The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

[don]

talk about transitory - oil's got nothing on movie pricing . . .

A case in point:

just released in Blu-ray $19.99

new VHS(still around!) $11.49

amazon instant video rental $2.99

standard new DVD $57.99

now that's a free market

[shiny!]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

I guess this means that DVDs are on the way out and I'll have to upgrade my DVD player to a Blueray player? Can you play regular DVDs on a Blueray player?

[davidstvz]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

I guess this means that DVDs are on the way out and I'll have to upgrade my DVD player to a Blueray player? Can you play regular DVDs on a Blueray player?

It's pretty much a standard feature. Double check the box for the DVD logo to make sure.

[don]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

Dvds . . . Blu-rays. I think (fear) the future is streaming video, with a on-demand fees or monthly billings.

[shiny!]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

Dvds . . . Blu-rays. I think (fear) the future is streaming video, with a on-demand fees or monthly billings.

I think (fear) you are correct. Buy DVDs and you own them. Pay for streaming and you have to pay and pay forever for the connection- a faster and more expensive connection than what's needed for surfing the web. I'd have to pay at least $10 more per month for a speed fast enough to do good streaming. That's $120/year, and I wouldn't even own the movies I'd be watching.

It'll be back to books for me before I do that.

[shiny!]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

It's pretty much a standard feature. Double check the box for the DVD logo to make sure.

Thanks, david.

[FrankL]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

I think (fear) you are correct. Buy DVDs and you own them. Pay for streaming and you have to pay and pay forever for the connection- a faster and more expensive connection than what's needed for surfing the web. I'd have to pay at least $10 more per month for a speed fast enough to do good streaming. That's $120/year, and I wouldn't even own the movies I'd be watching.

It'll be back to books for me before I do that.

'Buy DVDs and you own them'... correct if you equate own to having access to a physical disc with a license to watch in a private setting..

[jpatter666]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

'Buy DVDs and you own them'... correct if you equate own to having access to a physical disc with a license to watch in a private setting..

I actually like our Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts (Amazon Prime is a flat out steal is you have the bandwidth for the movies and Kindles). We've seen lots of movies/documentaries we would not have otherwise seen and a very large selection to choose from. The primary downside has been we're on our butts watching movies when we should be at the gym.....

It's been some time since we actually bought a physical DVD/Blu-Ray.

[don]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

We enjoy the Criterion series, with all the extras often available plus best picture quality, etc. Sometimes we'll get on a roll with a certain director or period and watch a number of related films.

I'm reading Parkman's history of the French & English conflict in North America. Consequently out came Drums Along the Mohawk, Black Robe, Last of the Mohicans - including the recently released silent version starring Wallace Berry, and The New World. Parkman concentrates on the French, making the English-centric nature of these films even more pointed. The silent Mohicans features a massacre right out of Parkman, with the typical silent film massed extras. Black Robe appears dead-on with the gauntlet run and the Huron village. Of course with Drums you get Ford's idiosyncratic directing style.

In my writing I often use a movie and need/enjoy having a film library near at hand.

Different resources for different needs and wants. Not against any of the above modes of movie viewing - just hope the DVDs don't go the way of the Mohicans!

[shiny!]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

We enjoy the Criterion series, with all the extras often available plus best picture quality, etc. Sometimes we'll get on a roll with a certain director or period and watch a number of related films.

I'm reading Parkman's history of the French & English conflict in North America. Consequently out came Drums Along the Mohawk, Black Robe, Last of the Mohicans - including the recently released silent version starring Wallace Berry, and The New World. Parkman concentrates on the French, making the English-centric nature of these films even more pointed. The silent Mohicans features a massacre right out of Parkman, with the typical silent film massed extras. Black Robe appears dead-on with the gauntlet run and the Huron village. Of course with Drums you get Ford's idiosyncratic directing style.

In my writing I often use a movie and need/enjoy having a film library near at hand.

Different resources for different needs and wants. Not against any of the above modes of movie viewing - just hope the DVDs don't go the way of the Mohicans!

Ever since reading the hilarious Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses by Mark Twain, I've not been able to read Last of the Mohicans without laughing.

I understand that with DVD's I own the media but not the material, but still, I like being able to pull one off the shelf and pop it into my DVD player without having to be dependent on my broadband provider and ISP to watch it. My boxed sets of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are in constant rotation. (If you've never watched Buffy because the title sounds stupid, you're missing out. Joss Whedon shows are brilliant!)

[*T*]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

'Buy DVDs and you own them'... correct if you equate own to having access to a physical disc with a license to watch in a private setting..

The cost of goods should, in a competitive economy, fall to the marginal cost of production. For digital goods, with no scarcity, that should be zero.

This licence silliness and the excessive copyright monopolies granted by governments are anti-competitive.

[FrankL]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

The cost of goods should, in a competitive economy, fall to the marginal cost of production. For digital goods, with no scarcity, that should be zero.

This licence silliness and the excessive copyright monopolies granted by governments are anti-competitive.

How convenient that you do not mention that the cost of production includes making the music/film, marketing it, etc.

Further more, for digital distribution, paying for server bandwidth is still required.
There are other schemes, such as bittorrent, which spread out these bandwidth costs over all people who are downloading the content (or seeding it), but you'll need first to convince people to stay 'online' just to do that. One of the few that has managed to do this is Skype.

However, I don't believe that it is the costs of physical distribution that explains the high price of physical media and the battle against online distribution. I'm convinced it is the monopoly on the whole supply chain that big media holds and risks losing if online distribution will gain traction directly from producer to end-user, cutting out the lucrative middle-man position of e.g. record labels.

Apple has been working hard to replacing big media as the middle man of digital distribution. Amazon, Google and others are desperate to get a piece of the pie too...

[don]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

How convenient that you do not mention that the cost of production includes making the music/film, marketing it, etc.

Further more, for digital distribution, paying for server bandwidth is still required.

There are other schemes, such as bittorrent, which spread out these bandwidth costs over all people who are downloading the content (or seeding it), but you'll need first to convince people to stay 'online' just to do that. One of the few that has managed to do this is Skype.

However, I don't believe that it is the costs of physical distribution that explains the high price of physical media and the battle against online distribution. I'm convinced it is the monopoly on the whole supply chain that big media holds and risks losing if online distribution will gain traction directly from producer to end-user, cutting out the lucrative middle-man position of e.g. record labels.

Apple has been working hard to replacing big media as the middle man of digital distribution. Amazon, Google and others are desperate to get a piece of the pie too...

+1

note - supply & demand is a factor in the DVD world as the available stock is purged through sales and not replaced, resulting in 'overnight' scarcity price spikes (aka - 'collectibles'). Both TCM and Warner Video have gone to a great extent to DVD on Demand, burning disks when ordered.

[*T*]

Re: The Wild & Wacky DVD Market Place

How convenient that you do not mention that the cost of production includes making the music/film, marketing it, etc.

Further more, for digital distribution, paying for server bandwidth is still required.
There are other schemes, such as bittorrent, which spread out these bandwidth costs over all people who are downloading the content (or seeding it), but you'll need first to convince people to stay 'online' just to do that. One of the few that has managed to do this is Skype.

However, I don't believe that it is the costs of physical distribution that explains the high price of physical media and the battle against online distribution. I'm convinced it is the monopoly on the whole supply chain that big media holds and risks losing if online distribution will gain traction directly from producer to end-user, cutting out the lucrative middle-man position of e.g. record labels.

Apple has been working hard to replacing big media as the middle man of digital distribution. Amazon, Google and others are desperate to get a piece of the pie too...

That is a fixed cost that gets divided by volume.

As for the second point, we're in agreement, as far as I can tell.