DVDs: end of an era?

[dvandom]

Maybe it's just been bad luck or a dry patch, but lately it seems like a lot more of the movies I like come out on DVDs that I just don't feel the desire to buy. Either they're significantly more expensive, almost totally lacking in bonus features, or both. Perhaps it's an industry plot to get people to give up on DVDs and finish migrating to BluRay so we can re-buy all our collections.


Now, the higher cost may just be chalked up to things like RedBox and NetFlix...stores have decided that the impulse buyer who used to be lured by $13 week-of-release pricing no longer even buys DVDs, most just rent. So sales are now targeted at the people who really want to own, and they may have figured that $20 was what that market would bear.

Thing is, if it's a movie I just saw a few months ago, I don't really want to just watch it again. Not in full, anyway, although there's often a couple scenes I want to rewatch either because they're really good or because I think I missed something the first time (i.e. slo-mo a fight scene to figure out what actually happened). What I buy DVDs for is content I haven't seen yet, which in the case of movies I saw in the theater means deleted/extended scenes and new-for-the-DVD story content. Featurettes involving interviews and making-of stuff rarely interest me, though.

It used to be that just about every movie I wanted to buy in DVD had at least some of this content, even if you had to buy a Special Edition 2-disc set to get it. But lately there's been a serious dry spell. Sherlock Holmes only has a single featurette (and it looks like even buying the BluRay only gets you serious bonus content with some sort of online hookup or something), and I KNOW there were deleted scenes in that movie (one ended up in a TV ad). Fantastic Mr. Fox likewise just has a single featurette. Astro Boy does promise some new scenes, but the opening week price of $20 was a bit more than my interest level would warrant. District 9 had a few more extras, but doesn't seem to have the one that would really interest me: the original short. And so forth. My list of "wait for it to hit the cheap shelf by the checkout" DVDs is getting longer every week. Most of what I actually buy now consists of TV series sets (mainly of shows like Iron Man Armored Adventures that don't show on my cable plan, or of shows old enough I've forgotten them like Bakshi's Mighty Mouse) or direct-to-DVD things like the DC animated movies or Shaun the Sheep. Mind you, I've been getting enough of those lately that my To Be Watched stack is still thicker than I'd like. :)

It's like they've decided that the difference in sales between stripped down DVDs and fully-featured DVDs isn't enough to warrant putting in anything beyond a perfunctory interview featurette (which may itself be recycled from promo footage shot for web content). Disney DVDs are still good in terms of extras, although a lot of that content is geared towards using the DVD as a babysitter (still, plenty of deleted scenes/animatics on Princess and the Frog).

Anyone else noticing this, or have Industry Source Information confirming or refuting my suspicions?

Comments

[foomf.livejournal.com]

The concept of the Long Tail is being eaten away by the nibbling mice of stupiditude that live in the brains of Entertainment Industry execs. They cannot endure the concept of low cost low profit long term gains exceeding high-profit short-term gains.

Then again, getting stores to CARRY the content might be problematic. But that's what Amazon and DeepDiscountDVD are for, right?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

An allergy to sane sales policy, you think?

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Deepdiscount used to reliably be at least a couple bucks cheaper than any brick and mortar...my only real reasons to buy B&M were impatience (don't want to wait a week for shipping) or store exclusives. But now DD.com is often more expensive (if only by pennies) than the main stores around here. Oh, they beat K-Mart, but that's about it. I still buy from them a lot because, as you point out, they do carry stuff that won't hit the shelf at Best Buy or Walmart. But I increasingly have to hit Amazon instead and try to put together a free shipping order because DD's selection is thinning.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Well, they're not forcing me to switch any time soon. I can do without the extra content if it means I can avoid being strong-armed into the hardware expense they want of me.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, at this point, BluRay isn't that much of a hardware expense, especially with DVD backwards compatibility in most players. I think I've seen players for under $50 at Walmart. The real expense is the temptation to upgrade all the discs themselves before that backward compatibility silently vanishes (which, admittedly, won't entirely happen until and unless computers stop using optical media).

[5eh.livejournal.com]

there are those of us who haven't bought DVDs in a couple years because everything is available on demand or stored electronically. I haven't bought a physical CD or DVD in at least a year...moving everything to remote storage on a server or locally on a computer/server that is my media station.

I don't like the waste that comes with DVD packaging, to put it bluntly, so I don't really feel bad if that method of distribution goes away. The distribution for media has been totally ridiculous for so long, it is nice to see middlemen getting cut out, prices dropping for the consumer, and less waste material.

So, in a way, I agree with what's being done. I'd rather pay less for the movie/show than pay more for a bloated DVD with the promotional content I can find online. My only regret is missing out on behind-the-scenes footage, but even then there are only certain movies that I care enough to want to watch something like that.

I'm moving DVDs to digital, and putting the physical media into storage. Sadly I have all of these DVD cases that I hope someone from Craigslist can use...

[kateshort.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've seen is that some places only get the single-disc release on release day, and they don't ever or don't until much later get the actual multi-disc special edition version with the buttload of features.

The Holmes blu-ray has lots of multi-shot things, but only the one featurette...

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, in the case of Holmes, there doesn't seem to BE a multi-disc special edition to get. Once in a while (i.e. Lord of the Rings movies) we'll see the multi-disc deliberately delayed a few months, but usually if the multi-disc doesn't accompany the single-disc, there isn't one.

[grant-p.livejournal.com]

True, I have seen in several anime releases recently that they took the special features OFF the new disks, even. No idea why, they used to be there, and now they are gone. Madlax for one. It makes very little sense...

[diosoth.livejournal.com]

A lot of what I want to watch is older, out-of-print content that I'd have to buy used anyway, so I often just bootleg it to save the cash. An unfortunate truth to the "sale of used media" industry debate is that pirate or buy used, the company sees nothing. But I'm not getting into "what I do with things I paid for"...

New stuff? G.I. Joe was kind of it. I'll possibly watch Princess & Frog at some point, Avatar didn't interest me. I'm more content with Columbo movies. But I'll be honest, I don't have the cash to buy DVDs even at used prices and music, I barely listen to a wide selection and rarely find new content I like. I also got sick of the "pay $20 new, sell for $2 used" practice of stuff I got sick of. I can't justify that even WITH cash.

I wouldn't even bother with Blu-Ray unless you have a modern LCD TV of any HDMI picture worth. And even then you can get a PS3 for cheap enough that the stand-alone players really are not much appealing($120-$170 range for a basic cheapo player vs $300 for a PS3, most people will pony up the extra bucks)