Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[Ray Jackson]

I was watching Lawrence of Arabia on Vudu the other night and felt like something was slightly off about the PQ, as compared to my blu-ray copy, which is damn near reference quality awesome imo.

I didn't take the time to do a direct comparison, flipping back and forth between one and the other.

...thought maybe the difference was only in my head.

[CineFizzle]

Howdy, folks...I know this isn't the proper place for this post, but as a newbie I can't post a new thread. I've been using Blu-ray.com for many years now but didn't get around to actually creating a profile until last Summer. I'm hoping you guys can give me some advice/tips in regards to selling digital codes. I was going to sell them via my ebay store, but I have an excellent seller rating and since selling digital codes on ebay is still a bit controversial(though EVERYONE does it), I'm just not willing to risk my reputation, or having my account frozen, just for selling digital codes. So, I started researching and realized that I could apparently sell my codes here without all of the hassles and potential risk of ebay. So, my questions are as follows...

1. How do I go about listing and selling my codes?
2. What is the best way to determine how much to charge?

Forgive me for my ignorance, but this is all new to me. I have a pretty extensive Blu-ray collection and I normally give my digital codes to one of my best friends who is a fellow Cinephile...but occasionally I will purchase a film that he isn't interested in(even if it's free, apparently!), so I have just been setting the codes aside until I could figure out the best place to sell them. I don't have ALOT...but I've got about twenty or so that I would love to sell to help generate some money as I continue searching for work after having to leave my job of nineteen years last year due to health related issues.

Any tips/advice you fine folks can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

-Matt

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by CineFizzle

[Show spoiler]Howdy, folks...I know this isn't the proper place for this post, but as a newbie I can't post a new thread. I've been using Blu-ray.com for many years now but didn't get around to actually creating a profile until last Summer. I'm hoping you guys can give me some advice/tips in regards to selling digital codes. I was going to sell them via my ebay store, but I have an excellent seller rating and since selling digital codes on ebay is still a bit controversial(though EVERYONE does it), I'm just not willing to risk my reputation, or having my account frozen, just for selling digital codes. So, I started researching and realized that I could apparently sell my codes here without all of the hassles and potential risk of ebay. So, my questions are as follows...

1. How do I go about listing and selling my codes?
2. What is the best way to determine how much to charge?

Forgive me for my ignorance, but this is all new to me. I have a pretty extensive Blu-ray collection and I normally give my digital codes to one of my best friends who is a fellow Cinephile...but occasionally I will purchase a film that he isn't interested in(even if it's free, apparently!), so I have just been setting the codes aside until I could figure out the best place to sell them. I don't have ALOT...but I've got about twenty or so that I would love to sell to help generate some money as I continue searching for work after having to leave my job of nineteen years last year due to health related issues.

Any tips/advice you fine folks can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

-Matt

Go to the Trading Forum and click on the "Digital Copies" link.

All non-Disney codes, meaning most of them, are to be sold on this thread: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=220953

Just make sure you read over the list of rules on page one. The moderators take them VERY seriously.

Tough to say about prices. Generally about a quarter, to maybe a third of what you paid for the blu-ray, depending on how new/popular/widely distributed the title is.

...probably a good idea to just scroll threw some pages and get a sense of what the asking prices are on average.

[Supermartyoh]

There are noticeable differences between a movie on BD and on streaming that most people new will notice, but the amount of differences varies between the film, the master used, and how the provider compresses it to fit the allotted bandwidth. One that many will see first off on a movie on streaming is the picture being "softer" due to compression and the source master provided to the company.

[Member-353571]

Originally Posted by alchav21

There is no reason for name calling, you like to use this word troll which is a person that goes from Site to Site causing problems. You're just a junior member, I have been here many years and we are in a Physical or Digital Tread. Maybe I should have chosen my words and said the viewing preference is changing from Physical to Digital HD. More information is coming out that Physical Media is on the decline, you can see it at the stores Blu-rays just sitting on the selves. Even people from stores like Best Buy say Discs are not moving. Don't worry though, Discs will be around for a while, but if people aren't paying what I call Market Value. Discs will fade away fast!

LOL @ that. As if a post count or seniority is an indicator of intelligence. Wow....

By the way, you admitted you're a troll. I can reference that post of yours too as others already have.

[flyry]

From a 4K/UHD perspective I still say streaming is kicking physical's ass.

All the newest shows on Netflix and Amazon for the past few months have been in HDR and it"s true 4K. None of that upscaled crap.

These shows look phenomenal

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by flyry

From a 4K/UHD perspective I still say streaming is kicking physical's ass.

All the newest shows on Netflix and Amazon for the past few months have been in HDR and it"s true 4K. None of that upscaled crap.

These shows look phenomenal

Unfortunately despite TV shows being the best suited to 4K they are the worst selling on Blu-ray and therefore the least likely to get UHD Blu-ray releases.

On the flip side movies that are filled with CGI sell the best on Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray but because rendering CGI is so expensive those movies tend to all be mastered in 2K.

UHD Blu-ray could easily beat 4K streaming with the right material, but most of that material isn't being released on UHD Blu-ray.

[master gandhi]

UHD doesn't excite me half as much as the thought of watching my 3D BDs on the PS4's VR headset when they do their firmware update.

[bokes]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

Unfortunately despite TV shows being the best suited to 4K they are the worst selling on Blu-ray and therefore the least likely to get UHD Blu-ray releases.

On the flip side movies that are filled with CGI sell the best on Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray but because rendering CGI is so expensive those movies tend to all be mastered in 2K.

UHD Blu-ray could easily beat 4K streaming with the right material, but most of that material isn't being released on UHD Blu-ray.

Yes- why is that?
I notice numerous titles on Vudu being offered in UHD yet there is no 4KUHD disc available.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by bokes

Yes- why is that?
I notice numerous titles on Vudu being offered in UHD yet there is no 4KUHD disc available.

I doubt most of the titles are selling particularly well in UHD on Vudu either, but it's much cheaper for the studios to offer a digital UHD title than a UHD disc.

The biggest issue with selling physical media of any kind is estimating how much stock to send to each store. But I'd be happy with them selling lots of discs exclusively on Amazon and other online stores, then they wouldn't have to worry about where inventory needs to be sent.

[meremortal]

I dabble in both but will always be a physical media guy at heart. It's what I grew up with and prefer as an archival source. I'll admit that streaming and UV have improved quite a bit compared to a few years ago, though. But it's nice to have lossless audio and extras when available. Also, once a digital title is in your library you can't sell it and that is annoying. For example, I've bought several movies on Vudu because there wasn't a blu available and the hdx was arguably the best alternative. But then I'm stuck with a digital copy that I no longer need if I later buy the blu.

[Rocket Richard]

Originally Posted by flyry

From a 4K/UHD perspective I still say streaming is kicking physical's ass.

All the newest shows on Netflix and Amazon for the past few months have been in HDR and it"s true 4K. None of that upscaled crap.

These shows look phenomenal

I agree, but haters will be haters...

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by bokes

Yes- why is that?
I notice numerous titles on Vudu being offered in UHD yet there is no 4KUHD disc available.

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

I doubt most of the titles are selling particularly well in UHD on Vudu either, but it's much cheaper for the studios to offer a digital UHD title than a UHD disc.

The biggest issue with selling physical media of any kind is estimating how much stock to send to each store. But I'd be happy with them selling lots of discs exclusively on Amazon and other online stores, then they wouldn't have to worry about where inventory needs to be sent.

You're probably right that it's cheaper to sell UHD Digital than press an UHD Disc to sell. As far as stocking the stores with UHD Discs, I think you have that wrong. The stores put in orders of the available UHD Discs depending on what they estimate they will sell. I'm sure they get discounts on large orders, and that's how they run their sales. Amazon and other OnLine Stores can do the same thing to get their discounted prices.

[Ray Jackson]

Fast-forwarding and rewinding are a pain in the ass on Vudu and Netflix.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You're probably right that it's cheaper to sell UHD Digital than press an UHD Disc to sell. As far as stocking the stores with UHD Discs, I think you have that wrong. The stores put in orders of the available UHD Discs depending on what they estimate they will sell. I'm sure they get discounts on large orders, and that's how they run their sales. Amazon and other OnLine Stores can do the same thing to get their discounted prices.

Stores are putting in orders, but then they have to estimate how many to send to each of their stores around the country. It ends up being very costly if they send too many to some stores and not enough to others. If this process ends up losing them money then they will be less willing to buy any copies in the future.

Online stores don't have that problem. Every customer has access to every copy across all their warehouses. They won't lose sales or have unsold stock because they misestimated the demand in certain regions.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Fast-forwarding and rewinding are a pain in the ass on Vudu and Netflix.

How?

Netflix shows the frame as you FFWD and Vudu has chapters with pictures.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by flyry

How?

Netflix shows the frame as you FFWD and Vudu has chapters with pictures.

There's always a slight delay between when I hit "start" and "stop" and when it actually starts or stops. I can never seem to stop it at the precise moment in a scene where I want it to stop.

...I don't care for inexactitude.

[Show spoiler]

[veritas]

Originally Posted by flyry

How?

Netflix shows the frame as you FFWD and Vudu has chapters with pictures.

If you fast forward or rewind Vudu has a very high chance of glitching the audio or subtitles out of sync to the picture and it doesnt recover from it until you reboot the stream.

Netflix has a few slight glitches but mostly it just makes the whole video rebuffer and its not very precise on small backward jumps. I would not call Netflix method of scrubbing much of a concern but it can be annoying if you want to rewind lets say 10 secs to rehear a joke (sometimes it wont work at all on small jumps like this).

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You're probably right that it's cheaper to sell UHD Digital than press an UHD Disc to sell. As far as stocking the stores with UHD Discs, I think you have that wrong. The stores put in orders of the available UHD Discs depending on what they estimate they will sell. I'm sure they get discounts on large orders, and that's how they run their sales. Amazon and other OnLine Stores can do the same thing to get their discounted prices.

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

Stores are putting in orders, but then they have to estimate how many to send to each of their stores around the country. It ends up being very costly if they send too many to some stores and not enough to others. If this process ends up losing them money then they will be less willing to buy any copies in the future.

Online stores don't have that problem. Every customer has access to every copy across all their warehouses. They won't lose sales or have unsold stock because they misestimated the demand in certain regions.

You're right, Brick and Mortar Stores are having a hard time with certain Products like Blu-rays and DVD's. It's easier and better pricing when you shop OnLine. Here again, people don't want to pay Market Price, they feel Movies are way over priced. For a recent release Blu-ray is around $20 and UHD $25, but people want to pay way less. So most of the stock of Movies just sits there until the price goes down. I think for a recent release people want to pay around $10 or $15 for a Blu-ray or UHD. You will only get that pricing when the Movie is older or on a good sale. So that's why I feel Physical will fade away because of the pricing, better pricing for Digital. So if the Disc People want Physical to last then they have to start paying Market Price, otherwise it will fade for sure.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You're right, Brick and Mortar Stores are having a hard time with certain Products like Blu-rays and DVD's. It's easier and better pricing when you shop OnLine. Here again, people don't want to pay Market Price, they feel Movies are way over priced. For a recent release Blu-ray is around $20 and UHD $25, but people want to pay way less. So most of the stock of Movies just sets there until the price goes down. I think for a recent release people want to pay around $10 or $15 for a Blu-ray or UHD. You will only get that pricing when the Movie is older or on a good sale. So that's why I feel Physical will fade away because of the pricing, better pricing for Digital. So if the Disc People want Physical to last then they have to start paying Market Price, otherwise it will fade for sure.

They do pay market price the market price that just happens to be $5 to $15 dollars. Consumers have almost an equal say in what the market price is and it would be foolish for the studios to ignore that. The studios can probably raise the cost of physical but most physical buyers are price elastic and the studios will lose billions trying to do it which is why prices tend to stay the same or go lower not higher. It also doesn't help that their are multiple studios and any time one of them raises prices the others mercilessly steal market share.