get testy.


OK, I thought that one might've been a bad example, since it's a more recent film. Still, my point stands that the vast majority of catalog titles are not aggressively marketed.

What will you do though if reasonably-priced BDs of those rarer movies start appearing?

That is a pretty big "if" at this point.