Jay G.

Not everyone has a Blu-ray player for every TV/monitor that they own. Sometimes people may want to watch a movie in their bedroom, or say in their car's built-in entertainment system which is only DVD and SD screens.

Other people have mentioned the option of loaning out to people who don't own a BD player. In this case, it's possibly even better than loaning then the BD, since you'll still have the BD to watch, and you personally wouldn't care if they lost the DVD.

The main reason would be portability. It's easier to load a tablet/smartphone with several DCs of movies than carry around a separate portable DVD player, or the even rarer portable BD player.

If you only watch your BDs at home on your biggest screen in HD, then no, these other viewing options aren't going to appeal to you. But they add value to many people, and as long as they're not adding to the cost of the product, I don't see the harm in including them.


Another consideration is that some smaller distributors have used the combo BD/DVD releases as their sole release of a film. This makes management easier for them, as they don't have to handle separate DVD and BD releases, and also increases their profit margin a bit as they're no longer selling a cheaper DVD-only version.

Adam Tyner

I actually wish it were the other way around. There's so much stuff -- especially on the television front -- week in and week out that isn't getting a high-def home video release. I'd love to see those DVDs come with a Blu-ray disc rather than just 100% being DVD only.

Combo packs hold zero appeal to me, personally, but as long as I'm not being charged a premium, I don't care.

Mondo Kane

This.

I also love taking screenshots, making gifs and ripping scenes from my movie collection (There's no way I'm re-buying a new PC just so it can read BDs)

Solid Snake

... You can just buy a BD drive. 4 years ago they were expensive...ish. How much are they now?

Shannon Nutt

You can get a decent drive or a decent player for somewhere in the $50 range these days...so the ol' "I can't afford multiple players" excuse really doesn't hold water any more.

hilts

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World became a packaging PITA with 3 useless DVD's included. I would have much rather Criterion had just split it to an either/or with DVD and Blu-Ray and had a normal keepcase.

To answer the question: no, it isn't great.

manicsounds

People have probably seen this Fox Digital Copy commercial:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qq8C9NcPARQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Alright first with the tweenager, watching a movie on your laptop at the library? Read a book! What a waste!
Then, watching a movie at the park? Why not experience the nature around you a bit instead?

And the kid, watching a movie on an ipod at the beach? For real? Get in the water, what are you doing watching a movie for 2 hours on the beach?
And the hanging out with friends part? If you are watching a movie on your ipod alone while your friends are doing something else at the same table, I'm sure you are not much of a friend to them...

As for watching a digital copy while traveling, car, train, bus, plane, etc, then maybe I understand. But I wouldn't want to watch a full movie. A 30-minute TV show (which many sets don't come with digital copies) is something I'd rather watch. Also, bonus features and commentary. Why not make them digital copies? I'd rather watch the full movie in my home theater, but do I need to hear the commentary or watch a featurette there too? If I could take that stuff on a portable device instead, bring it on.

Drafthouse is the only company I know that has digital copies for bonus materials. Why not others?

BuckNaked2k

How about that massive, bloated Zatoichi box? What did that thing come with, 20 worthless DVDs I'll never watch?

The studios can stuff their DVDs in a sock.

Solid Snake

I love the Zatoichi set but holy crap is that too many discs ill never use. It's like 7 BDs, no? I can't remember. I'm actually very amazed that they out that much tech work into those films. That's a lot of films to work on.

hanshotfirst1138

Or in the basement, where's it's cooler and you only have and SDTV .

From the studio's perspective though, doesn't that mean that you'll sell the DVD and they'll have one less customer?

Especially when you can get to them via wifi. I have to admit, I was a digital skeptic, but the sheer convenience of it is pretty hard to deny.

I got their UV rerelease of Jackson's King Kong, the UV sheet is literally withing a second shrink wrap around the box, I'm assuming it was excess stock with an added incentive. The number of skus is pretty insane sometimes too, but I'd imagine that UV releases must not be that pricey for them, though they seem to coincide with anniversaries of movies and such. Fox is obviously doing it to coincide with the release of the new X-Men films. Kind of wish Disney would with the old Marvel flicks. Kind of wish the prices on the damn things would finally go down too. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they're using some old excess stock and just adding the code sometimes. I wish you could load up a UV version of something you own the way you can a CD into iTunes, but obviously that's apples and oranges and complete financial suicide for the manufacturers, so it's not possible.

Jay G.

There's some concern about that, which is probably why HD-DVD initially went with those double-sided DVD/HD-DVD discs; since they were on the same disc you couldn't sell one and keep the other. I think Blu-ray likely couldn't get the DVD group to agree to a Blu-ray/DVD combo disc, and they were cumbersome anyway.

In any case, I think the incidence of people selling off the DVD copy is likely pretty small. The studios have obviously decided that selling combo releases has more benefits than disadvantages.

Josh Z

Dual-sided Blu-ray/DVD combo discs are available. The Bourne Trilogy was released that way, IIRC.

Obi-Wanma

Yeah, I have a few flippers. Don't like them, but they exist.

Jay G.

OK, yeah they exist, but are rare. So for whatever reason, studios have gone with separate discs over flippers.

Was Disney one of the first to include a DVD in their BD releases? I think the thinking was that the DVD was safe to pass off to the kids to watch in their rooms, since if they damaged it they wouldn't have killed the BD copy as well.

Alan Smithee

Sleeping Beauty was the first BR title to come with a standard DVD. Since it had already been released on DVD prior to that, I didn't really see the point of it.

Were there ever any 1-sided hybrid DVD/BD discs? The earlier players actually had a menu setting for these in order to tell it which layer to play, but I never saw any actual discs like that and my newer player does not have that menu option. There were a few HD-DVDs done that way (only ones released in the US were the "Freedom" anime series.) Play them in a regular DVD player (or BD player) and they play like a DVD, on an HD-DVD player there's an option in the setup menu to play the HD-DVD or regular DVD layer.

mig0

DVD copies make it useful to share with people who lack blu-ray. DC makes itt easy to watch on your portable player when out and about without buying a portable blu-ray player (that seems to be hard to find) or dealing with ripping it yourself.

Solid Snake

Has been released that way. Though not originally... Thankfully.

jjcool

I would take a DVD copy over being forced to pay for a useless 3D disc any day of the week.

Solid Snake

But don't you have the option of getting it with or without the 3D disc? Most current releases don't have the non DVD combo option. Very rare now to see a BD/DVD combo AND just BD release of the same film.

Alan Smithee

Was just gonna say "Wouldn't it be great if all 3D releases were released as single-inventory with no 2D-only versions?" Lionsgate can do it and they don't charge extra for them, don't know why the other studios are so greedy. Getting more 3D discs in people's homes would ultimately sell more 3D equipment. As I've said numerous times, I'd rather have a laserdisc than a standard DVD copy!

manicsounds

But my question is:
When would you rather watch a digital copy version of a movie if you have a blu-ray?

If I bought a movie, I would rather watch it sitting in my living room on my big screen and surround sound system, rather than sitting outside somewhere with a portable device in my hands for 2 hours... Just doesn't make sense that way.

As I said, The ONLY times it would make sense is if there were digital copies of special features: MP3s of audio commentaries, digital copies of making-ofs and featurettes, scroll-through still galleries and storyboards, etc. But studios don't make those available.

fumanstan

At this point I don't think cost is a factor in 3D adoption, and more so just general lack of interest in it both in theaters and for home.

For me, there have been cases either traveling on a plane or a long car ride (with others) where watching a digital copy on a tablet was a nice diversion. I can hook up my Kindle Fire to a TV as well, so it makes it handy if i'm at a hotel or something which we did in Hawaii a couple months ago. My fiancee will sometimes watch something on a tablet while just lying in bed too. It's not a must have, but it's not entirely useless depending on the person.

E Unit

I just figured out a great way to make use of my digital copies (since I don't travel a lot and when I do, I don't watch movies), but I just entered close to 100 UV codes, and pulled up Flixster using Google Chrome. Now my parents and in-laws can get a Chrome and log in and watch all of my digital copies. It's also a great way to ensure I don't have to lend out my blu's and worry about getting them back.

inri222

Watching Ben-Hur (1959) on a smart phone is the shit yo!

Solid Snake

Digital copies are literally copied onto something. UV allows you access whatever movies you out the code into pretty much anywhere as long as you have the Internet.

Personally I prefer the UV.