Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are DVDs and Blu-rays Sold As Combo Packs?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
|
|||||
|
Thought we had this column already, as I already recall answering this question (must have been the news item about Nozomi discontinuing them).
But if it'll save discussion, an old Blu-vs-HD warrior like me would know why we got combo packs in the first place--I just don't know why we're still getting them either: It dates back to 2008, when nobody could afford to buy an HDTV and a Blu-ray player at the same time, and even those who did know what Blu-ray was said they probably couldn't afford one this year, maybe in two. For the time being, the screens were enough of a big-ticket investment. Around that same time, Disney was starting to sell its limited-time "Sleeping Beauty" and "Pinocchio" classics on Blu--And knew they'd be taking heat from all those "Can't afford one yet" folks if the titles went back into the Vault in the two years it took for them to get one. So they tried selling the idea of "Watch it now!" by including a DVD with the Blu, so you could Gather Ye Acorns early for when you did buy a player. Seemed like such a good idea, they started doing it for their non-limited-time new Blu releases, like Bolt and High School Musical 3, if it would sell a few more straggling copies of those with few new adopters. (Hardware companies had tried explaining to DVD folks that you could still watch your DVD disks on a Blu player, but...we emphasize "tried".) ...Did it work? NO. For exactly the reasons that Zalls finished listing-- New Blu owners, who thought everything on the disk was just for them*, said "Gee, thanks! A spare disk for my kids' room and laptop!", and that so overtook the discussion, that that's what the other studios started thinking, too. Even an attempt to try and "fool" the stubborn DVD buyers by putting a "free Blu disk" in a DVD-sized combo of Snow White, while delaying the DVD-only release six weeks so they'd get the idea, backfired: The delay hit the press, and the DVD fans cried "They're being MEAN to us, because we still love the old technology!  " So much for that idea.
So: Ever since, for ten years, studios have been near-neurotic in ensuring that every Blu combo includes a DVD, and not one of them could tell you why if you asked them. Or if you did, they'd talk about a world where laptops still have disk drives. ----- * - Don't believe me? How about the days when "Digital copy" meant that an iPod-ready hard MP4 file might be included or downloaded along with the set, and the first Blu fans complained, "What is this? Some little file, it looks crappy on my big-screen set!" 
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
supersqueak
Posts: 194 |
|
|||||
|
I would rather have both just in case. It would be nice to loan the dvd copy out to friends to watch. I am one of those people who is really careful and stingy about loaning stuff out because people tend to return them broken. What I really don’t get is who’s buying new releases solely on DVD? I again don’t think dvd is that bad But the prices between dvd and blue-ray seem about the same so I don’t know why people are investing money into an old format when the price is usually negligible. I guess at some point I see it more as stubborn than frugal.
|
||||||
|
||||||
Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3936 Location: New York state. |
|
|||||
I finally got a stand-alone Blu-Ray player four years ago when my family got that and a new HDTV for me for Christmas since I had yet to transition over to the new formats due to not being on the bandwagon for them. Funi's stuck with the combo pack release model since earlier in the decade for the majority of their anime, so getting them for any anime of interest is mostly mandatory. But if there's an option between an individual DVD or Blu-Ray release, I typically go for the former since they are cheaper to purchase. |
||||||
|
||||||
Ouran High School Dropout
 Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
|
|||||
|
Combo packs allow for a sweet arrangement with an old friend of mine: I give her my spare DVDs, she gives me her spare Blus. We've had this system for years, and it's saved us no small amount of money. And whatever she's not interested in, I take to the swap meet at Anime Boston.
|
||||||
|
||||||
Coup d'État
 Posts: 179 |
|
|||||
Those laptop DVD-drives are actually super handy for being the designated region 4 player. Australia has the same BD-region as Europe, but those pesky DVDs are region 4. Mushishi Season 2, anyone? There is literally nothing else I'd use mine for, I even thought about replacing the slot with another hard drive.
God damn, PJ. Discovering that drove me mad. I managed to find an affordable copy with a beaten box used (pick your poison, I guess), but I'd have bought a SAVE release with the BDs inside any day. One really needs to buy stuff on release, it seems. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
|
|||||
|
When it comes to anime, the early digipaint era of shows tend to look best on DVD. When anime was being animated for 480 line NTSC, DVD resolution was the best that you'd get, and after the fact, the best Blu-rays of the show only look as good as the best DVDs. Then companies would try all sort of sharpening, filtering, and DNR to make those shows look fauxHD, and they wound up looking like the FLCL Blu-rays, the Gankutsuou Blu-rays, the Lucky Star Blu-rays.
There's about 6 years worth of anime that I only watch on DVD. But everything else, cel and paint, and post 2006, I'll opt for Blu-ray. Then there's me being in Region B land, and only being multi-region for DVD, means that when I imported Kyousougiga, Cat Planet Cuties, and Princess Jellyfish, I got them for the DVDs in the combo packs. As a consumer, I'm only a little bothered about having shows twice over (recently I was watching a Fairy Tail BD and it glitched and froze at one point, and given that the same episode was available on the DVD, I wasn't too bothered, turned out useful). Sure there is the waste of having two discs instead of one. But it would be more damaging for the planet to have producers making two SKUs, twice the packaging, twice the labeling, added mass and fuel burnt on distribution, as opposed to only doubling up on the discs. One thing I have noticed is the quality of consumer electronics really sucks these days. Lasers for optical drives are designed with obsolesence in mind. Since I went HD back in 2011, I have gone through three Blu-ray players. The lasers just die. But, the Sony DVD player I bought in 2001 is still working perfectly. When my CRT TV finally died last February, I made a point to find a SCART capable HD panel that would connect up to that player, and I also went for the smallest screen size. The DVDs look almost as good as they used to on the CRT set. Confidentally, I use the Blu-ray player to watch progressively encoded NTSC DVDs on, as they look even better. So. Anyone complained about getting 'useless' BD discs bundled alongside 4k UHD discs yet? |
||||||
|
||||||
Shiflan
 Posts: 418 |
|
|||||
That puzzles me too. I can understand the fact that some people don't have a preference for one over the other (for example, many people have mentioned that BD just doesn't look significantly better to them compared to DVD). But if you are making purchases now, why not buy the format which will be more future-proof? With today's prices a BD player (standalone) or a BD drive for a laptop or PC is very inexpensive. It seems counterproductive to buy a dying format when the better one is essentially the same price and there is little barrier to entry. Even if you don't care about the video quality improvement the fact that BD is better supported and will be going forward is important. The situation was completely different years ago when a BD player was a significant expense. But given how small the cost is between BD and DVD and how inexpensive the players are I am puzzled why people still buy new releases on DVD. Sure, maybe your current player still works. But do you really want to limit the future play-ability of your media collection over not wanting to spend $30 on a new player? The cost was a huge concern years ago, but it is moot now, and has been for a couple of years at least. |
||||||
|
||||||
LadyKuzunoha
 Posts: 91 Location: United States |
|
|||||
Even with Blu-Ray being the current standard, one's current DVD collection should at least be fine until the discs wear out/lose data, as I seem to recall that Blu-Ray players are also able to play DVDs. Unless that particular capability has been lost or removed in recent years (and going by the fact that most of the UHD Blu-Ray players I've seen have that capability, it hasn't), DVDs should be serviceable for some time yet. Which means that even in the case that one's DVD player dies and they decide to get a Blu-Ray player to replace it, they don't have to replace their entire collection right away. If I'm mistaken on any of this, please correct me. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Shiflan
Posts: 418 |
|
|||||
The point I was making had nothing to do with the disks wearing out. I was talking about player availability. I.e. if in 20 years from now you have a library of DVDs but no DVD player that would be a problem, and it would be much easier to get a BD player than a DVD player. You're right that most BD players are backwards compatible and will play DVDs too, so that point is moot, at least as long as people maintain that backwards compatibility. I think it will stop at some point because they use different wavelength lasers and eventually people will stop making BD drives backwards compatible with DVD to save money and the players will be BD-only. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
LadyKuzunoha
Posts: 91 Location: United States |
|
|||||
I mentioned disks wearing out to establish that I am aware that all forms of physical media will likely require replacement at some point, not in response to any specific part of your argument.
I think backwards compatibility will largely remain with Blu-Ray players, especially since both high- and low-end players still have said capability now, 12 years after the format was released. At this point, it's likely more expensive to remove that feature than to include it, as it would necessitate changes to the manufacturing process. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
|
|||||
My one exception is that, while Viz's Ranma 1/2 was sourced from good-looking film and survived Blu-ray, I'd heard the horror stories that the video prints for Sailor Moon didn't quite upgrade to the new technology successfully, as video sources often don't. So, I'll often think it's "okay" to get TV series on DVD boxset, on the rare occasion that there's absolutely no hope of making them look good on Blu. I'd even take Discotek's new idea of SD-BD, for storage, since a true Blu fan should be more concerned that everything's archived on disk at all. Just why those folk who bought the Sailor Moon or Card Captor Sakura Blu sets "need" to have the DVD copy included, however, remains the aforementioned mystery of the industry.
Seriously: Over the last seven years of all-out "Digital DRM will replace physical media into extinction!" studio propaganda (HA!...That sure didn't ultimately work out like planned, did it??  ), the disk and studio industries have hypnotized themselves into thinking that disk content and hardware players in the 10's are "clearance" goods, prices have plunged, and you can find a good Blu player today for the two-figures a DVD player cost you five years ago, and a good UHD player for what a Blu once cost.
After all, what is industry stupidity worth, if not to profit good deals off of? Now would be a very good time to catch the industry on the slow rebound and reconstruction. If you're still in 2008 mode (as most of the industry analysts still are) of "Oh, Blu-ray is too expensive and fancy, and only for the high-tech home-theater nuts that understand HDTV!...DVD is good enough for simple mainstream suburban folk like me!", had a nice nap, Rip? |
||||||
|
||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||
It's been mentioned before by several (including myself), but a common reason is that many still have fully functioning DVD players and thus don't feel like spending more money on a Blu-Ray player. There is also no such thing as a negligible price difference if it isn't zero. You can see it in fuel stations across the street from each other and how much business they get relative to each other even if it's just a penny apart.
If there are enough people who think in this way (and there are a lot--and I see this even living near Hollywood, where you'd think you'd find the highest concentration of videophiles), then DVDs will not be going out any time soon. Remember that companies will make whatever sells well enough for them to turn a profit. You're not going to see wider spread Blu-Ray adoption until either one of two things happen: Either the government bans the sale of DVDs or Blu-Ray players become free. You could se this happening last decade with HD television sets. CRTs did not become the minority until manufacturers were no longer allowed to sell them new, and even then, there was still plenty of demand for them due to their lower price. I mentioned I worked in a donation center earlier in this topic. We'd get lots of CRTs, and we'd sell lots of them too, all the way up until I quit in 2016 to find better work. That is, if there is still substantial demand for CRT TVs, why wouldn't there be substantial demand for DVDs and DVD players? People were still buying VCRs from us.
Indeed, DVD playability is standard on Blu-Ray players. For that reason alone, DVDs will continue to sell simply because they're less expensive. They get the downstream markets. Admittedly, were it not for bonus featured being frontloaded onto the Blu-Rays for Hollywood movies, I'd still be a part of that downstream market. Around here, DVDs for said Hollywood movies are typically $20 and Blu-Rays are $25 to $30. Why would I pay $5 to $10 just to view it in HD, especially when my TV's HD is broken and I don't want to pay for repairs or another TV? (Even if it was working okay, I would still go for whatever is less expensive.) Last edited by leafy sea dragon on Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:27 pm; edited 2 times in total |
||||||
|
||||||
Top Gun
 Posts: 4712 |
|
|||||
|
Yeah, I don't see dual-format drives going anywhere, given that it just involves throwing another laser in there. It's not like the VHS transition where you were talking about a completely-different technology and form-factor. Plus, there are a crapload of DVD disks floating around out there, and still will be for a long time.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
|
|||||
|
Home media lasts a long time. I buy things to last, to have them for years to come. I have a large VHS collection; Even excluding what came from my parents, that's years worth of my collecting prior to DVD; My DVD collection is only 18-ish years old and it's large; My Blu-ray collection is comparatively small, especially since I've still bought DVD beside, or instead of, it but it's there: I am always going to find a way to play my stuff because it is worth it to me to be able to watch my collection.
If I can still find ways to play CDs, audio cassettes, VHS, I'm not worried about DVD. Records and turntables have made a comeback, for heaven's sake. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
configspace
Posts: 3717 |
|
|||||
|
Isn't the packaging more expensive though? You have to change the casing to accommodate double the discs, from two to four.
Some publishers have stopped the combo packaging and stopped DVDs altogether for many titles. Discotek and Sentai only makes blurays for their recent ones, which I guess also saves on the DVD authoring costs. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group