philip74

they would rather destroy there discs than to sell them cheaper!

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...r_Damages/3204


they want to stop selling certain titles on dvd to push bluray!

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/sept-4-w...r-zhivago/6903

every day i start hating their policies more and more....

Mr. Salty

Guess what? That's common practice in the business, and for others as well, including book publishers.


Most, if not all, of those titles are being reissued in new editions on DVD as well as Blu-ray.

dx23

This topic has been discussed ad naseum in the Big Lots thread 6 and 7.

dx23

Just because it has been done in the past, doesn't mean it's correct for a studio to continue the practice. These studios show that they don't care about customers and they don't care about the environment.

Drexl

Well, it's true that there will be BD releases of those titles, and they are likely the biggest reason behind the moratorium. However, they will still sell them on DVD and VOD when the moratorium is lifted. It's not any different from what MGM has done with the James Bond titles, or what Disney does with their animated classics. Other titles have been unavailable at certain times as well.

UAIOE

There are like 2-3 releases of "Exorcist" & "Caddyshack" already, I doubt losing out on *ONE MORE* is going to cause riots in the streets.

It's a shame WB doesn't own Evil Dead and Army of Darkness....

Solid Snake

Hope that chris guy doesn't read this thread...

Mr. Salty

Define "correct." Until they're sold, the discs are Warner's to do with as the studio sees fit. As far as caring for customers, Warner has about the lowest prices on catalog titles of any of the major studios. And when they make mistakes, they're pretty fast with replacement programs.

dx23

Correct means that people are willing to pay $3 not $10 or $12 for those films on DVD, like the Big Lots threads have proven. Why destroy and continue to fill landfills with trash, when there are other options for those products? Why not donate those DVDs to libraries, military or other places that would gladly make use of them? Studios can do whatever they want, but again that doesn't mean that they are making the correct decisions.

Ethan VanSciver

Guess what? The physical discs aren't worth anything. It's the film property that is valuable, so you'll have to excuse them if they have a bottom line standard at which they will not sell that property for less.

PaulNJ21

After years and years of Caddyshack being out there for $6 with a transfer that is less than great, I don't see all that many people rebuying it on Blu Ray.

philip74

yeah the fact that old discs are just dumped makes these new ECO cases an even bigger joke!!
like i have been saying, they couldn`t care less about the environment, its just a way to make few cents more profit on saved material costs....

Al_Tahoe

Alan Smithee

Sounds like the new editions will be on standard DVD too. Funny thing is I just got Caddyshack on HD-DVD from INetvideo, and the case was sealed but no disc was inside! They said they're sending me a new one.

And yes, destroying stuff is stupid.

dx23

Actually, the physical discs have value in different ways. They carry around the production cost, the distribution cost and then they destroy it (which they pay a company to do so) so the studio can do a write off when tax season comes around. This is not a situation like the VHS were the item is becoming obsolete.

Again, I just find hypocritical that all these studios say that they are going "green" by changing the packaging, saying that they are doing things for the environment and then you see news like these. The fact is that the last resort should be dumping those DVDs in the trash.

You see, with the Big Lot sales, now there are people who got TV series for cheap. Imagine that a kid received ThunderCats season 1. He likes it. Now he will want to complete and watch the rest of the series, so his parents go and buy them. Warner and the retailer now got potential sales for just placing one of their products at a cheap price. Repeat this with same situation with other DVDs and you got a lot of potential customers. Studios are just being shortsighted ( what a surprise) with their inventory.

Neil M.

Who are you fooling? Most of the people bought them for themselves and copies to sell on ebay. Those same parents will tell the kid to wait till they can get it at Big Lots for the same price.

Warner is doing the right thing for their business. They only care about the environment when it helps the bottom-line. It's the same with any business.

If there should be any outrage, it should be with the farming industry where it's common practice to destroy crops and animals when prices fall. Just look at the dairy cow slaughterings this year. But again, they're protecting their business.

Pizza

Dead on. I was just looking at my Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray I bought this week and let out a sigh. I hate the ECO cases.

Mr. Salty

It is financially more responsible from a business sense to take a tax writeoff than to sell something either at a loss or a break-even point. Warner is a business after all.

You keep saying "these studios" as if they are all of one mind. I know Sony and MGM are using the eco cases, but is Warner? I have yet to encounter one of their titles in an eco case.

When discs are destroyed, the cases are likely used again or at least the plastic is recycled.

Do you know that they're being dumped in a landfill? After being destroyed they very well could be recycled. I don't know, and neither do you.

Gizmo

The going green is BS. Its a way for them to save money on a. less plastic in the case and b. it now weighs less so they can ship them cheaper.

As for Big Lots and destroyed DVDs...Warner can do what they want. It's there property and people were not buying the TV on DVD at $15-$20 so it goes bye-bye. Sure, you may say "well sell it for $3 and make the consumer happy", but that $3 could be used x5 to go into a different boxset they didn't mass produce or over estimate demand for. This is done every day in the movie, CD, book etc field.

Gizmo

For a limited time. Other studios do this when they announced (or plan to) new versions. It's nothing new. They don't want the old edition clogging the shelves because retailers won't buy any (or much) of the new release. Its a common practice.

Gizmo

This happens everyday when the studios put Season 1 (and maybe 2 depending how long the show went on) on sale. Once you get the consumers hooked they buy the later seasons at a higher price. Target has this with their 2 Packs like Buffy, Angel, X-Files etc.

wm lopez

I wonder if they let employees take the dvds.

davidh777

Combine this with the Redbox thread (and the "What do you consider fair price" one). It's about establishing value in the eyes of the consumer. If they think movies should be $1 and TV sets should be $3, then good luck getting them to pay more.

bunnydojo

Exactly. If book publishers didn't burn off stock, nobody would be able to sell Romeo & Juliet for more than a nickel. If wheat supplies weren't bought up and stored/burnt, farmers would be putting a year's worth of work into a $5 crop. It's terrible in theory --- you look at all that waste and wonder why the things aren't given away (if not in the U.S., then to third-world countries) --- but without the practice, the economy would be a disast.... umm... an even bigger disaster.

dx23

They get equal or more tax break if they donate those DVDs to charity, schools, libraries or military.


I got ECO packaging from Sony, MGM/FOX, Universal and Warner DVDs. And that is beside seeing in almost every back cover art a disclaimer saying that it was made from recycled paper.

My experience with companies that collect and destroy "trash" (old files, computers, inventory, etc) is that it goes to an incinerator and what is almost indestructible, goes to a secure landfill, since they treat it as sensitive material. I don't know for a fact that if this is what is happening with the inventory Warner is liquidating, but I know they have other options. Again, selling early seasons at low prices could increase new customer interest in those series and in turn increase sales of future seasons of those TV sets.