Where are the cheap HD movies?
OhioGuy
available on DVD for under 10 bucks each. It seemed like they almost wanted
to give them away to move them out the door. For example, I got a copy of
"The Mummy" right when it came out for about $8, shipped.
Where are these deals for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray now? I can't seem to find
much of anything under the $20 price point.
Logan Shaw
Technical point: I'm pretty sure DVD was introduced in 1997, because I
watched a DVD at a friend's house when I lived in California, and I moved
from California to Texas in 1997. However, at the time, he was the only
person I'd ever met anywhere who had a DVD player. And we watched one of
the very few titles available on DVD. It was "Twister", starring Helen
Hunt.
Anyway, I think part of what's going on is that Blu-ray and HD-DVD are
both pretty new, and they expect to be able to keep prices high for a
while. I also think another part of what's going on is that now that
DVD exists and the going rate is something like $5-$15 depending on the
desirability of the individual title, they feel like they can price a
Blu-ray or a HD-DVD version higher than a DVD because it's higher
resolution (product differentiation). In fact, they may be counting
on DVDs continuing to exist for quite some time so that the comparison
to DVDs will continue to prop up the prices of the newer formats.
Sorta like how when cassettes and CDs were both popular, CDs cost more
even though they were a whole lot cheaper to produce. (Tape duplication
machines were expensive and clunky because they had to run at many
times nominal speed to get any decent quantity of tapes done per hour,
which made for a whole heap of mechanical and electrical engineering
challenges. Meanwhile, CDs can be pressed all at once in an instant.)
- Logan
Ward Abbott
> Where are these deals for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray now? I can't seem to find
>much of anything under the $20 price point.
>
Let's just wait for the dust to settle and see which format survives.
Remember BETA?
It is new technology and of course, the price will be high. The HD
players are very expensive, including the LG BH100 (plays both formats
without CD audio) which is still over $999.
James
> On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:14:40 -0400, "OhioGuy" <n...@none.net> wrote:
> > Where are these deals for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray now? I can't seem to find
> >much of anything under the $20 price point.
>
> Let's just wait for the dust to settle and see which format survives.
> Remember BETA?
>
> It is new technology and of course, the price will be high. The HD
> players are very expensive, including the LG BH100 (plays both formats
> without CD audio) which is still over $999.
One of the factors that drives cheap DVD retailling is the cheap
prices for previously viewed DVDs. If the delta between the two is too
high, then fewer people will buy new.
I don't have HD, don't rent any DVDs, buy some previously viewed DVDs
at one of the rental outlets, often for less than $5(only for movies I
think I will want to watch more than once). My assumption is that
there aren't a lot of rentals of HD movies yet so the retail pricing
can stay high.
James
Michael Black
prices are high, yet will definitely drop with time. Later, you
can of course buy used.
I've watched a lot of movies at home over the past few years, movies
I wanted to see, and I was paying usually a dollar and no more
than two for each movie. Even if I only watch it once, that's on
par with buying a used book and certainly cheaper than any movie
watching in a theatre here now.
The caveat is that I'm buying VHS movies, at garage sales and even
store clearances.
I didn't buy a vcr until three years ago, a year after I got a DVD
player (and I waited until prices on those had dropped to the fifty
dollar mark). Once I started to pay attention to pre-recorded movies,
for the DVD player, I noticed that VHS was being cleared out, and that
made it appealing to get a VCR finally. I bought one at a garage sale
for twenty dollars, complete with remote and manual and in a box.
I've let others buy into the technology, buying the hardware when
it was expensive, and creating a demand for the "content" which
drives the price lower. By the time I buy in, prices of
both have dropped significantly, and in the case of the VCR, I'm
taking advantage of the whims of society that makes many drop
the old when something new comes along.
Micahel
OhioGuy
"> Technical point: I'm pretty sure DVD was introduced in 1997, because I
You are correct - I see that there was an installed user base of 200,000
by the end of 1997. This increased to 1,400,000 by the end of 1998, 5.4 mil
end of 1999, and 14 million by end of 2000. It wasn't until end of 2003
that there was an installed base of 73 million players. So, while they were
indeed "available" in 1997, they were very expensive, and less than 1/10 of
1% of the U.S. population had one of the players on Jan. 1, 2008.
Maybe the price difference can be explained by VHS vs DVD, and DVD vs
HD-DVD.
I think it was a lot cheaper and faster to make a DVD instead of a VHS
tape.
However, I have to question their decision not to sell movies cheaply in
the HD formats early on. Perhaps at this point they realize it will be
another year or two before the format war really heats up, and they figure
they might as well make a decent profit on early adopters.
Perhaps later, in roughly 2008 or 2009, we will see much lower prices as
they try to get people to switch over.
OhioGuy
But the point I'm making is that when DVD's were fairly new, in 1998 and
1999, especially, online places such as deepdiscountdvd.com (still in
business!) were selling brand new releases for under 10 bucks regularly,
including often with free shipping.
Prices actually went up over the next few years.
Any ideas on why? And why doesn't the trend repeat itself now with
HD-DVD?
Rick
It's kind of a rhetorical question at the moment. The market has once
again issued two incompatible formats with only a scant number of
players that can play both formats. Consumer resistance is in play and
neither format is selling in high numbers. The price of the movies won't
drop until/unless the volume of units sold increases. And based on
consumer reaction at this point that isn't likely to happen any time
soon.
Do you buy a BluRay player? Or an HD player? Who the hell wants to buy
both? And then what you you do with the "x" version of the DVD's if/when
the player breaks - as happens with DVD players all the time - and the
"y" version is the only one remaining in the market? Consumers don't
like those kind of posers when it comes to "new and improved"
technology. So right now the vast majority are sitting right where they
are now with the existing DVD technology until one of the formats rolls
over and drops dead. The manufacturers really blew it, especially in
this economy.
Rick
Anthony Matonak
....
> Do you buy a BluRay player? Or an HD player? Who the hell wants to buy
> both?
It's worse than that. When they introduced DVDs they didn't require you
to buy a whole new (expensive) TV as well.
Anthony
Shawn Hirn
Anthony Matonak <antho...@nothing.like.socal.rr.com> wrote:
You have a point there. Buying a Blu-ray or HD DVD player to connect to
a standard definition television makes no sense.
Rick
You're entirely missing the point that consumers don't want competing,
incompatible devices. When DVD's came out there was only one standard,
so no consumer confusion or resistance. Price DVD's as low as you want
and everybody wins. But now we have two incompatible formats, two
incompatible players, movie production companies and even rental places
"fighting" over what format they will release on and what format the
stores will carry...
Why are you even buying this stuff *now* to begin with? Are you sure you
made the right choice? Don't go to BlockBuster looking for rentals -
they went with BluRay only.
Are you getting the point yet? The trend won't repeat because it simply
is analogous to the introduction of DVD. Not by a long shot. VHS won out
because Sony made some really stupid marketing and licensing decisions
with Betamax while VHS licensing to produce players was made cheap and
production of VHS units skyrocketed to saturate the market. You are way
ahead of the game right now if you bought a hi-def player and have to
wait and see which format buries the other. Not because one hi-def DVD
factor is inherently better than the other. (Technically Beta has/had
far better resolution than VHS.) But because one format out-markets the
other. And that marketing wizardry just ain't been happening...
Rick
Don K
news:fc91l4$h8t$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
> James (jl...@idirect.com) writes:
> It's usually not frugal to buy into something when it's new. The
> prices are high, yet will definitely drop with time. Later, you
> can of course buy used.
That is a good strategy, especially if you will live forever and
have unlimited time to wait. Of course there are those who will
put everything off and hope to wait until the "next life" to enjoy it.
>
> I've watched a lot of movies at home over the past few years, movies
> I wanted to see, and I was paying usually a dollar and no more
> than two for each movie. Even if I only watch it once, that's on
> par with buying a used book and certainly cheaper than any movie
> watching in a theatre here now.
>
> The caveat is that I'm buying VHS movies, at garage sales and even
> store clearances.
On the other hand, I don't like to watch VHS tapes because of
their relatively poor quality and mechanical awkwardness
(wind/rewind delays).
>
> I didn't buy a vcr until three years ago, a year after I got a DVD
> player (and I waited until prices on those had dropped to the fifty
> dollar mark). Once I started to pay attention to pre-recorded movies,
> for the DVD player, I noticed that VHS was being cleared out, and that
> made it appealing to get a VCR finally. I bought one at a garage sale
> for twenty dollars, complete with remote and manual and in a box.
>
VCR's have been affordable for at least 35 years. Certainly their
price has fallen off a cliff in the past 10. I don't know how old you are,
but I hope you didn't wait 25 years just to get that really good price.
That would be a too-big of a chunk out of your life expectancy.
Back to the first hand, I don't feel any need to accumulate a collection
of tapes or dvds, other than home-movies,
> I've let others buy into the technology, buying the hardware when
> it was expensive, and creating a demand for the "content" which
> drives the price lower. By the time I buy in, prices of
> both have dropped significantly, and in the case of the VCR, I'm
> taking advantage of the whims of society that makes many drop
> the old when something new comes along.
Still using the old black and white TV, eh?
Don
Too_Many_Tools
Good discussion.
LOL...I have seen a number of articles from the industry whining about
the "ignorant and confused' consumer not buying into the technology.
An example....
In my opinion, the consumer (who has a long memory of the VHS/Beta
nightmare) is doing just what they should...wait till the dust
settles.
In the end they will be laughing all the way to the bank.
TMT
OhioGuy
>so no consumer confusion or resistance.
Aren't you forgetting DIVX?
DIVX was a rental format variation on the DVD player in which a customer
would buy a DIVX disc (similar to a DVD) for approximately $4US, which was
watchable for up to 48 hours from its initial viewing. After this period,
the disc could be viewed by paying a continuation fee, typically $3.25.
Dreamworks, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount Pictures, for instance,
initially released their films exclusively on the DIVX format. DIVX
featured stronger encryption technology than DVD (Triple DES), which many
studios stated was a contributing factor in the decision to support DIVX
first
I was very much against DIVX when it came out, especially since it
required you to have your player hooked up to the phone line and essentially
get "spied on". However, I did like the aspect that everyone in your
household could watch a new movie for just a few dollars.
Unfortunately, I realized if the format was successful, it would totally
ruin the availability of films at our local libraries, which have thousands
upon thousands of movies available for free.
OhioGuy
> made the right choice?
movies were, and why they hadn't appeared.
I didn't buy a DVD player until they dropped under $100. I wasn't all
that impressed, either. I couldn't record with it, they scratched easily,
and the widescreen movies looked tiny on my TV, with black bars at the top
and bottom.
> Don't go to BlockBuster looking for rentals - they went >with BluRay only.
Lol! I haven't rented a movie since around 1999, when I discovered that
the library had most of them for free. Now my wife works there, and I don't
even have to make a trip to pick them up - she just brings them home from
work when they come in.
Rick
>
> > When DVD's came out there was only one standard,
> >so no consumer confusion or resistance.
>
> Aren't you forgetting DIVX?
Forgetting it? Who even barely remembers it? It was a complete bomb in
the market place - for the many obvious reasons. (Including the "frugal"
- tossing out all those expired dics. More landfill fodder.) I don't
even recall it getting beyond prototype into the marketplace.
rick
Shawn Hirn
> > When DVD's came out there was only one standard,
> >so no consumer confusion or resistance.
>
> Aren't you forgetting DIVX?
DIVX came out several years after the first DVDs went on sale, IIRC.
Kevin Hawerchuk
buying widescreen tvs, especially LCD.
It wasn't so long ago that top-tier manufacturers such as Panasonic
were producing CRT tube tv sets. I believe Sony is the last name brand
manufacturer making CRT tube sets.
Go to a Best Buy or Circuit City and you'll see a sea of widescreen hi
def tv sets, and a puny little selection of mediocre quality CRT sets.
With this agenda of making the public buy hi def tv sets, it's just a
matter of time before people also buy hi def dvd players.
Shawn Hirn
Kev...@webtv.net (Kevin Hawerchuk) wrote:
Right. Once you begin watching high definition content on TV, you won't
want to go back to standard definition. With a wide screen TV, you get
the same aspect ratio that most movies are filmed in, which means
there's no cropping. With a full screen TV, every frame of the film must
be cropped, so you lose a lot of imagery that way. Wide screen TV
(standard or high definition) is the better option for those who want to
see all of a movie's content.
Don K
news:25161-46F...@storefull-3255.bay.webtv.net...
You make it sound as though there's some sort of conspiracy against
CRT's.
They're building LCD TV's because there's been a breakthru
in technology. Once you've established a reliable process, high resolution
flat LCD screens and projectors can easily be made larger and larger using
photolithic techniques.
The CRT technology is a lot more touchy. It's 3D structure is very sensitive
to alignment. It's structure lends itself to projecting a round image on a
spherical surface, and has to be corrected to flatten it out. CRT's also
need higher voltages and have color convergence issues that just aren't
there with LCDs.
But you're right when you surmise that once people have HD TVs
they will probably want HD DVD's too.
Don
Gene S. Berkowitz
dk@dont_bother_me.com says...
..not to mention that you can ship about 5 FPDs in the space required
for 1 CRT...
--Gene