Packaging in general has slipped a lot from the DVD days- and even though you'll get a chorus of "I watch the movies, not the covers" when bringing this up, I think it has contributed to declining sales. When you open a disc and get an Eco-Case, no inserts, and a plain disc label, you just feel like the studio is saying "We don't care about these anymore." On the other hand, I noticed mostly negative reactions to the forthcoming Die Hard set that comes in a replica of the building. I thought it looked kinda cool but I've already got the last Blu-Ray set and don't like those movies enough to buy it again.

Are you saying $60-70 for a player is still too much? Anything that cheap, and certainly anything cheaper than that, is going to be cheaply made and not meant to last a long time with a throw-away attitude that you're supposed to throw it out and buy a new one if it stops working rather than fix it (ultimately spending more for several players than you would if you bought a moderately-priced one from the start that lasted a decade or more). The first Blu-Ray players were in the $700 range so I think they've dropped to an affordable level, with $60 players out there I don't see why anyone would still be sticking with DVD right now just for a cost reason. But of course I still remember when VCRs were $1000 and it was a miracle when those dropped below $500.

The first family I personally knew with a Laserdisc player and collection were...Asian.

This thread went in some wild and unpredictable directions. Blu-ray packaging has gotten incredibly cheap. Distributors cut whatever they can get away with on packages these days.

Sony offers a mid-high end player. I bought the $250 Sony in 2013. It went bad and had been discontinued while still under warranty so the free replacement was the $175 Sony. Only difference was the $250 0ne had a full, metal chassis.
Sony has an even higher end one in Europe. Was suppose to be available in U.S. for $300+ but don't think it ever did. This one plays FLAC and WAV(I think) files through USB.

I have an $80 Sony Blu-ray player. The only difference between it and "higher end" models is that the higher end models come with wi-fi, 3D, and/or 4k.

I don't need wi-fi. I have my player hooked up with ethernet, and I am fine with that.

I don't need 3D or 4k either since I don't have a 3D or 4k TV and don't plan on buying a new TV anytime soon.

Yes, the higher end Sonys have extra stuff that most people don't need. Other stuff they have are front panel displays, dual processors for faster loading times, multiple HDMI out and some have composite out jacks.
Sony claims the higher end ones have better chips for processing audio and video, don't know if true or makes a difference if it is.

(More generally).

Excluding the bulk purchasers (ie. both former and present such as Blockbuster, Redbox, Netflix, etc ...), I wonder how much of the movie studio's dvd/bluray sales were highly dependent on the hardcore ocd compulsive collector/completionist types.

I remember back in the late-1990's and early-2000's, the acquaintances and friends who were buying the most dvds, were typically guys who had large collections of other stuff (ie. such as comic books, novel series, memorabilia, laserdiscs, music cds, vinyl records, video game consoles, etc ...).


Of these same acquaintances and friends, these days hardly any of them collect dvds (or bluray) anymore. (Only one friend still buys dvds/blurays). They largely moved on to collecting something else, unrelated to optical discs.

The last time I spoke in person with any of these individuals, most mentioned they were "burned out" on dvd back in the mid-late 2000's. Quite a few never moved on to bluray, after they burned out on dvd.

Translation: I will spend all day on a forum complaining and arguing over stupid crap that doesn't matter, but the line will be drawn where I say it's drawn.

^^

The drop in sales percentage is compared against itself and not against DVD.

Generally speaking Blu-ray sales in units are about 22 percent of DVD overall.

Of those that get released on both formats, Blu-ray has on average about a 40 percent share (at least of those in the top 20).

Well that only helps Blu-ray, as DVD gets no sales credit for its product being included in a Blu-ray SKU. The same goes for digital codes being included. Blu-ray gets 100 percent of the sales credit.

Agree about HD DVD. Besides, there have always been format wars and a lot of good comes from them too. Competition during the formative years ultimately makes the victor stronger.

See, it's true but I guess it all depends where you live. Here in the SF bay area there was quite a few independent HT stores and they carried tons of LD. When you walk in I swear it was all freakin' Asians. Sure, they were there for the karaoke discs but they would buy all kinds of HT gear, too. Pioneer was on top of their game back then with the Elite line. Now, they are just as average as every other manufacturer. I only really started buying LDs when the letterboxed, pro logic and later Dolby Digital contents were released but before that it was still mostly 4x3 material and stereo.

Some friends of mine had VideoDisc players in the early 1980's and several titles like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. I didn't jump in until the mid-1990's when I started renting LD's (and a player) from a local shop in L.A. I would binge-watch a bunch of titles with my friends and tape them onto VHS, including all the extras AND commentaries. That got tiring. Eventually, I got my own player and started buying the discs. Probably rented over 150 films and I still own about 100 titles and two machines.

No way physical media goes away forever. There will always be niche companies willing to press 500-1000 copies mostly because they are fans themselves and want to see their favorite films restored and presented properly.

That's true. But there also has to be content owners (mostly from major studios) willing to license them out to these niche labels. One can't always take that for granted.

That is our last bastion of hope! The people who actually care enough to release the catalog films properly will continue to release the films on physical media well into the future. In short runs. Via a direct-marketing model. It will be expensive to own these titles, but for the fans of physical media (and media permanence), it will be the only way.

Streaming is shitty and ephemeral, and the real fans know it and BD will eventually turn into a niche market, even more expensive than LD ever was.

We may have 20+ years left in the format after all.

You can have your personal opinions and experiences but this is just slinging shit to sling it.

The vast majority of streaming we do (Netflix/Hulu/iTunes) looks great and the convenience cannot be overstated.

And it's no more ephemeral than how broadcast TV originally was. It's not like the BBC wiping episodes of Doctor Who anymore.

Streaming is a real and growing concept. Personally I'm fine with it for most things. I'll still collect some of my favorites, but I don't need to own every single TV show I ever once saw an episode of and sorta liked. DVD over played that hand and now you can buy seasons of TV shows on DVD for pennies on the dollar in the used stores. Streaming is the future. Accept that but reward the boutique labels that continue to put out titles (like Criterion/Shout!/etc.).

Um, no. I'm sure many folks have experienced issues with the content received, and when compared to the output from BD, it is simply not the same. Same goes for the far more stable original airings of TV content vs. streaming the episodes after the fact. And that is juts video quality. If one cares about sound quality then things really go down hill or were never up to par in the first place.

It certainly can be simpler to stream, but people are not slinging it when they describe their reasons for avoiding streaming.

Why can't streaming and physical media co-exist? People act like it is either/or.

Personally, I do both. I stream Netflix/Hulu, and I buy BDs too. The thing is that I only buy the BD for titles that I absolutely love and will rewatch over and over. The truth is that 95% of the titles out there are one-and-done. You watch them once and then never again. For those titles, I am fine with streaming. It is no different than the old days of Blockbuster when you rented a title to watch once. I treat streaming as the rental of titles I will watch once, and I buy the BD of titles I love and know I will want to rewatch.

I think the general consumer would be quite happy to have them coexist. The issue is that studios clearly prefer streaming over physical and the fear is that physical will go away.

Just to be clear, there is streaming and there are digital purchases. Streaming is similar to rentals, so clearly the studios don't prefer that to physical. However they do prefer digital purchases over physical. Last year both digital purchases (EST or Digital HD) were up around 30 percent. Although streaming is the larger digital category, both are growing at roughly the same rate. But all the media focus is on streaming, and some people use "streaming" to mean both categories (sometimes even without knowing it, lol).

I agree. I think the dust has settled and the current state of the market will remain for years to come. There will be some attrition as older folks die off.
There are a lot of costs associated with producing a physical product that the studios feel it's not worthwhile, while streaming is virtually cost free.
Like streaming, licensing content is free money to the studios. All the burden of turning a buck is on the licensee.
Shout, Criterion, Twilight Time, Kino, Olive, etc. know their customer base and how to make licensing work to their advantage.
The only real problem which is already present is studios that are protective of their product and won't license. WB in particular. The entire WB, MGM, AA and RKO libraries.
It's hard to figure out when a studio like WB, who don't really do BD, decide to release one out of the blue.
Universal licenses all kinds of titles to Shout, yet after going a year without releasing anything themselves toss out JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN themselves. Go figure?

For those who prefer TV to films, I agree that streaming may provide a viable, convenient alternative. For those who've been fans of quality Blu-Ray film releases over the years, streaming just doesn't cut it. It has a long way to go. I won't even consider streaming until:

1. The content provided matches or exceeds current BD physical media quality, in terms of both bitrate (40 mbps video streams in 1080p) and extras.

2. It is provided DRM-free, or if not, in a form which can be saved and / or burned to disc into perpetuity, ie never "expire." My purchased Blu-rays don't expire and neither should the "digital downloads" and / or streams I would pay for.

I don't know much about digital media purchases, but can you download them to a hard drive or do you just stream it from a website? Even before you get into the whole issue of DRM and expirations and such, you would need an enormous amount of hard drive space to store even a decent size movie collection. A Blu-ray is 50 GB, correct? So you could only fit 20 movies on a 1 TB hard drive. People who like to own hundreds of movies would need a massive hard drive...

I know somebody who streamed a movie from Amazon and burned it to disc. The dvd was 4x3 letterbox but Amazon was streaming it 16x9.
This person also streamed all the Hawaiian Eye and 77 Sunset Strip episodes(not available on disc) from Warner Archive and burned himself copies to disc.

It's not supposed to work that way though. You need gray-market software and some tech know how in order to re-encode and burn files like that. I've done it with itunes files, but I have no idea how to do it with Amazon.

My problem with digital media is that you are at the mercy of your internet provider as well as the media source. So, if Verizon (or Comcast or ...) decides to reduce your data transfer speed, then you are screwed (unless you want to pay more). Internet down? You're screwed. Source down? You're screwed.

Disc-based? Just pop it in and play ... No reliance on the factors that affect digital.

Also, monthly data caps.