JeffTheAlpaca

Maybe give up hope of Blu-rays and DVDs becoming like vinyl in the future and people buying more of them to relive their youth and own something that has better picture quality than streaming?

Coral

Vinyl gives the feeling of interacting with the format more. It's a more intimate process that gives it a nostalgic and antiquated feel. Plus it has the benefit of large artwork and liner notes.
BDs/DVDs are just putting it in the player and using the remote - not much more involved than streaming it. Plus the quality difference is hardly noticeable to most people... whereas vinyl has a warmer and different sound than anything digital (although I think hi-rez digital sounds better than vinyl).

Josh-da-man

One thing that we have to consider is when looking at DVD vs Blu-ray sales is that there are more DVD players out there than Blu-ray players. And every Blu-ray player is also a DVD player. So that format automatically has more penetration.

And they still make DVD-only players, and they're dirt cheap now.

Most people never upgraded to Blu-ray from DVD.

Why would The Wizard of Oz only sell 4% on Blu-ray for that week? Was it part of some Easter promotion, where stores had it on sale or prominently displayed that week? And if it is an "Easter tradition," that means it will probably skew older, and more likely to be people who only have a DVD player and not a Blu-ray or 4K.

And, Alan, you are a rather unique individual. Definitely an outlier. Very, very few people out there share your obsessions, interests, and biases. You are in no way representative of the typical consumer. The sales charts are not going to represent the patterns you want them to.

BobO'Link

Don't forget DVD players built into vehicles. I doubt many have built in streaming capabilities yet and I don't recall seeing any auto manufacturer offer a BR player. I own a couple of portable DVD players just for occasional car trips with the younger grandkids (aka those without a cell phone) and for them to use in the "toy room."

orangerunner

Since all speakers are analog by design, the listener is ultimately hearing analog sound waves regardless of the input source. I still think the act of popping a disc out of a case, opening the tray, inserting the disc and navigating the menu does make the act of watching a movie more appealing than streaming.

I find as I get older the things that are packaged-up with easy convenience have little resonance in your memory. Ten years from now I will bet that no one will reminisce with warm, fuzzy emotions about selecting Top Gun Maverick on their streaming service. I still recall with great clarity of riding my bike back and forth to the local video store in 1987 trying desperately to snag one-of-three VHS copies available of Top Gun at the local Box Office Video store. It took a lot of sweat and persistence but if you wanted the movie, that's what you had to endure.

rocket1312

I have a blu-ray player in my Odyssey. There's no streaming apps built in, but there's an HDMI input that would make streaming in the car pretty easy.

Gizmo

But we still fucking love him and his stacks of CED Video Disks that he'll never watch again.

g

I remember Vinyl was heading to the garbage for most people when CD's were in the prime. Vinyl came back to be more popular..

milo bloom

Many new vehicles also have an internet data connection which means you can connect your tablet to the car's wifi and watch things that way.

Adam Tyner

Coral

That's because you're old as fuck (like me). Those are memories we have and look back fondly on, but the youngsters today will have something different that'll give them the warm and fuzzies. My parents looked back fondly on things that we never got to experience. That's just how it works. Not being able to experience rushing to get a VHS movie rental or putting a disc into a player really isn't much of a loss, really.

Coral

Yowza. Is that a new record low for total disc revenue as well as DVD and BD individually?

Alan Smithee

I’ve seen a record low amount of them in stores lately.

Coral

The stores simply responding to plummeting demand.

milo bloom

Demand is one thing, but a lot of DVD sales in the past were likely impulse buys and I never see them by the registers or front of the store anymore in places like Target or Meijer. It's a snake eating itself: there's fewer people buying discs but the ones that still do have less to choose from and are resorting to online.

slop101

Yeah, it's hard to say which ones come first - lack of demand, or lack of supply.
I'm sure it's a bit of both, but supply is curtailed to equal dwindling demand. I'm sure there would be a small uptick in sales if more items were on the shelves, but it's not worth the expense of having said items on the shelves.

Josh-da-man

Y'all remember twenty-five or thirty years ago when over half of Best Buy's floorspace was devoted to CDs?

Same thing is happening now to DVDs.

Alan Smithee

We didn’t get Best Buy on the west coast until 1999. I used to go to the local ones a lot (one I went to the day it opened) and stopped at any I found out of the area, but I hardly bother with them now. Wouldn’t miss them if they went under. They can’t even be bothered to have any projectors set up to see how they work, they just have them lying out on shelves expecting you to just buy them.

Coral

I'd say it's 95% lack of demand and only 5% lack of supply. One reason why that's the case - people still have the ability to buy movies online and choose not too.
In this day and age, online sales are huge. And with movies, there's no need to have to see it in person before buying (unlike clothes for many people - and even then, many take a gamble there too).

Alan Smithee

I always liked to examine the covers to make sure there was no small print about alterations to the movie- remember going to Target to buy Wayne's World on VHS on street date and seeing "Some music has been changed for this videocassette", and throwing it back on the shelf in disgust. I've been burned a few times getting things in the mail since I didn't get to read the whole cover beforehand.

Coral

Yeah, I think you'd be in the very extreme minority there. You'd have enough room in your apartment to host a party for them.

IBJoel

I gotta say: When editing reviews on this very site, the A/V and bonus features were the most boring parts to read (and write, on the few occasions I did so).

Most modern cinephiles don't really give a shit about physical media specifically, even if they do want to keep the original cuts in circulation. 1. The hipsters in New York and LA going to see stuff in theaters in order to join "the discourse" right away. 2. If they even have a Blu-ray player, it's only going to be the stuff they really love that they purchase.

The industry wannabes don't care. If they're serious filmmakers, it's cheaper to distribute their work online. If they're trying to get into the studio system, that business model has shifted to streaming and becoming content mills. Of the podcasters I listen to, they really aren't as big on the physical stuff either. And these are people who are professional critics, successful actors, film programmers, went to film school, et cetera. The minutiae of the curtains being closed correctly or having a little better resolution isn't really going matter to anyone but the snobbiest of nitpickers. I saw The Thing as a Fathom event last year and the screen had a mark in the middle of it. Quite noticeable when the first act extensively features bright white backgrounds. But hey! I was watching The Thing in a movie theater! After the scenes got a little darker and I had a few swigs of the bourbon I snuck in (can't let MacReady drink alone), I was vibing with it.

People have connection to the movie, not the medium it's on. While yes, that can sometimes enhance the initial experience (especially if you are very young and the movie is outside context for you, thus blowing your mind), how it's viewed is not going to matter for the vast majority of even hardcore film buffs. An obnoxious audience or an urgent work email is going to have a way bigger effect. Sometimes a "shittier" experience actually enhances the love. If you're a 10-year old in the 80s or 90s and Freddy Krueger comes on your crappy CRT at 11pm when you're supposed to be asleep and freaks you the fuck out, that's going to have a way bigger impact on you than watching a pristine VHS on the good TV with your dad in the middle of the day.

Adam Tyner

Coral

orangerunner

Why does someone spend 2 million dollars on a Tom Brady rookie card when you can acquire an immaculate high-res jpeg identical image for free with a quick Google search? Aside from the irrational investment aspect, some people value the connection to a physical, tangible item.

I think of the movie-related items I used to buy back in the 80s when the VHS tapes were too expensive to own; I would buy the tie-in novel, the movie poster, the press kit, the soundtrack album, clip-out the newspaper ads and reviews etc. That was a way for fans to connect to something they saw as a hobby.

As for the 99% majority, they really don't care. Most people stream movies with same regard as all of us did before the VCR was invented - just a fleeting form of entertainment transmitted through the airwaves to help pass the time.