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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Author
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Topic: DVD vs BR-DVD -- live together 4 how long?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 10-24-2008 05:39 AM
Price isn't everything. When I bought my first video recorder, it was a Sony Umatic 3/4in because that was the only format available and I was intent on stealing movies off of Home Box Office so I could see movies at home and of course so I could be Jack Vallenti's cancer in the belly of the industry. There was no cable in Brooklyn at the time so I had to lug this monsterous Umatic machine on the subway to my friend on the East side in Manhattan -- he had cable. That U-matic cost me $3,000. I was so poor at the time that I could only afford USED tapes and even used, they cost me $30 for an hour tape.
My first CD player which was the very first model the high-end store got in, had no remote (actually a good thing now that I think of it), could only scan, skip cuts and turn on and off -- it was a Techniques and it cost $1000.00!
I was determined to have my own "home theatre" before anyone even heard the phrase (circa 1977)-- I needed to connect that Umatic to something other than a TV, so I bought the very first video projector that was ever designed to be a consumer projector (kind of)....Advent's 3 gun CRT-based VideoBeam -- it was huge compared to today's DLPs. It cost thousands....I think maybe $4,000, which in those days was a lot of money for a young guy working in Non-Profit (capital N, capital P).
I bought got every alternate field sequential 3D title I could get my hands on in the mid-80s and bought the 3DTV 3D video system. Actually it didn't cost all that much although the shutter eye-glasses started getting up there in price if you wanted to show, say, THE HOUSE OF WAX to a party crowd of people. And when they finally settle on how they are going to feed all those 3D releases to the millions of people who will want to see them at home in their 3D Home Theatre, I will be first in line.
So it all depends on where your head is at. For me, having a excellent sound system was imperative (I put in Quadraphonic sound in 1974 and haven't needed to take it down since, only now they call it surround sound. But as wild as I have been for new gadgets most of my life, every one had to offer me something that the thing they are replacing DIDN'T give me. MP3, iPods (spawn from hell, as far as I can see) -- they are steps backwards, not fowards. They don't offer anything but convenience, and looking back, I guess "convenience" never EVER trumped what I really wanted from the device -- hell, a U-matic VCR?! Convenience isn't the word that jumps to mind.
So all I see in those iPods and MP3 players is convenience over quality....that does NOTHING for me. For millions of others, I guess it is the only factor.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 10-24-2008 08:07 AM
Back to the "why was DVD a success" question: I'm pretty sure that another part of the reason was that DVDs were (from the start) priced at reasonable levels at the time of their initial release, whereas "new release" VHS tapes were priced in the $100 range, which was too high for most anyone but rental store owners. Laserdiscs were cheaper, but the players were expensive (about $1k and up for something decent) and the disks were not generally available for rent at most retail outlets.
I never knew any one who had a laserdisc player at home, and the reason seems to have been the cost of the player and the lack of rental availability for the disks. If these had been solved, I think that most people could have dealt with the size and need to flip the disks every hour. The DVD format offered a relatively cheap (~$400, later dropping to about $40) player, as well as cheaper media for those who were interested in purchasing new releases outright.
The DVD player penetration rate did not actually reach VHS levels until most rental shops converted fully or almost fully to the format (around 2003, I think), at which point players were available for under $100.
I actually think that it is unfortunate that most rental shops no longer stock VHS at all, since many VHS titles are still unavailable on DVD. (As much as I don't like VHS as a format, I would argue that it is better to have obscure titles available in an inferior format than for them to be unavailable from rental stores.) As an example, Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud has not been officially released on DVD; if one wants to see it on video, the options are VHS and laserdisc, which makes this title essentially unavailable at most rental stores.
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Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 10-24-2008 10:53 AM
quote: Scott Norwood
I actually think that it is unfortunate that most rental shops no longer stock VHS at all, since many VHS titles are still unavailable on DVD. (As much as I don't like VHS as a format, I would argue that it is better to have obscure titles available in an inferior format than for them to be unavailable from rental stores.) As an example, Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud has not been officially released on DVD; if one wants to see it on video, the options are VHS and laserdisc, which makes this title essentially unavailable at most rental stores.
I agree with this, and it is better to have a low quality print on VHS than nothing at all.
However, I think it is encouraging that little by little, obscure titles that we'd never thought we'd see on DVD are appearing.
There's hope for that Robert Altman title. Criterion recently released '3 Women' and 'Secret Honor' (which are HD masters, so Blu Ray discs are very likely!).
There's a VHS rental store near me that has a lot of titles that I fear will never see the light of day again, anywhere. Sure, many of those titles are of marginal quality, but someone made those movies and someone out there sure enjoyed them at some point. I don't like the idea of any movie being 'gone forever'. That's just not right. My hope is that all those movies will make it to Blu Ray or DVD, even if it takes a really long time.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-26-2008 10:03 PM
quote: Scott Norwood
Back to the "why was DVD a success" question: I'm pretty sure that another part of the reason was that DVDs were (from the start) priced at reasonable levels at the time of their initial release, whereas "new release" VHS tapes were priced in the $100 range, which was too high for most anyone but rental store owners.
Factoring in the rate of inflation, movies on Blu-ray aren't anymore expensive than DVDs were when they were first introduced. New release DVDs are still somewhat expensive. I rarely see any new movies being released on DVDs for anything less than the $18-$20 levels, and often see stores carrying them at prices up $25.
People consider DVD movies to be dirt cheap due to the pricing of catalog DVDs and newer DVD movie releases that have been on store shelves for 6-12 months or more. However, it's pretty unfair to compare an old DVD in the $5-$10 bin at Wal-Mart to something that was just released on Blu-ray. But that comparison keeps on getting repeated anyway despite its apples-oranges nature.
As Blu-ray continues to gain more popularity, I think we'll see more downward pressure being applied to the movie discs, particularly catalog titles. Right now, most retail stores typically want $19 or more for a movie that has been out on Blu-ray for a year or more. I think that level is going to drop to $15 and perhaps even less pretty soon. There's definitely going to be some movement in that direction during the holiday season.
Back in the late 1980s the VHS HiFi thing was really expensive. The first players were fetching prices of $700 or more. And those "rental prices" were pretty terrible. I think Laserdisc would have been more popular if a lot more stores offered them for rent. I figured DVD would be a failure if video rental stores didn't embrace it. When the DiVX versus "Open DVD" format war was raging a lot of video stores sat it out while the issue got settled. Hastings was the only store in town renting any DVDs at all. Once DiVX was eliminated, video stores all over town started stocking up on DVD.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 10-27-2008 11:26 AM
Blu-ray will not overtake DVD until the prices of the players come down (which is starting to happen) and the movies get a little cheaper (I think $20-25 for a new release is about as high as they should be for widespread acceptance).
The biggest thing is the price of the players, because it's very difficult to convince someone that paying $300-$400 on a player is worth it when they aren't already convinced about the additional quality they're going to be able to enjoy.
Netflix takes the pain out of the price of movies, because so many movies are not worth buying in the first place. It's amazing to me that so many people buy movies that hardly deserve a rental!
I think it's going to become harder and harder to find a decent DVD player, so if you want something that isn't a Polaroid or Coby, you're going to have to look at a Blu-ray player. Getting the players under $200 would be a great thing to really get the momentum going on an unstoppable shift towards HD.
The biggest question right now is where the prices are going to land for the time being? The Samsung 1500 was being sold for around $215 just recently and it included the Matrix box set. I've seen it for below $200, and I think it's reasonable to believe that the low end models could hit $149 on Black Friday and maybe even stay there for the Insignia's and the previous gen players (which shouldn't be purchased without fully knowing what you're getting).
If we could get the Samsung 1500, the Sony S300, and the Panasonic 35 down to $200, that would do wonders to show DVD the door. It will happen, it's just a matter of when.
I think it could be as early as the end of 2009 when Blu-ray overtakes DVD. Many many many HDTV's will be sold this coming February, and hopefully it will be an opportunity for new Blu-ray players to go home with them. DVD belongs relegated to the car and portable segments, and no one should be forced to watch SD in their home ever again.
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