Coral

This is the reason why:



They'll continue to offer them as long as people are willing to buy them over BDs.

Alan Smithee

What are these people watching them on? Thankfully I don't think I know a single person who buys DVDs over BDs. But when I worked for Tower Records there were some people who were still buying VHS tapes as long as they were still being made, and would probably still be buying them if they hadn't been discontinued.

Adam Tyner

I know where you can get some answers!

I have a co-worker on the other side of the country who buys BDs with her partner. (We were excitedly taking about some of the pre-Ghibli stuff that Discotek brought to Blu-ray, like Panda Go Panda.) Other than them, I genuinely don't know anyone in my not-the-Internet life who still routinely buys physical media for themselves. For most of my friends and family, the last movies they bought on disc have been gifts for me.

FWIW, the last DVD I bought for myself was The Compleat Al nearly three years ago. I was given the 25th anniversary MST3K collection on DVD as a birthday gift last year, and I'll probably get around to grabbing more MST3K / Cinematic Titanic DVD sets one of these days.

Gizmo

Blu-ray players play DVDs. And video game consoles. And DVD players which are still sold in stores.

Coral

And desktop and notebook computers (those that still come with optical drives). BD-ROM/RW drives barely registered a blip on computers.

I know more people who play/buy DVDs over BDs. However, that's really only consisting of like 5 people for DVDs and 1 for BDs... everyone else I know streams.

davidh777

Because I'm nosy and a nerd, I always check out people's movie collections when I visit their homes. I rarely see BDs.

PhantomStranger

I'm not sure what consultant told them to do it that way. It's genuinely difficult finding specific movies at Best Buy now since they combined everything and broken them up into poorly thought out genres.

morriscroy

They should hire Alan Smithee to be their "conslutant" !

Mondo Kane

I've yet to upgrade any of my Classic Universal Monster movies to Blu, but I'll do so when I go to BB next week for their Alex Ross steelbooks...If they'll have them

Hazel Motes

A former co worker of mine who I keep in touch with on social media is a bigtime cinephile. About once a month he'll post a stack of movies he recently purchased. He's all in on dvd, man. Of the hundred or so stacks of movies he's posted pictures of, I've yet to see a Blu Ray. The only time I ever saw a Blu Ray was when his daughter bought them for him on his birthday. So he does know they exist. I don't think I'll ever ask him what the deal is though.

Strapped4Cash

Every week more than 50% of the releases are DVD-only. How can people buy BD's that don't exist?

Next week Fox is releasing Empire Season 3 on DVD-only. They started S1 on Blu (twice actually), but based on sales discontinued the format.

Not enough people buy the Blu's, the studios go to DVD's-only. This Is Us S1 comes out too, but only on DVD. Oftentimes there is no "over", there's DVD or nothing.

Trevor

This. People who are BD-only are cutting themselves off from a lot of great material.

Adam Tyner

Yeah. I have to fill in the gaps with streaming, VOD, premium cable apps, etc. more than I would've guessed. (As it turns out, I'm more of an HD snob than a Blu-ray snob. )

Josh-da-man

But it's frustrating to buy DVDs when the material is in HD. I'd liked to have bought the first season of Scream: The Series but it was DVD only. And the second season didn't even get a DVD. I'm hoping that someone like Scream Factory can get the rights up release it on blu-ray.

Older stuff, like ST-DS9, I'll get on DVD because it's standard def, but when I know things like Scream or Scream Queens were shot in HD, i just can't pull the trigger on the DVDs unless they hit Big Lots or the bargain bins.

PhantomStranger

I have no intention of buying HD television on DVD. They simply lose that potential revenue from me. Some of this is due to Hollywood's inept style of management, which had it easy during the gravy train years. Somehow foreign markets, often much smaller in size than the domestic American home video market, seem to find enough resources to get niche items out on Blu-ray without losing money.

Trevor

Completely agree with you there. My point was more that a ton of great stuff hasn't made it to HD in any format yet.

Alan Smithee

That's the thing- HD streaming quality easily beats DVD quality- Even *I* will admit that, though when it comes to which one I'll spend money on I'll still pick DVD more for political reasons than anything else. As someone who cares about quality that usually leaves me with spending money on NEITHER though if they're the only choices. Sad to say but DVD is simply obsolete at this point. Blu-Ray would even still be a better format to sell standard-def video material on since more can be fit on a disc with less compression, but that's only been done a handful of times (mainly Eagle Vision's upscaled concert videos.) I don't think there's even been any "enthusiast" model DVD players in about 10 years- all the DVD-only players I've seen in stores are the cheap under-$50 jobs that end up dying after a few months, but you can even get cheap Blu-Ray players now for about the same price.

DthRdrX

I have only bought one dvd since BD was released, and that was the dirt cheap Married with Children set. MWC is my favorite comedy ever.

As much as I am a fan of Voyager and Deep Space Nine no way do I reward a lazy, cheap studio like Paramount who nickles and dimes Trek fans for every last cent before restoring them the way they should. Arguing about the cost to do it is ridiculous when you put into perspective:

A: how financially lucrative the entire franchise has been over more than a half century.
B: How much money they would make over the next few centuries.
C: that it they release them one season at a time in HD on their streaming service, which looks like a bomb to be as it is currently planned.

Despite what they claim about sales, they will restore those shows eventually.

BuckNaked2k

I've too have bought only one DVD title since the advent of Blu-ray: I, Claudius, originally shot on video tape.

robin2099

My physical media section is still pretty decent. Ironically enough, they seem to be cutting back in the videogame area for some reason.

Gizmo

My local Best Buy remodeled. Initially they have 6-8 aisles of Blu-rays in the middle of the store and now they moved all physical media to the back of the store lining the back wall by the emergency exit (where the video games are). Its the weirdest thing they've ever done. They have new clear shelves so you can see all the titles and the prices are on the bottom of each shelf. They probably reduced about 60-70% and it's pretty much just recent releases and evergreen titles.

It looks like Samsung paid them a ton of money since they have a bunch of their stuff in the middle of the store setup like a mini store and you can no longer walk straight to the back as you run into the cell phones.

Anyone else do this?

mcnabb

It’s so depressing to go to Bestbuy now as the front of my local store is just aisles of smartphone stuff. The TV section has stayed the same as that is a good 1/4 of the store.

The Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs, and Videogames are all tucked in the back away from everything. I know that times have changed and this isn’t 2001 in the heyday of DVD and it will never be the same, but it’s still depressing to see.

I guess I’m just an old school guy who enjoyed browsing DVDs at Best Buy, CDs at Tower Records, etc and you have a generation of kids who have no context to what that is.

I know I’m a dinosaur, but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss it.

JimRochester

Our BB's have a Samsung section and an Apple section. They still have a modest display of physical media but if you like to collect CD's BB won't be of much help. They have one 2 sided rack. I'm still old school so I like my TV on DVD because I bring them on business trips. TV is great to binge watch while I'm in a hotel room working on my laptop.

I still give BB business when I can. Because I have the RZ cc I use for business, I am an Elite member by March or April so I get a ton of RZ certs. That's what I use for most of my purchases.

I am still in reduction mode though. Although I am freshening up my collection I am not adding. I am upgrading some DVD's and HD DVD's to UHD when available or BR. I just bought 5 UHD that I upgraded, 4 from HD DVD and 1 BR while at the same time donated 4 BR and 2 DVD to the library so my total count went down again.

I still collect some titles; Marvel Universe and war genre pictures are pretty common. I still like browsing titles in person vs. online but with the slim margins the time has run out. They can sell a cell phone accessory for $12.99 with a 150% markup or a BR with 30% at the same price.

DthRdrX

Mine did this layout this week as well. DVDs are almost completely gone and it looks like BD/UHD just have the back wall. and one small rack which I'm sure will be gone when they sell more items..

Josh-da-man

Yeah, the last Best Buy I went to did this. All of the DVDs, BRs, and UHDs were moved to the back corner of the store, and they're in new racks where they're facing out, about two or three cases deep, sort of like magazine racks. This particular store always had a modest selection of movies, and seemed more focused on appliances and housewares than other Best Buy stores. I'll have to check out some other BBs in next couple of weeks. Thete are a couple more BBs near me I'll have to check out; both have larger selections of discs.