Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[ElvisForever]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

Blu-ray is over 10 years old. DVD was way more successful than Blu-ray within the same time frame (and continues to sell better than Blu-ray).
In 2006 spending on DVD (purchases and rentals) in the United States was approximately $20 Billion. In 2015 spending on both DVD & Blu-ray in the United States was approximately $9 Billion and Blu-ray is less than 40% of that.

DVD was around since 1995. Are we seriously going to compare something that has been around for 20 year vs bluray that was in a format war until 2008???

8 years in overall DVD sales were 13.1 billion vs 3 billion in bluray sales for ONE YEAR??? Is that right??? You do realize your chart includes RENTALS.

Not to mention the virtual death of the renters market where DVD sales would have never been that high if it hadn't of been a VHS tape death??

Bluray has hit a quarter of the sales in less than half the time with fierce competition from not only the most successful video format ever but now is taking on fly by night renters in streaming services, and yet sales are stll damn strong!

In a time where music can't even sell in the thousands many blurays are well over 2 milion? (It is all about context and scope of competition)

DVD never saw that kind of dominance over music sales in their heyday.

Quit comparing renters. It is apples and oranges....or at least make real comparisons. Lets go back to when VHS rentals were king and very few people were buying because VHS tapes were in the 80 dollar range. That is real.

Renters will always exist back to the jukebox days. The difference....the numbers are easier to track.

But hey keep believing it. The more people say physical is dying, the more I laugh and will keep laughing.

Keep up with those crappy netflix streams and youtube garbage while real film lovers go for quality.

By the way, this fiction that DVD is always doing better is ignoring Batman vs Superman where 70% of sales were on bluray.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

8 years in overall DVD sales were 13.1 billion vs 3 billion in bluray sales for ONE YEAR??? Is that right??? You do realize your chart includes RENTALS.

I think you read the chart wrong. DVD sales were $13.1 billion in its 8th year alone, not over 8 years.

In DVD's 9th year (2004) sales were $16.7 billion. In Blu-ray's 9th year (2015) sales were less than $4 billion. If we blame the format war and ignore Blu-ray in 2006 & 2007: In DVD's 7th year (2002) sales were $8.6 billion. In Blu-ray's 7th year without a format war (2015) sales were less than $4 billion.

Your claim that "bluray adoption is way faster than media that came before" is blatantly false.

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

Renters will always exist back to the jukebox days. The difference....the numbers are easier to track.

But hey keep believing it. The more people say physical is dying, the more I laugh and will keep laughing.

Less money spent on physical media means less releases. It doesn't matter if the digital sales are purchases or rentals.

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

By the way, this fiction that DVD is always doing better is ignoring Batman vs Superman where 70% of sales were on bluray.

I'm not concerned that blockbusters will continue to sell well on Blu-ray (and Ultra HD Blu-ray) for decades to come. But smaller releases continue to sell much better on DVD and digital and that's causing the number of Blu-ray releases to dwindle.

[UFAlien]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Are you taking about cable UFAlien? Cable quality has been sinking and Netflix has been improving.

Yes - I said so in my first sentence

Funny how the eye can just skip over things.

Netflix generally looks pretty good for newer movies though in my personal experience grainier, older titles suffer from too much noise/macroblocking in the grain structure.

On Demand stuff for me used to look as good as live cable networks (which granted still means pretty compressed/soft) but lately it's been noticeably worse.

[Xathian]

When physical media dies, I stop watching movies.

I'm not paying money to watch the borderline DVD quality streams that these sites call "HD" (6.5mbps HD, nice joke Netflix) and have their marketing departments and COO have complete control over what movies I can have, when I can have them and when they are taken away.

Last time I bothered streaming, the show I was watching got removed from Netflix mid season. Back to owning my media and watching it whenever I want, licensing be damned. I'll pay the higher price gladly for that control.

[I KEEL YOU]

Originally Posted by SethRex

I'm going back to physical media...I'm just going to be putting my disc in folders to save space.

I could never get rid of the artwork and just keep the discs. I would have to get the special sleeves that also store the artwork, like at the 5:40 mark of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LtyewoeMGo

[ElvisForever]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

I think you read the chart wrong. DVD sales were $13.1 billion in its 8th year alone, not over 8 years.

Fair enough

In DVD's 9th year (2004) sales were $16.7 billion. In Blu-ray's 9th year (2015) sales were less than $4 billion. If we blame the format war and ignore Blu-ray in 2006 & 2007: In DVD's 7th year (2002) sales were $8.6 billion. In Blu-ray's 7th year without a format war (2015) sales were less than $4 billion.

Your claim that "bluray adoption is way faster than media that came before" is blatantly false.

Less money spent on physical media means less releases. It doesn't matter if the digital sales are purchases or rentals.

I cannot take any comparison seriously that is including rentals where there is now a much better option for streaming. So if we follow this logic, 20 copies of a x blockbuster from a rental store should be treated the same as someone that spent hard earned dollars on 1 release? That to me is like counting shipped sales of the latest from Walmart Garth Brooks box sets as sales even though no one bought them.

I'm not concerned that blockbusters will continue to sell well on Blu-ray (and Ultra HD Blu-ray) for decades to come. But smaller releases continue to sell much better on DVD and digital and that's causing the number of Blu-ray releases to dwindle.

As they should in some respects. While I hate the less quality and the crappier sound of most 5.1 than the stereo on CD, they are both optical discs

However, I am not buying that amounts of releases are dwindling. I would like to see tracked numbers of independents. I think as Twilight Time limited runs or this Bluray on demand BD-R takes traction more sales will get shipped to overseas where releases are in much bettter quality.

DVD is dwindling at a much faster rate and will continue to do so as bluray continues to grow. Of course sales can shrink but that doesn't mean death, to me it is shucking the renters that should have never been included anyway.

Collector's market is fine and thus is a great time for collecting. Remove renters from your data then we can see real comparison. Though again, optical discs really shouldn't be seen as battling. If joe public would use their heads they shouldn't chuck their cd's or dvd's because they all play and will always do so, and they just move forward. 4k not bundling dvd is the obvious sign of the future.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

However, I am not buying that amounts of releases are dwindling. I would like to see tracked numbers of independents.

There are definitely a lot less releases of TV shows then there were a few years ago. Many TV shows have switched from Blu-ray to DVD because of low sales. And many others have switched from DVD to DVD-R or aren't getting physical releases at all.

The Simpsons even stopped physical releases despite continuing to have high sales. Fox wants to retain full control and get revenue from advertisers every time you watch an episode rather than just get one sale per season.

The majority of viewers have always watched TV shows as broadcasts and continue to do so. But before streaming came about when someone wanted to watch a TV show multiple times they generally bought the DVD. But if a show is on Netflix or Amazon Prime they can watch repeatedly with an existing subscription. And if they're impatient they can buy the season on iTunes as it airs rather than wait months for a physical release.

All these factors have drastically dropped the number of sales, and thus the number of releases of TV shows on physical media.

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

Collector's market is fine and thus is a great time for collecting.

The vast majority of people buying movies are not collectors. They buy a movie because they're interested in it at the time and want to watch it repeatedly for the next few months or years. It's cheaper to buy it than to rent it over and over. With physical media this type of person is beneficial to collectors: all the copies that were bought that their owners lost interest in add to the used market and ensure that thousands of copies remain available for decades. They also increase the short term sales which ensures that future similar titles will get physical releases and be widely available as well. These people aren't concerned with long-term availability but they help ensure it anyway.

But many of that type of person is switching to digital. This puts all the control over whether individual titles remain available in the hands of the studios.

[StingingVelvet]

Love the new title.

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Love the new title.

I was wondering how that changed☺
I didn't know a title could be changed/edited.
Who can edit a thread title, a mod? the one who started the thread?

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by eiknarf

I was wondering how that changed☺
I didn't know a title could be changed/edited.
Who can edit a thread title, a mod? the one who started the thread?

They can change titles, but in this case it seems someone started a thread with this title and the mod merged the old physical media thread with it. Odd, but funny as hell IMO.

[ElvisForever]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

There are definitely a lot less releases of TV shows then there were a few years ago. Many TV shows have switched from Blu-ray to DVD because of low sales. And many others have switched from DVD to DVD-R or aren't getting physical releases at all.

The Simpsons even stopped physical releases despite continuing to have high sales. Fox wants to retain full control and get revenue from advertisers every time you watch an episode rather than just get one sale per season.

The majority of viewers have always watched TV shows as broadcasts and continue to do so. But before streaming came about when someone wanted to watch a TV show multiple times they generally bought the DVD. But if a show is on Netflix or Amazon Prime they can watch repeatedly with an existing subscription. And if they're impatient they can buy the season on iTunes as it airs rather than wait months for a physical release.

All these factors have drastically dropped the number of sales, and thus the number of releases of TV shows on physical media.



The vast majority of people buying movies are not collectors. They buy a movie because they're interested in it at the time and want to watch it repeatedly for the next few months or years. It's cheaper to buy it than to rent it over and over. With physical media this type of person is beneficial to collectors: all the copies that were bought that their owners lost interest in add to the used market and ensure that thousands of copies remain available for decades. They also increase the short term sales which ensures that future similar titles will get physical releases and be widely available as well. These people aren't concerned with long-term availability but they help ensure it anyway.

But many of that type of person is switching to digital. This puts all the control over whether individual titles remain available in the hands of the studios.

This is where are separation has gone into the infinite.

TV series sales are a trend and nothing compared to film. The death of the Simpsons on bluray means nothing. Are we supoosed to cry about a cartoon not seeing high definition? Lol. Look DVD sales of the later seasons couldn't break a 100,000. Don't you kid yourself, that is why they dropped it.

Meanwhile there sits Game of Thrones or Walking Dead breaking viewership records left and right and contine to be huge sellers on bluray. Those sales are much higher than the Simpsons and in better quality not being a 2D cartoon.

Not that I care that much because true film is what will always drive sales despite a new generation thinking they are something special.

Renters don't dictate the future and that goes for people that jump from series to series.

But hey we can take a wait and see. 4 billion and growing by percentage is hardly dying.

Renters will always be king in short term, but the buyers make sure the products stay around.

[PenguinMaster]

Before streaming became popular everything was on DVD. Whether a person was renting a DVD, buying a DVD to watch a few times, or buying a DVD to collect and cherish for the rest of their lives it was all the same product. All of the sales benefited each other. Even if only a few people cared about collecting a specific title it would still be available to them because collectors, renters, and casual buyers were all the same market.

But streaming has split the market. Now if hardly anyone is interested in collecting a title the studios have little reason to offer it on physical media.

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

TV series sales are a trend and nothing compared to film. The death of the Simpsons on bluray means nothing. Are we supoosed to cry about a cartoon not seeing high definition? Lol. Look DVD sales of the later seasons couldn't break a 100,000.

The vast majority of TV shows don't break 100,000 but that doesn't stop them from getting Blu-ray releases. 100,000 is actually pretty good for a TV show, especially one on network TV.

Plus The Simpsons didn't just drop Blu-ray... it dropped DVD as well. It sold better than the majority of Fox's shows but they stopped all physical releases because they want to force people to switch to streaming.

It was no coincidence that physical releases stopped right after Fox launched their Simpsons World app. It's far more profitable to have ad-supported streaming for decades rather than a one time purchase. If that experiment pays off than a lot more smaller titles will switch to that model.

Since many people clearly don't value their time (as is evidenced by many people still watching TV with commercials) free ad-supported streaming will become more and more popular.

Obviously none of this will affect the most popular releases. But just because the titles you're interested in on physical media may not be in danger of dying, you shouldn't dismiss the concerns of others.

[ElvisForever]

I am not dismissimg concerns, I just don't agree with them.

You keep quoting DVD sales as if that was the only media that ever existed.

DVD rise came from not only the renters market, but the fact that VHS was just that bad (no way to search quickly, size, video/audio upgrade).

Now people are more discerning and have a better rental option that never took off in the same way that VHS did. DVD percentage of owners to rentals was nowhere near the lopsided way that VHS was.

DVD enormous sales came from a fake renters market piggybacked from the VHS era where there was massive muzzled demand.

As for cartoons. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are both bigger than the Simpsons but truly mediocre sellers on DVD and bluray. You know why....they aren't feature length cartoons (mostly).

Most don't care about cartoon tv shows for collecting, and I certainly wouldn't use that to measure the future of film on physical media.

The Simpsons will sell when put out in complete form like the Twilight Zone. If it ever happens. Make no mistake, they stop putting them out on DVD because they just didn't sell that crazy. Too much overhead for a mediocre seller.

When I say mediocre...I mean mediocre to the big boys like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

Of course most TV shows are mediocre to even a hslf assed successful movie. I believe as more classic shows get "complete" in proper bluray because even videotaped broadcast have benefit, you will see that demand come back.

Of course prices dropping to more normal ranges will help this. Blurays on TV are still way overpriced and there is no reason why we can't see classic complete shows drop to 20 bucks, and they will.

[Andrew354]

Just keep calm and carry on folks - the sky is NOT falling

When it comes to the future prospects of movies and TV shows on a physical format I remain an optimist.

Despite the predicted demise of music on CD as early as 2003 it is still very much with us. Streaming music may now be the default "mainstream" choice for consumers but that does not mean that CD will not continue to survive even if it's only as a niche format for collectors.

Vinyl has made a big comeback, not that it ever really went away and ironically it is millennials who are the driving force behind the revival.

Even cassettes are starting to see a revival in popularity.

DVD's are still very much with us despite frequent predictions of their demise, Blu-Ray is more than holding it's own as the format of choice for movie collectors as evidenced by the explosion of catalogue titles released by independent labels and the steelbook craze, and UltraHD BD is off to a better than expected start this year with higher than predicted sales figures.

There will always be people who want physical copies of movies / TV shows and who are willing to pay a premium for the privilege.

Like music and a booming collectors market for Vinyl there will always be a demand for physical releases of movies and TV shows - even if is just on a single niche format.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

The Simpsons will sell when put out in complete form like the Twilight Zone. If it ever happens. Make no mistake, they stop putting them out on DVD because they just didn't sell that crazy. Too much overhead for a mediocre seller.

When I say mediocre...I mean mediocre to the big boys like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

By that definition 90% of all releases are mediocre sellers and are therefore at risk of being discontinued.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Sim...examined/21379

The Simpsons DVDs & Blu-rays were definitely profitable, just not as profitable as Fox thinks streaming can be.

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

Of course prices dropping to more normal ranges will help this. Blurays on TV are still way overpriced and there is no reason why we can't see classic complete shows drop to 20 bucks, and they will.

So $10-$20 for a single 2 hour movie is reasonable, but for a TV show to be reasonably priced the complete series has to be $20? For the amount of content you get TV shows are already a far better value than movies.

[GasmaskAvenger]

When I was at Best Buy this Black Friday, there was this woman that got bummed out over a specific season of a TV series on sale being a DVD and not a blu-ray.

That, in addition to the countless amount of couples walking out with an assload of blu-rays in checkout shows that there's nothing to worry about with blu-ray.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by GasmaskAvenger

When I was at Best Buy this Black Friday, there was this woman that got bummed out over a specific season of a TV series on sale being a DVD and not a blu-ray.

That, in addition to the countless amount of couples walking out with an assload of blu-rays in checkout shows that there's nothing to worry about with blu-ray.

All of the Black Friday Blu-ray sales are major releases, none of those were ever at risk of selling poorly.

[ElvisForever]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

So $10-$20 for a single 2 hour movie is reasonable, but for a TV show to be reasonably priced the complete series has to be $20? For the amount of content you get TV shows are already a far better value than movies.

Just have to disagree with that. I would rather have a DePalma Arrow release than most anything in its entire season.

I judge quality not quanitity. I want something that makes me think and pushes my imagination and has great content.

There are tons of seasons and viewers of soap operas or Dancing with the Stas, doesnt make them any good.

For the best of the best TV isn't even close and not the dictator of the future IMHO.

Although i do respect yours, just kow my point about DVD being inflated by renters and bluray not being close to blossoming yet.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

Just have to disagree with that. I would rather have a DePalma Arrow release than most anything in its entire season.

For the best of the best TV isn't even close and not the dictator of the future IMHO.

If you think TV shows are inferior then the price is irrelevant. Even if a complete series is $20 why would you want to spend 50 hours watching something you don't particularly like.

Originally Posted by ElvisForever

Although i do respect yours, just kow my point about DVD being inflated by renters and bluray not being close to blossoming yet.

If Blu-ray still hasn't "blossomed" in the 10 years it's been out what could possibly cause that to happen?