BuckNaked2k

BuckNaked2k

^Black Friday Numbers^

BuckNaked2k

BuckNaked2k

rjh_54

The only people I know who have Blu-Ray players are those that are Playstation.

In fact, today a 20something year old coworker was talking about picking up some new release movie today. They actually asked me what Blu-Ray is. I couldn't wrap my head around it.

Alan Smithee

Where do you work?

I was just remembering that VHS was finally killed off when HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were introduced. Now that we have 4K, they should at least start phasing out regular DVD for anything but stuff produced on standard-def video. At least just make it available as a set with the Blu-Ray as most titles do anyways without costing much more. You can't even buy a quality DVD-only player anymore, are those who are sticking with it buying those and then buying a new one every year when they die?

jjcool

Not sure where you are shopping, but all the big box stores still sell dvd players. Try finding a portable blue ray player. That's the trick.
DVD wont get killed off until the majority of people stop buying it.

orangerunner

I have a feeling standard Blu-ray will be discontinued before DVD does simply because Blu-ray is now the middle format - not good enough for the high-end and too good for the low-end.

Since Sony has a majority control of Blu-ray, they may use the gradual discontinuation of Blu-ray to help move the 4K format forward. It's not like DVD where most of the major manufacturers have an equal share of the format.

I look at a lot of drug store and grocery store dump bins and they are all still DVD, no Blu-ray to be found.

Inhumans99

Yeah...DVDs are all over the place in the Bay Area, so unless Alan lives in an alternate universe Bay Area you can probably walk into a CVS/Walgreens right now and pick up a DVD player (or portable DVD player) along with your cold/flu syrup.

As noted, portable blu rays never really took off (heck, they never really even got off the ground)...but I suspect that to this day portable dvds are still used a lot because you can play DVDs and music CDs.

robin2099

Said it before I'll say it again. The big problem was that DVD-Blu and Blu-4K were not big enough leaps to get people to want to abandon the DVD format. VHS-DVD was a huge revolution whereas its hard to get people to really notice the difference between DVD and Blu. Plus so many people have invested in their DVD library that they don't want to throw it away and start over again.

Why So Blu?

I still know folks that don't even have a BD player nor do they want one, because DVD is good enough.

Coral

The studios aren't going to phase out DVD since it's not going to force anyone to move to BD or UHD-BD - so they don't want to lose that revenue. They'll keep it going as long as people keep buying.

And DVD/BD combo-packs aren't going to be a default either - it would just wind up costing them more money and it won't push people to upgrade formats. Just like how hybrid SACDs did nothing to grow the format.

I have sealed Criterions BDs I'm trying to sell at half the price stores are selling them, and I've got no bites in 3 weeks. And they weren't obscure titles either. I never had problems selling my Criterion DVDs a few years ago - and they were used/opened.

The world continues to move away from physical formats.

E Unit

Today I was at Fry’s blowing time and checking out their Christmas stuff. I stopped by the TV section (as I usually do), and the area had a decent amount of people. A Fry’s salesman was talking to three people about OLED I’m front of a Sony. The older guy said he didn’t believe the TV’s ever perform well at home because he got an HDTV and “it didn’t look as bright as it does in stores.” He continued to say, “I played several movies and none of them looked like they do here.” Then I waited, and thankfully the sales person asked, “were you watching a DVD?” He even went so far to ask if he streamed and if the streaming device was set for hi def.

So while we maybe moving away from physical formats, they will never disappear. And there’s also a very steep hill in getting a decent percentage of people to understand how hi def formats work. And all it takes is one sales person to tell a customer they need to watch stuff in high definition. And I highly believe it’s not the millennials running the show. Plenty of other demographics still enjoy watching movies and television in high definition.

BuckNaked2k

Gizmo

Are you looking at the same graphs we all are? DVDs are king. Newer BD releases even include a DVD and sales are counted towards a Blu-ray sale and DVD is still king.

There is no way studios will sunset DVDs when the majority of people are happy with them.

rjh_54

Obviously streaming has a huge impact on these declining numbers, but does anyone else think brick and mortar stores have to do with it too? Stores like Best Buy and Target are constantly downsizing so much that it makes shopping for physical media hard. Even during the holidays when they put those half-assed cardboard displays up (to make room for more DVDs / Blu's they could have already had if they hadn't downsized just months prior) there seems to be no sense of organization.

JimRochester

My father in law announced he is finally ready to give up the VHS, so if the kids wanted to start getting him DVD's to replace them for Christmas and birthdays that was ok. Up until then he said he loved the vhs and saw no reason to waste money on something he already owned.

dvd-4-life

I have VHS tapes that are nearly 40 years old and still look good as new while I have countless DVDs (Highlander tv series early years basically unwatchable) and DVD-R's that go bad over a short period of time. VHS is and was good for archiving.

JimRochester

At Christmas I was speaking with my uncle and mentioned that I was starting to upgrade my HD DVD's to 4K when available or BR. He seemed surprised that I still have an HD DVD player and movies. I had to remind him that he still had his BETA and VHS players hooked up until just a short time ago. When he got his 4K last winter he decided it was finally time to let them go.

dvd-4-life

My dad finally got a DVR and he unhooked his VCR. I don't think he knows how to hook it back up either that or he is afraid that the DVR won't work with a working VCR hooked up to his HD TV.

orangerunner

I went out to the Boxing Day sales (Canada's retail equivalent to Black Friday) and found that stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy had very little in the way physical media.

Real Canadian Superstore (Big-Box Grocer) in previous years had huge displays right at the front entrance. This year? Nothing. I asked the young clerk and he half-chuckled and said they didn't get any this year.

Alan Smithee

They won't have to throw them away, since Blu-Ray players will still play them!

I'd like to see the VHS vs. DVD sales figures in the last years VHS was out. I worked for Tower Records then and there were plenty of people still buying VHS, and they kept asking for new movies on VHS when they weren't available. But it was FAR past time for VHS to go when it finally did.

I haven't seen a GOOD DVD-only player in stores in years. If you want a good DVD player now, you have to get one that plays Blu-Rays also. True that there haven't been portable Blu-Ray players, I do see vehicles driving around playing video which is probably from DVD. I keep wanting to get one of those for my car and play Faces of Death for everyone on the road to see

orangerunner

This has always been the challenge for me when adopting a new format and the reason I don't care to move on to 4K. I don't want to find myself discontent with Blu-ray (or my DVD collection) just because 4K is now available.

I've been through VHS, CED, Laserdisc, DVD and now Blu-ray. I just want to be content with Blu-ray and get myself off the crazy train.

My set-up is a 40" TV in a smallish room where I sit about six feet from the screen. My TV is (arguably) the correct size for my space making DVDs look really good and Blu-ray really great.

Nothing against the 4K technology and the progress it has brought to the home experience but it's a "drug" I just don't care to get addicted to and dump more money into.

dvd-4-life

No one has sold me on 4K.

Plus there is nearly nothing concerning the music industry on 4K Blu-ray. I might gather it a look if they improve in this category.

morriscroy

Same here.

Even worse, I was immediately "unsold" on 4Kbluray when I first heard Sonopress/Arvato is a big player in manufacturing 4Kbluray discs. So far Warner and Universal are known to have used Sonopress to manufacture their 4Kbluray discs. (Perhaps other big studios too).

Apparently Sonopress is one of the worst bluray disc manufacturers. Several years ago, some Criterion and WellGo bluray titles manufactured at Sonopress went bad relatively quickly due to "bronzing". Very lousy quality control.