mattysemo247

I'm a little surprised Interstellar hasn't done better. Also, I haven't seen that many good sales going on so far this year, so that probably isn't helping either.

orangerunner

I guess in this day and age where everything is available, it is rather scary when the studios will have full control.

On the other hand, up until the late 1970s before home video, this is how it worked.

No one owned a copy of a movie. Movies played in theatres and were re-issued if the demand was there. Otherwise, you watched it on network TV. Missed it? Too bad, wait for the next time.

The studios had full control over their content up until this point.

They decided to put their product out there for mass consumption and have reaped the profits ever since.

Now they seem to want that control back but as the saying goes "That horse has already left the barn..."

dvdshonna

A "lot of people" will pay for convenience, but not enough to prevent VOD rentals dropping 6.7 percent (2014). Convenience is a bigger factor in healthy economies where people have a lot of disposable income.

I believe Netflix (streaming) is taking a big bite out of disc sales, but I believe it was Netflix (mail) and $1 Redbox rentals that crushed Blockbuster. In both cases I'm sure pricing is/was a big factor.

We are both overstating when we say "It's ALL about pricing" or "I don't believe pricing has anything to do with it".

I'm talking about Netflix Subscription vs Disc Sales, where I believe pricing is destroying disc sales. You're talking about ???? (I'm not sure), but I get that convenience is still a big factor.

milo bloom

Convenience is a major factor, as is the simple idea of minimalism.

My would love to have everything streaming - music, movies, books, everything. The majority of the CDs, DVDs and books in our place are mine. She tolerates my hobby, but pushes me to reduce the amount of "stuff" in our place. We're getting to where we buy seasons of shows on iTunes instead of buying the DVDs (if it's not already on Netflix). Make no mistake, she's no technophobe - she just spearhead this week's purchase of a 60" UltraHD TV. She likes her movies and games, but she wants it on Netflix and Steam.

I can't help but think there's a lot more like her out there. And also people who just got to a point of "I don't need any more DVDs". There's got to be people that got into it as a fad, but then realized they rarely watched their discs, but if something was on Netflix or even regular syndication, they would watch it there.

Alan Smithee

That's gotta be one of the most disturbing things I've read in a long time.

BuckNaked2k

I fully agree. More often than not, the extended / alternate cut is a clumsy mess that detracts from the film's impact. We've seen this time and time again with movies such as Amadeus, Dances with Wolves, Donnie Brasco, Payback, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

BobO'Link

I wholeheartedly agree. I was at my son's house a couple of Christmases ago. All he had was Netflix and Amazon Prime. I went looking for a "classic" (pre 1960) Christmas movie to watch and came up completely empty handed with Netflix. Amazon had a few but they were not Prime ("free") so nada there too. Had I been home I'd have simply gone to the shelves, pulled one, and put it in the player. The same held true for a few British series I had a hankering to view. I finally gave up and just watched a few new films. I got the distinct impression if it wasn't made/released in the past 10-15 years you were not going to find it on Netflix.

Coral

You think that's disturbing... I know someone who buys music from iTunes instead of ripping those same CDs that he already owns in his collection.

Adam Tyner

While I'm right there with you, seeing the way my friends and family interact with Netflix (and other streaming services) makes it seem like we're in the minority. When I'm interested in watching a movie or TV show, I know what I'm going to watch before I ever even sit down. I'm looking for something very specific. With a lot of the people I know, they approach it more as "let's watch something". They're content to choose from whatever's available, even when it's something like VOD and they're paying per movie.

rw2516

I think it's true though. Going back to the heyday of dvd. If someone was in Wal-Mart for some other reason and saw a pallet display for a new dvd release, there was a mindset of just grabbing a copy for something to watch, no different than renting a copy for something to do that night. Far easier to just pay $15 here and now, than making an extra stop to rent it for $4-5 and then have to return it. After it had been watched the copy they bought had no more lasting value to them than the paperback book you grabbed in the airport to read on the plane. It no longer means anything to them but can't just chuck it in the trash. Garage sale fodder after spring cleaning.

rw2516

That is pretty bad. I can see it though with people moving more and more toward smaller, portable devices. I wouldn't do it unless I had a desktop or external disc drive to plug into laptop. I wouldn't undertake it with crappy disc drive that come in laptops.

slop101

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

Even as far back as the '80s and '90s, I was never a "channel flipper", but a lot people I knew (friends/family) were. I would always make time to watch something specific, while most other people would just have "TV time" and plop down in front of the TV and keep flipping until they landed on something or fell asleep. And NetFlix is pretty much the new version of channel flipping for people that don't necessarily watch something specific. Add to that all the shows they can binge, and whatever "lack of choice" NetFilix has goes out the window.

big e

That’s what I’ve been saying; people were buying DVDs just to buy them and didn’t care about owning them.

Disturbing? That’s just nonsensical.

dvdshonna

I don't compare netflix to DVD/Blu-Ray collections. I compare netflix to cable TV.

I currently have neither, but looking at the listings, I'm more impressed with netflix at $8/mo than cable tv at $70. That's ignoring the cable package deals with internet/tv/movies/phone/vod, where it's more like an apple/oranges comparison.

Comparing $8 netflix to $5/$20 discs, netflix wins hands down. $8 doesn't buy a lot of discs (even at garage sales).

I have little to no interest in the convenience factor of streaming. I get plenty of convenience with my rabbit ears for free. I actually prefer the non-convenience of buying big lots of used DVDs for 50¢ to $1 and pretty much enjoy not subjecting myself to the latest marketing schemes and pricing from the cable companies and movie studios.

orangerunner

I think you're right, many people bought DVDs almost with the same mindset as buying a newspaper.

Or perhaps it's like comparing it to a movie theatre. You pay your $12, watch the movie, enjoy it (hopefully) and then walk out of the theatre with nothing physical to show for it.

The justification could be that buying a DVD for $15 and having three or four people watch it is a much better value as opposed to going out to movie theatre where each person has to pay $12 plus another $8 each for food.

After watching it, the disc itself is considered worthless and tossed into the garage sale pile.

That's never been my outlook but I'm sure many people see it that way.

morriscroy

For the entire 2000's decade, this was largely my mentality towards dvd/bluray discs. But on the other hand, I never thought of music cds and laserdiscs in this manner. (Don't ask me why).

I never had any garage sales. I just chucked all my dvds into the corner (or into storage), and largely forgot about them.

I'm not entirely sure how or why my mentality did a complete 180, sometime in 2011.

dvdshonna

I'm glad people are getting into this "convenience" thing.

On average, I've been picking up about 100 DVDs per month at $1.00 each (picking and choosing titles). It's been so good, I started passing on collections and bulk lots. Too many titles I'm not into.

I do understand people unloading this stuff. Good titles, but it's all been around for years (i.e. Beetlejuice, Last Samurai, Twilight, Missouri Breaks, American Beauty, Dark Shadows, Donnie Darko, Last Of The Mohicans, Heaven's Gate, etc.) Titles I recently picked up at the local pawn shops.

At a buck, I can't resist. Netflix or not, I want atleast one copy of every movie I've ever enjoyed.

orangerunner

It is a really great time to be a movie buyer. Throughout the 2000s, I would see all of these great titles coming out but with a slim budget I couldn't buy everything at $5-$25 a piece.

I think by 2009 I had about 80-90 DVDs. I've probably picked up 900 DVDs in the last six years for $.25-$3 each.

kgrogers1979

Me too.

The movie selections for Netflix and Hulu are rather poor, but the TV selections are great. I see Netflix and Hulu as a replacement for cable TV, and not as a replacement for owning movies.

I rent and buy DVDs and Blu-rays for movies, but I use Netflix and Hulu as well, but I only use them for TV. Netflix and Hulu are very great for binge watching an entire TV season.

My local public library has DVDs and Blu-rays, and they get new release movies (which Netflix and Hulu streaming do not have new release movies). I mostly borrow movies from the library. I only buy the DVD/BD of movies that I truly love and will rewatch more than once. So I end up only buying maybe 5 DVD/BD per year because honestly there's not that many movies that I truly love so much that I will rewatch.

dvdshonna

That's a better way of putting it (the point I was trying to make). At $8/mo, the netflix TV lineup blows $50-$70 cable TV out of the water.

At $8/mo the netflix movie selection is still a bargain compared to $10/$25 discs, but isn't going to replace large movie collections.

Too early to predict. 5 to 10 years from now, the studios may be dumping off (licensing) all their catalog titles to netflix or similar services (like the current netflix/disney deal).

Assuming a scenario, where 90% of all catalog titles are availave on netflix, cable VOD, etc. ...netflix will be paying more and charging more ($15/mo, $30/mo, ????).

Another possible scenario ....Cable providers dominate VOD, knock netflix out, and charge $100+/mo for the package (Internet/VOD/New Release VOD $5.99/Phone).

And of course, the scenario where studio profits/revenues decline to the point where they wish they never started down this path.

Edit: One certainty ....If 80% to 90% of all catalog titles are availabe through netflix (or multiple services) it will cost quite a bit more than $8/mo. So I doubt anyone regrets hanging on to their movie collection, or building up a big collection at $1 per movie.

dvdshonna

"It's All About The Price". More like "It's All About The Greed". Some numbers showing how greed can f#ck up "the streaming future".

"The recorded music business has had a pretty lousy 15 years, shrinking by half from its peak of $40 billion in 1999. And the past year hasn’t exactly been much better, according to the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Revenues slipped another 4% overall and even digital downloads, dominated by Apple’s iTunes, fell by 2%. That’s the first time they’ve ever seen a decline. There is some good news, though, in that paid streaming services crossed the $1 billion threshold, with an estimated 28 million customers worldwide. The IFPI says that’s up from just 20 million a year before and a lot of industry people believe that revenue from streaming could eventually lead the music business to new heights."

Complete Story:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogo...-long-decline/

Sub-Zero

May 2:

Sub-Zero

May 9:

hanshotfirst1138

I wonder what bumped the sales? American Sniper?

Adam Tyner

American Sniper came out yesterday.

For the week ending 5/9, the biggest releases were Fifty Shades of Gray and Selma.