I have never argued that DVD and Blu-ray will wholly and completely cease to exist (at least not any time very soon).

For good reason. 8 tracks were only marginally successful when they were available and competing with cassettes and LPs. They were all replaced with CDs.

Similarly, I never advised anyone to stock up on VHS and Laser Discs. They were replaced with DVDs/Blu-Ray.

The point I was trying to make: At 50 cents & $1 used DVDs/Blu-Ray are a great buy. Little to no chance they will be eliminated/replaced with another physical format or the "digital future".

Quadraphonic ones have been going for insane amounts:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HITPARADE-OR...item35ecc7d6d6

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-CHANNEL-SO...item463d1d1345

http://www.ebay.com/itm/James-Last-B...73026373&rt=nc

I've got a great deal on some Beanie Babies for you. They are going to be worth a fortune.

Buy DVDs
?????????
Profit

Oh My God. That was so funny I forgot to laugh.

I have a friend who works at a thrift store. She said they put out a load of beanie babies for 25¢ each. Didn't sell any all day. Half way through the next day, they started giving them away free with every purchase.

Try your dog. They like to chew on them and they're cheaper than dog biscuits.

Edit: What's really funny, is most people who make wise ass remarks about buying DVDs for 50¢ are the same people who were buying them for $15 to $20.

I'd love to see proof those same people do that. Looking forward to you deleting this thread like your responses on the other one.

Did these require special 8 track players, or could the standard ones play them?

Why don't you ask them ???

You need a quadraphonic player. They will play on regular ones but you can only hear the two front or two rear channels at a time. I've got a Panasonic player hooked to my home theater.

As in CD = certificate of deposit ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_deposit

Bingo. Probably provides better returns than the OP's grand plan for hoarding DVD's in hopes they greatly increase in value.

If you're buying used DVDs at 50¢, as I suggested, they don't have to increase in value. They are already well worth the money spent. I'm already cashing in.

And as Walmart's in store DVD/Blu-Ray selections continue to decrease, I expect the demand for used DVDs to be even stronger.

"Investing", "increasing in value", were your terms, not mine. I assume a lack of reading comprehension on your part, or you're just looking for something to argue about.

Some of the titles recently picked up in lots at 50¢ each:
The Jungle Book ($48.24 used Amazon)
Breakfast Club ($7.95 used Amazon)
Jungle Holocaust ($29.95 used Amazon)
The Boondocks Season One
The Boondocks Season Two
Lost Season One
Chapelle's Show Season One - Comedy Central
Chapelle's Show Season Two - Comedy Central

People are dumping complete TV seasons for 50¢ ????
Like I said. I love it when people start going crazy.

At least with a bank issued CD (or money market fund), there's not much downside other than barely keeping up with inflation. (Assuming a CD is issued in a currency which doesn't have major devaluation/hyperinflation type problems).


On the other hand with collectables, there's no reliable patterns to discern. Not even known a priori, if the value of a particular collectable tracks with inflation.

For example, most of the stuff I have collected over the years, are effectively at "dump bin" prices (even in mint condition). Stuff like comic books, music cds, Star Trek + Star Wars books, etc ... Even without taking inflation into account, the monetary value of most of my collectables stuff is way below their nominal original cover/retail prices. (ie. Such as less than 50 cents a pop for many early-mid 1980's era comic book issues).

The big unknown is whether dvd-rom burner drives will still be widely manufactured in the near future. These days it seems like flash drives are more popular than burning dvd discs. (Without being too specific, it seems like the online places where the hardcore cd/dvd/bd ripper/burner types hang out, there's less and less activity as times goes on).

At this point in time, the one big application I've heard of where dvd burning still seems to be popular, are some places which require crucial data to be regularly backed up and time stamped (by company policy and/or by law). Mostly where data integrity is an issue, where the data can't be easily tampered/modified at a future date, once the data has been burned.

It sounds like dvd playback will be back to how it was in the late 1990's, where the decryption + playback will be in the 3rd party dvd player software, and not as a built-in windows library dll.

Same thing happened with cassette players. (ie. Besides finding old stuff at thrift shops).

I don't think I've ever seen an 8-track for more than $10 offline.

One amusing case I saw more than a decade ago, was a nearby indie record store (now closed) which had a Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" 8-track for something like $5. I'm guessing either they eventually chucked it out, or a hardcore Pink Floyd fan/collector picked it up.

Sounds almost like a few friends/acquaintances back in the day.

I remember back in the early-mid 1980's in the comic book world, back issues of The Uncanny X-Men from issue #94 to around #150 or so, spiked up in price on the collector's market.

At the time, I remember one friend who was buying two or more copies of every new monthly issue of The Uncanny X-Men, in the hope that the issues after #150 would also spike up in price like issues #94-150. (Another acquaintance purchased something like more than ten or twenty copies of issue #200 of The Uncanny X-Men).

Fast forward to today, most of these post-#150 issues of The Uncanny X-Men have only really barely tracked inflation of the original cover price, for mint condition copies. For copies which are not in mint condition, they're basically 50 cents dump bin fodder now.

March 2014
DVD and Blu-ray discs continue to be most popular sources of video

"Physical formats are critical when it comes to movies as most consumers who watch movies obtain them on DVD or Blu-ray disc. Three-fourths (74 percent) purchase, rent or receive their movies on these physical formats, while only 24 percent acquire them via digital download."

http://www.myce.com/news/dvd-and-blu...content-70649/
------------------------------------------------------
The "Digital Future" is here and 74% still prefer movies on disc.

The studios want to believe consumers buying fewer overpriced movies on disc, will buy more orverpriced digital movies (stored in the cloud). It's wishful thinking.

Discs and disc players will be around (and mass produced) as long as consumers want to purchase movies.

Edit: One advantage of digital purchases, is consumers won't have to look at shelves full of overpriced discs, as a reminder of all the money they blew on movies they rarely watch. They were never worth more than the price of rental when they bought them.

(On a tangent).

Are recently manufactured laserdisc players available?

That is, manufactured after 2010 or 2011.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/0...sc-player.html

I hope it works out for you. Every once in a while I try to figure out what worthless thing today will be desired by collectors in the future. The modern equivalent of oil cans.

People are listening to LP records again. Maybe someone wants to buy my collection. Their value went down to 50 cents each in the 1980s, and stayed there for decades.

If I was younger, I could have been into the "buying low selling high" of collectables in this manner.

These days, I don't bother anymore. I end up giving away most of my old stuff to nearby friends and/or relatives, or donate stuff (that nobody else wants) to a nearby goodwill or salvation army thrift store.

My time is more valuable to me now, than when I was younger.

One aspect of physical media is the collecting of the package. We have epople on here who buy several versions of the same movie to get different covers. i personally think its insane but it is their money.

My uncle would frequently buy CD box sets of music he already had but he liked the packaging.

There is far less of an emotional connection to the purchase of a digital copy. As a salesman, we always preach to get the product in their hands. The tactile feel will always help sell.

At this point in time my only interest in a digital copy is for a tablet because it can't play DVD's

I'd like to know where I can buy BDs for $2.

Estate or garage sales. When we cleaned out mom's house I was surprised at how hard it was to get rid of media. We were at $2 on day one and $1 on day two and it just wouldn't sell. The titles were well known stuff. CD's and books sold, but we were practically giving the stuff away and people would try to bargain down from the $1 price tag

Occasionally $1 (or $2/$3) blurays show up in dollar stores.

Though most of the titles is stuff that isn't particularly attractive. For example, some blurays from bottom feeder movie companies like Mill Creek, Echo Bridge, The Asylum, etc ...

I have old records I bought brand new in the mid-1980s for about $5-$6 at the record store. Here in 2015, there are probably a few of them I could sell for $5-$6.

I guess that's progress when they were considered to be birdcage-liner for about 20 years, but hardly an investment.

Since the mid-1980s many things such as sports cards and comics became pre-packaged as future "collectibles" and of course the irony is that everyone became a collector who bought two of everything, keeping one sealed, thus making them worthless because mint copies became a dime-a-dozen.

The DVDs in today's market that are worth the most money are titles you would least expect. It's not the "collector edition", "limited edition", "platinum edition", steelbooks or digi-paks but the seemingly bad, forgettable titles.

Titles like Shag:The Movie, Milk Money and Folks! (horrible Tom Selleck movie) routinely sell for $35-$50. They're titles most people go "huh?" when I list them but I guess the demand is there.

The bottom line for me is that right now I am buying lots of DVDs as well because I like having a physical copy and good condition examples with the nice packaging will soon disappear.